USA > Arkansas > Biographical and pictorial history of Arkansas. Vol I > Part 43
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L. C. HALL, DARDANELLE.
L. C. Hall was born July 26, 1839, in Denmark, Europe, where he was thoroughly educated in his native, German, French and English languages, and in the higher branches of liberal education by private tutors and governors, there being, at that time, no universities, academies or colleges in Denmark. He emigrated to the United States in 1861, and located in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits, and there continued in that occupation until 1871, when he came to Yell county, Arkansas, and engaged in agricultural pursuits. He read law and was admitted to the bar in 1876 and settled in Dardanelle, where he has remained ever since, in the active practice of his profession. Mr. Hall is a very careful, pains- taking, good lawyer, and enjoys the universal esteem of his fellow citizens. He makes no pretension to oratory, but is a close, logical reasoner and a fine accountant in chancery.
JUDGE WILLIAM W. SMITH, LITTLE ROCK.
Judge Smith was born October 12, 1838, in Abbeville district, South Carolina. On the father's side he is descended from English stock, on the mother's, from Scotch-a hardy and robust combination of Celt and Saxon. The cross between the Celtic and other hardy European races has given the United States much ability and brains. This is a well- developed fact, and is no less curious to the historian and biog- rapher than interesting as a problem to the scientist, who plods his patient and laborious way in developing the laws of evolution and reproduction.
In Mexico and the South American States, where the natives have only crossed with the degenerate Spaniard and Portu- guese, to the exclusion of the hardier races from northern and central Europe, degenerate effeminacy is strikingly appa- rent. It was the infusion of Latin blood into the Moor and mixed races of Spain that gave her empire and greatness, and made her the dominant power of Europe for three centuries, and made such sovereigns and reigns as Charles V possible. Yes, her Latin blood gave her empire from the Baltic to the Mediterranean and Atlantic. In the United States the Celtic
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L. C. HALL.
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crosses have dominated every department of intellectual attain- ment ; here they have climbed to the dome of the Pantheon and decorated it with the laurels of genius and greatness from every department of human learning. Judge Smith's paternal ancestors settled in Virginia in colonial times, but in his, as in thousands of other instances in democratic America, it is im- possible for the most zealous biographer to follow up their history. His grandfather immigrated from Culpepper Court- House, Virginia, in 1791, and settled in Abbeville.
Judge Smith was fortunate in the enjoyment of every facility for the acquisition of an accomplished education, and was still more fortunate in being able to utilize and subordinate these opportunities to the accomplishment of honorable and noble ends. A thorough academical course was achieved at Cokes- bury, in his native State, then a famous school under the aus- pices of the Methodist Church. In 1855 he matriculated at Columbia College, South Carolina, then the principal seat of learning in the State, its pride and under its fostering care and endowment. He spent three years at this seat of learning, and was graduated with distinguished honors in 1858. In 1860 we find the young scholar as professor of languages, teaching Latin · and Greek in a classical school in Charleston. But he soon dis- covered that however worthy and exalted the calling, to him it was a tread-mill without possibilities for congenial expansion, and at the end of the year he abandoned the vocation and came to Arkansas, with the determination to become a distinguished cotton planter. With competent patrimonial inheritance to exe- cute his designs in this direction, he purchased a body of fer- tile lands in Monroe county, a few weeks before the dread realities of war were proclaimed from the frowning batteries on Sumter and Charleston beach. This startled, not only the actors in the great drama, then opening to mankind, but it shook the world, and changed the orbit of civilization. The greatest chapter in the history of warfare and revolution was then opening, and bearing an impress which can only be lost when the world perishes, or man sinks in darkness. The call to war touched a well of inspiration in the young Carolinian's heart, and he responded to its patriotic impulse by hurrying to Richmond, and there joining Colonel Gregg's First regiment 59
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of South Carolina volunteers. At the expiration of his term of enlistment in that regiment, he joined the Twenty-third Ar- kansas regiment, under the command of Colonel Charles W. Adams, with Simon P. Hughes as lieutenant-colonel, and was made orderly sergeant of the company ; soon after this he was made first lieutenant.
