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by those who say that "the best they can do". is to desert the faith of that cause; to lose its feelings and fortitudes; to take test oaths; to beg for pardons; to confess the charge of treason, not only to acknowledge the guilt of the highest felony known to the calendar of human crime, for themselves, but in fact and effect to inscribe treason on the graves of these heroic martyrs; to choose the school of morals which teaches the doctrine of taking lesser evils; to approve and endorse the blackest wrongs done to this generation and its heirs forever, against which these immolated comrades fought and died! This thing which we now hear called "accepting the situation" is very different from the acceptance of the situation which these dead comrades made in the pride of patriotism when they accepted graves rather than servile submission, when they tasted death rather than "eat dirt" and live! They made thousands of the foe "bite the dust" rather than be conquered to wear chains by consent and approval. If they were traitors I and every leader of theirs who led them to battle and to death, Lee and all, were murderers! They were not traitors, and Lee and I and others whom they followed were not their murderers! The morale of their lives and deaths still lives in the memory of the glorious deeds they did, and their examples are immortal. The rights for which they contended and their defence of those rights constituted "the Confederate Cause." And that cause is as undying as those rights are indestructible, and as their defence was glorious! They were true to that Cause, the substance of which was not to be masters of slaves, but that others should not be their masters, and they were true to the last ditch of its defence, and to the death! Yes! After the bones of these devoted martyrs shall have mouldered into dust; after the deserters of their faith and memories and examples shall have died in the easiest situations which they can accept, and they and their treason shall have rotted and been forgotten, the cause of freedom for which these noble Confederates fell-the freedom of conscience and the freedom of self-government, guarded by a standard of fundamental law of its honest administration-the Confederate Cause shall survive and revive and find champions, though its champions for the time be made martyrs! The blood of these martyrs shall be the seeds of new life and new liberty for all the ages of time! and the moral monuments of "These True Men," without marble and without brass, shall be eternal!

I wish it was permitted by this occasion, dedicated to the dead, to speak of and to the survivors of these their comrades, who so

nobly made up their accounts and passed away, leaving a duty, a sacred duty, to be performed by the living. There are many of those living who were true in the rank and file of the army, who were to tread with cautious steps and not forget to pay and not to mistake the way of paying the debt due to the fallen. You propose to build them a shrine. That shrine will be nothing-it will be vain, a mockery-if every one of your own hearts and heads are not shrines, in which the memories of these men are embalmed. Your hearts cannot be their shrines if you have not performed your part too like true men, worthy of their example.

Let us, the living, gather their ashes to the grave-yards of the old homesteads, and con the moral of their lives and deaths, that—

"Integrity of life is fame's best friend,

Which nobly beyond death shall crown the end.”

[From the New Orleans Picayune, Feb 10, 1895.]

SERGEANT SMITH PRENTISS AND HIS CAREER.

An Estimate of the Man by a Contemporary.

JOHN G. BALDWIN.

Sergeant Smith Prentiss was born in Portland, Me., September 30, 1808, and died at Natchez, Miss., July 1, 1850. Forty-four eventful years have come and gone, and yet the name and fame of Prentiss is as green in the memory of those who admire talent and love chivalry as when he was here in the flesh. With one or two honorable exceptions, his contemporaries are all dead. Much has been written and printed of this wonderful man. Every reminiscence, however, with which his name is connected is eagerly read, not only in Mississippi but throughout the Union. Not one Mississippian, perhaps, in 10,000 ever saw a likeness of Prentiss. The one contained in several metropolitan papers last year was a miserable caricature no more like Prentiss than Prentiss was like Hercules.

Of all the sketches written of Prentiss, the following, from J. G. Baldwin, a contemporary of Prentiss, who afterwards removed to

California and was elevated to the Supreme Court of that State, is believed to be the best :

"The character of the bar, in the older portions of the State, of Mississippi, was very different from that of the bar in the new districts. Especially was this the case with the counties on, and near the Mississippi river. In its front ranks stood Prentiss, Holt, Boyd, Quitman, Wilkinson, Winchester, Foote, Henderson and others.

"It was at the period first mentioned by me, in 1837, that Sergeant S. Prentiss was in the flower of his forensic fame. He had not, at that time, mingled largely in federal politics. He had made but few enemies, and had not 'staled his presence,' but was in all the freshness of his unmatched faculties. At this day it is difficult for anyone to appreciate the enthusiasm which greeted this gifted man, the admiration which was felt for him, and the affection which followed him. He was to Mississippi, in her youth, what Jenny Lind is to the musical world, or what Charles Fox, whom he resembled in many things, was to the Whig party of England in his day. Why he was so is not difficult to see. He was a type of his times, a representative of the qualities of the people, or rather of the better qualities of the wilder and more impetuous part of them. The proportion of young men, as in all new countries, was great, and the proportion of wild young men, was unfortunately, still greater.

