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Colcock was constantly in command of his regiment; he was at Tullyfinny and other engagements on the coast, until the advance of General Sherman's right wing from Port Royal Ferry, through South Carolina, when General Hardee assigned the 3d regiment to duty on General's Sherman's right flank, which placed Colonel Colcock's command between Charleston and the enemy during the movement of the troops from that city to North Carolina. The 3d cavalry was in a number of small engagements, notably near Florence, and were uniformly successful, and finally reached Goldsboro, N. C., the day that President Davis met General Joseph E. Johnston in conference. Colonel Colcock heard there of General Lee's surrender. As is well known, this was soon followed by the capitulation of General Johnston's army and the end of the war. At Union Court House, where the regiment had been ordered, President Davis passing through, sent for Colonel Colcock, informed him that the war was virtually over, that it was useless to attempt to cross the Mississippi and join General Kirby Smith, and advised him to furlough his command for ninety days, unless sooner assembled. This was done the parting was a sad one. There were many pathetic scenes and touching incidents between the colonel and the several companies of this distinguished regiment when farewells were exchanged and last words spoken. There is multiplied testimony in my correspondence as to the very close relations existing during more than three years' service between the commander and his brave soldiers, each and all so devoted to the State and "the Cause.” My space is limited, yet I cannot forego two extracts of many letters received, which faithfully reflect the sentiment of the regiment. Lieutenant Rountree, of Company "K," writes :

"I readily recall that the entire regiment had every confidence in Colonel Colcock as a commander, and we were proud to have him in charge of us. His military bearing, the suavity and mildness of his manners, his polite consideration of any personal or official request, no matter from what source, stamped him as a superior man. These were the traits that endeared him to every member of his regiment. The term popular can be applied to him in its fullest sense."

The Rev. John G. Williams, lately deceased, says of him:

"I was chaplain of the 3rd cavalry from its organization to the surrender; was near Colonel Colcock those four years in camp, on the march, in battle, and can truly say South Carolina sent to the war no son nobler, braver, more devoted to the cause, than Charles

Jones Colcock. A typical gentleman, he stood before his regiment, numbering over one thousand men, an inspiring example, to be honored and imitated. Nothing mean came near his head or heart. He was a sincere Christian; his life in the army contradicted the general belief that it was impossible to lead a Christian life in camp; he was the same there as at home. No one ever heard an oath or improper story from his lips; he felt the responsibility of his position, and did his duty daily to his command, his country, and his God.

"I can never forget the disbanding of the regiment at Union Court House. After telling the several companies that the war was over, and bidding each and all an affectionate farewell, he retired to his tent, and, unable to restrain his feelings, sobbed aloud with uncontrollable grief.

While passing through the

"His death was a very happy one. valley of the shadow of death he asked his wife to sing his favorite hymn, Jesus, Lover of My Soul,' which she tried to do, and weak as he was he tried to join. In the fight with the enemies of his country he was vanquished; in his last fight with death he was more than conqueror, through the Great Captain of his salvation, whom he loved and trusted."

As to his military career, it may be written of him as of another knightly leader of men, that

"Wher-e'er he fought,

Put so much of his heart into his act,

That his example had a magnet's force,

And all were swift to follow-whom all loved."

At the close of the war, having the care of two sea island plantations, about seven miles from the mouth of Broad river, he made his summer home in Bluffton, near by. It was the period of that demoralizing Federal agency, "the Freedmen's Bureau," with its false promises, forty acres and a mule," and kindred follies.

As long as full rations were freely distributed the laborers were few indeed. With unmanageable labor, largely increased planting expenses to be provided for, crops swept away by the devastating caterpillar for three or four successive years, and scarcity of money, which prevented factors from freely furnishing capital to meet these new conditions, sea island planting was largely deferred.

He moved his family to Savannah, Ga., and engaged in the lifeinsurance business, for which he was well qualified. He finally made

his home in Hampton county, and planted short staple cotton with some measure of success in difficult times.

This too imperfect tribute of respect is finished. Would it were worthier. I could do no less in memory of one gone before," who filled my eye in early life as a public-spirited, forceful citizen, and later a gallant soldier.

It had been my privilege to know him, to feel the radiant atmosphere which habitual courtesy and sparkling conversation generated around him, and when the sad news of his death came to me I realized that a kind, hopeful and brave spirit had passed from earthly view, which for so many years had shone conspicuously, as well in the sweet amenities as in the stern realities of life!

WILLIAM A. COURTENAY.

Innisfallen, October 22, 1898.

THE DISMEMBERMENT OF VIRGINIA.

An article with this title was printed in the Publications of the Southern Historical Association, January, 1898. It has since been revised by the author and, as now presented, is much amplified.-Ed.