In September, 1862, on the promotion of his captain, he succeeded him by election. When the regiment was reorgan- ized, by order of the war department, O. P. Lyles became colonel and A. A. Pennington lieutenant-colonel. Captain Smith commanded and led his company in the battles of Iuka and Corinth (October 3, 4 and 5, 1862). He also commanded his company during the land and water siege of Port Hudson, where the garrison was, after a heroic defense, forced to capitulate. After the surrender of Port Hudson he made a compulsory visit to Johnson's island, in Lake Erie, where he remained leis- urely contemplating the vicissitudes of war, until February, 1865, when he changed his base of operations to Fort Dela- ware, where his principal employment consisted in the limited storage of rations. In June, 1865, the government tendered him an excursion to Philadelphia, which, after due consideration, he accepted. There, in consideration of the miscarriage at Port Hudson and the events at Appomattox, he concluded a treaty with General Grant, by which he undertook to become self- sustaining thereafter if the United States would turn him loose and give him a chance, which engagement both parties have solemnly kept. The tower on Liberty Hall attested the com- pact. Without money and without a change of clothing, he left Philadelphia resting like a princess on an arm of the sea, with her hundred churches and a wilderness of domes and spires, great marts of exchange and commerce, and bazaars filled with the world's tribute of wealth ; to return to the south, once as beautiful and as lovely as the green isles of the sea, but where now hung a vast pall of desolation, to find his inherit- ance swept away in the relentless vortex of war. True, the land survived, but with it obligations which swept it away to swell the common ruin. Who but those bearing the priceless blood of Celt and Saxon and their fusions could rise, " Phoenix like," above and superior to the ruin which bore down and
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overwhelmed a great people ? The war left the south one vast field of destitution and desolation. The venging Nemesis was satiated in the ruin of agriculture, commerce, manufactures, the arts and sciences, schools, churches, and all that fosters the upward tendency of a people. Every fireside could point to its noble kindred, who, with Spartan heart, honored a soldier's grave.
With moral courage and sublime heroism unsurpassed in the heroic ages, rising transcendently above all the achievements springing from the shock and clash of arms, the southern people went to work to rebuild and regain their former sphere in all these fields, and in two decades accomplished more than man- kind has ever known before under such conditions. In war she maintained a fame rivaling the chivalric Greek and the fearless Roman ; but in these years of peril and trial she builded a civic monument crowned with imperishable fame. The north- man who conquered by force of numbers and resources bears the same blood, and under like conditions would achieve like results, but to him the opportunity is wanting to achieve fame in this higher field of glory -and may it be forever withheld. When the historian of future ages casts his horoscope down the tide of the centuries, and comes to make up the verdict, and declare the results of the mighty war between the States, he will write the civic achievements of the southern people over the archway to the Pantheon. Judge Smith began the cultiva- tion of the arts of peace by assuming all the duties and obliga- tions growing out of the marriage relation, in August, 1865, and for eighteen months thereafter necessity impelled him to utilize his scholastic attainments by teaching school, during which time he read law at leisure hours without the aid of any preceptor. A warm attachment sprung up. between him and Colonel Simon P. Hughes in " the days that tried men's souls." They had been together at the head of advancing columns under the enemy's fire, and had together led their comrades through fields of carnage. Around the fire that lighted the soldiers' bivouac each discovered the congeniality and nobility of his comrade's nature. When Judge Smith was qualified to enter the legal profession in May, 1857, he found an open office and open arms to eceive him in the person of his old comrade, and
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a lucrative practice at Clarendon in Monroe county. This part- nership continued until the fall of 1874, when Colonel Hughes was elected attorney-general of the State. Judge Smith re- mained at Clarendon more than two years after the dissolution of the partnership, in the enjoyment of a varied and extensive practice.
In 1877 he moved to Helena. In 1882 his abilities were known throughout the State, and the democratic convention of that year nominated, and the people elected him associate jus- tice of the supreme court of Arkansas for eight years, to succeed the Hon. William M. Harrison. He is possessed of the most pleasant, gentle and engaging manners, and all who come in contact with him feel that they have enjoyed the presence of an educated and accomplished gentleman. The people of the State feel that they have been fortunate in his elevation to their highest judicial tribunal. He is a laborious, painstaking and conscientious jurist, knowing nothing and desiring nothing but. the full discharge of all the duties his office imposes.
HON. W. M. FISHBACK, FORT SMITH.
Hon. W. M. Fishback was born in Jefferson, Culpepper county, Virginia, November 5, 1831, and was classically educated at the University of Virginia. After leaving college he taught school and read law. In 1857 he left Richmond and came west, stopping in Illinois, where he remained one year prospecting for a suitable location to practice law. Here he met Abraham Lincoln, who became much attached to the young Virginian, and became his first client, by employing him to travel exten- - sively over the State for the purpose of examining large bodies of lands then under execution in the hands of the United States marshal to satisfy judgments in favor of Mr. Lincoln's clients. This investigation was for the purpose of ascertaining how far the clients would be justified in bidding at the marshal's sale. In November, 1858, the youth pulled up at Fort Smith, where he remained one month, taking in the situation, after which he pitched his tent in Greenwood and offered his services to the public as a lawyer. Mr. Lincoln sent him his fee, and advised his return to Illinois as the more promising field. Judge Solomon F. Clark soon offered him a partnership, and they did
HON. WILLIAM M. FISHBACK.