"He had all those qualities which make us charitable to the character of Prince Hal, as painted by Shakespeare, even when our approval is not fully bestowed. Generous as a prince of the royal blood, brave and chivalrous as a Knight Templar, of a spirit that scorned everything mean, underhanded or servile, he was prodigal to improvidence, instant in resentment, and bitter in his animosities, yet magnanimous to forgive when reparation had been made or misconstruction explained away. There was no littleness about him. Even toward an avowed enemy he was open and manly, and bore himself with a sort of antique courtesy and knightly hostility, in which self respect, mingled with respect for his foe, except when contempt was mixed with hatred; then no words can convey any sense of the intensity of his scorn, the depth of his loathing. When he thus outlawed a man from his courtesy and respect, language could scarce supply words to express his disgust and detestation.

"Fear seemed to be a stranger to his nature. He never hesitated to meet, nor did he wait for 'responsibility,' but went in quest of it. To denounce meanness and villany in any and all forms, when it came in his way, was, with him, a matter of duty from which he

never shrunk ; and so to denounce it as to bring himself in direct collision with the perpetrator or perpetrators—for he took them in crowds as well as singly—was a task for which he was instant, in season or out of season.

"Even in the vices of Prentiss there were magnificence and brilliancy imposing in a high degree. When he treated it was a mass entertainment. On one occasion he chartered a theatre for the special gratification of his friends-the public generally. He bet thousands on a turn of a card, and witnessed the success or failure of the wager with the nonchalance of a Mexican monte player; or, as was most usual, with the light humor of a Spanish muleteer. He broke a faro bank by the nerve with which he laid his large bets, and by exciting the passion of the veteran dealer, or awed him into honesty by the glance of his strong and steady eye.

"Attachment to his friends was a passion. It was a part of the loyalty to the honorable and chivalric, which formed the subsoil of his strange and wayward nature. He never deserted a friend. His confidence knew no bounds. It scorned all restraints and considerations of prudence or policy. He made his friends' quarrels his own, and was as guardful of their reputations as of his own.. He would put his name on the back of their paper without looking at the face of it, and gave his carte blanche, if needed, by the quire. He was above the littleness of jealousy or rivalry, and his love of truth, his fidelity and frankness were formed on the antique models of the chevaliers. But in social qualities he knew no rival. These made him the delight of every circle; they were adapted to all, and were exercised on all. The same histrionic and dramatic talent that gave to his oratory so irresistible a charm, and adapted him to all grades. and sorts of people, fitted him, in conversation, to delight all men. He never staled and never flagged. Even if the fund of acquired capital could have run out, his originality was such that his supply from the perennial fountain within was inexhaustible.

"His humor was as various as profound-from the most delicate wit to the broadest farce, from irony to caricature, from classical illusion to the verge-and sometimes beyond the verge-of coarse jest and Falstaff extravagance, and no one knew in which department he most excelled. His animal spirits flowed over, like an artesian well, ever gushing out in a deep, bright, and sparkling current.

"He never seemed to despond or droop for a moment; the cares and anxieties of life were mere bagatelles to him. Sent to jail for fighting in the courthouse, he made the walls of the prison resound

with unaccustomed shouts of merriment and revelry. Starting to fight a duel, he laid down his hand at poker, to resume it with a smile when he returned, and went on the field laughing with his friends as to a picnic. Yet no one knew better the proprieties of life than himself-when to put off levity, and treat grave subjects and persons with proper respect, and no one could assume more gracefully a dignified and sober demeanor.

"His early reading and education had been extensive and deep. Probably no man of his age, in the State, was so well read in the ancient and modern classics, in the current literature of the day, and -what may seem stranger-in the sacred scriptures. His speeches drew some of their grandest images, strongest expressions, and aptest illustrations from the inspired writings.

"The personnel of this remarkable man was well calculated to rivet the interest his character inspired. Though he was low of stature, and deformed in one leg, his frame was uncommonly athletic and muscular; his arms and chest were well formed, the latter deep and broad; his head large, and a model of classical proportions and noble contour. A handsome face, compact brow, massive and expanded, and eyes of dark hazel, full and clear, were fitted for the expression of every passion and flitting shade of feeling and sentiment. His complexion partook of the bilious, rather than the sanguine temperament. His skin was smooth and bloodless-no excitement or stimulus heightened his color: nor did the writer ever see any evidence in his face of irregularity of habit. In repose his countenance was serious and rather melancholy-certainly somewhat soft and quiet in expression, but evidencing strength and power, and masculine rather than the light and flexible qualities which characterized him in his convivial moments. There was nothing affected or theatrical in his manner, though some parts of his printed speeches would seem to indicate this. He was frank and artless as a child, and nothing could have been more winning than his familiar intercourse with the bar, with whom he was always a favorite, and without a rival in its affection.

"I come now to speak of him as a lawyer.

"He was more widely known as a politician than a lawyer, as an advocate than a jurist. This was because politics form a wider and more conspicuous theatre than the bar, and because the mass of men are better judges of oratory than of law. That he was a man of wonderful versatility and varied accomplishments is most true, and that he was a popular orator of the first class is also true, and that

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