Rightly considered, all narratives of past events are, or should be, "written for our instruction," and there are few in the long and varied annals of the English-speaking race more pregnant with warning and suggestion than the one which it is the purpose of these pages briefly to recall. The circumstances attending it are plain. matter of record, and the time which has elapsed since their occurrence is favorable to an impartial examination of their nature and tendency, while, imbedded as they are in official archives, it has in no degree impaired their historical certainty. Nevertheless, though not forgotten, more than three decades of trying and eventful years have not passed without pushing them sensibly into the background, and obscuring to a considerable extent their true importance. An attempt will here be made to present them with as much brevity as may be consistent with clearness, and at the same time to direct attention to their real character and significance.

In April, 1861, after hostilities between the North and South had actually commenced, and Virginia had been called upon by the Federal Executive to furnish troops to be used against the seceding

States, the Convention of that Commonwealth which had hitherto been engaged in persistent efforts to preserve peace and restore harmony, all hope of this having disappeared, at length adopted an ordinance of secession. Immediately on its passage a majority of the members from the northwestern part of the State withdrew from the Convention, and a movement was at once set on foot in that section to resist and nullify an act which, whether wise or unwise, was at all events undoubtedly that of the people of Virginia, acting as an organized commonwealth, through the highest representative body known to our institutions.

At a meeting held in the town of Clarksburg, in Harrison county, a call was issued, addressed exclusively to the people of the northwestern counties, inviting the appointment of delegates to a convention to be held at Wheeling, on the 13th of May. There was no pretense even of a regular election of delegates to this Convention. They were appointed in some cases by public meetings, without reference to the number of qualified voters composing them, in others by papers to which were appended a few signatures requesting certain persons to act as representatives, in yet others without even this faint show of respect for the principle of popular choice. A number of the residents of Wheeling and of Ohio county, in no way more entitled to seats than any similar number of private citizens from any other locality, together with the delegates thus irregularly appointed, composed the motley gathering. Out of one hundred and forty counties and three cities the Committee on Credentials could report representatives from no city and only twenty-six counties. The greater or smaller degree of irregularity in these proceedings is, however, of the less consequence, as it is abundantly evident that there was no shadow of legality in the whole movement from its beginning to its close.

On the recommendation of this assemblage, a Convention, claiming at different stages of its existence to represent a varying number of counties never exceeding thirty-six, met at Wheeling on the 11th of June, 1861. This body, even nominally representing scarcely more than a fourth of the counties of the State, in some of which there were strong minorities, in others probably actual majorities in favor of abiding by the action of the regular Convention at Richmond, assumed nevertheless to speak in the name of the whole people of Virginia, and at once proceeded to alter the State Constitution in important particulars, to vacate, and re-fill all the State offices, and to prescribe new oaths and qualifications for their holders.

Its next step was to inaugurate measures looking to the dismemment of the Commonwealth. On the 20th of August, 1861, it passed an ordinance to provide for the erection of a new State within the territory of Virginia. This ordinance enumerated certain counties. which should form the new State, and certain others-among them Berkeley and Jefferson-which, or any of which, the Constitutional Convention of the proposed State was authorized to include within its boundaries, if the said counties, or any of them should, by a majority of the votes cast on the question, declare their wish to form part of the commonwealth so proposed to be erected, and should elect delegates to the Convention.

Within the same month of August, too short a period having intervened to allow adequate time for consideration and discussion, or even for proper notice on so grave a question, the vote was taken, and resulted, as it was intended, and indeed inevitable, that it should result. Hardly more than one-fourth of the voters took part in the election, most of those opposed to the movement regarding the whole proceeding as a farce which it would be alike unworthy and impolitic for them to countenance by participating in. A handful of ballots were cast on the other side, but the great mass of those who went to the polls voted, as, of course, in the affirmative, the numbers standing 18,408 to 781.

The Convention met on the 26th of November, 1861, and adopted a constitution to be submitted to the people on the 3rd of the following April. Mutatis mutandis, this election was a copy of the preceding. The same causes produced the same effects, but, having had a longer time to operate, in a somewhat intensified form. The great majority did not appear at the polls; of those who did almost all voted for the constitution, the respective numbers, in this case, being 18,862 in favor of to 514 against it. So stand the records on their face, no attempt, be it noted, having been made here to go behind them, or to reach even a conjectural estimate as to the proportion of these affirmative votes obtained by illegitimate methods-by corruption of various kinds, by fraud, by intimidation.

The Legislature of what was called the reorganized government of Virginia, sitting within the limits of the proposed State, and representing, so far as they could properly be said to represent any at all, substantially the same people with those therein included, gave their consent, in the character of legislators of the old State, to what they themselves had done, as agents in the formation of the new.

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