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a flourishing business until the junior was elected as a Union man to the secession convention in 1861. Mr. Fishback, like a majority of the convention, was elected on the 18th of Feb- ruary, 1861, as a Union man ; then a very large majority of the people of the State favored the perpetuation of the Union. But after Sumter was fired on all hope of saving the Union vanished, and secession swept the State like a cyclone. Mr. Fishback with Mr. Garland and other prominent men bent be- fore the revolution and rode the tidal wave of secession, voting for it, and for the appropriation of millions of money to organize and put hostile armies in the field. In this he simply followed and voted with the majority from the beginning to the end of both sessions of that memorable convention.
After the war opened in earnest, he left the State and went north. In 1864 he returned, locating in Little Rock, and edited a newspaper called the Unconditional Union, and on the 5th of May, in the same year, was elected by the Mur- phy legislature to represent Arkansas in the senate of the United States, with the Hon. Elisha Baxter as his col- league. They proceeded to Washington, but were denied admission, because the new constitution of that year had the word "white" as a qualification for the electoral franchise. Being denied admission, he resigned his commission.
In May, 1865, President Johnson appointed him United States treasury agent at Little Rock, an office fraught with vast power and discretion. Seizure, then, of a "rebels " prop- erty was, in a great majority of cases, equivalent to condemna- tion and forfeiture. . In many thousands of instances in the south it was but the pretext and screen for unmitigated robbery. The "abandoned property act " poured a flood of thieves throughout the south, whose ravages were worse than wars and pestilence. The honest treasury agent was the exception and not the rule. The author was robbed of $6,000 worth of property, under the specious pretenses founded on this act, which was under lock and key when taken and never returned. Colonel Fishback stands out in bold contrast and relief as an honest officer, who used the vast power and discre- tion vested in him for the protection of the impoverished and helpless citizens, a fact which will always soften the rigor of
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criticism and outweigh all his mistakes and foibles. He was elected to the legislature from Sebastian county in 1872, but his bold and independent action and modes of thought were too imperious for the "Clayton curb," and, under the political form of legalized robbery then in vogue, he was not deemed eligible to the seat and was "beat in the count." In 1874 he was elected to the constitutional convention which gave Arkan- sas her present constitution, and enfranchised her freemen who had so long been despoiled by a political oligarchy of thieves. He has always been popular with his fellow citizens of Sebas- tian county, who have known him longest and best. In 1876 they again elected him to the legislature, and in 1878 and in 1884 to the same office. In 1880 he was an unsuccessful can- didate for governor.
Conspicuous above all else in his legislative career is his long and successful fight to adopt what is known as "The Fishback Amendment" to the constitution, withdrawing from legisla- tive consideration that portion of what is called the bonded State debt, known as the Railroad Aid, Levee and Holford bonds, all of which have been declared void by our supreme court. In 1880 Governor Garland, for the first and only time in his life, undertook to mold and lead public opinion in the rejection of the amendment. Fishback followed him with an array of unanswerable facts, which made him master of the situation, and drove Garland from the field before he had half canvassed the State. The plumage of the statesman gave way to the instincts of the politician, and the governor settled back into his normal quiescence. In 1885 Mr. Fishback was a can- didate for the seat made vacant in the senate of the United States by the elevation of Mr. Garland to the cabinet, but was defeated. He is an educated and polished gentleman, a fluent speaker, a close and plausible reasoner. But a competency and love of personal comfort has made him indolent in the prime of life, when his acknowledged talents ought to be worked to their normal capacity for the benefit of the public. He owned large interests in and around Fort Smith, which caught the recent boom, and his friends say he rode it at the flood.
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HON. POINDEXTER DUNN, FOREST CITY.
Hon. Poindexter Dunn was born in Wake county, North Carolina, November 3, 1834, but his parents removed to Lime- stone county, Alabama, when he was but three years old. His father, Grey Dunn, was a large planter, the builder of his own fortune, and eminently a practical man. The proverbial thrift that necessity planted in the old north State, at a very early period in her history, has borne its golden fruit on a thousand fields, embracing all the avenues of commerce, the circle of the sciences and arts, and achievements in war and the senate.
As a rule, the wealthy planter in the south, during the golden cycle preceding the war, neglected, through mistaken ideas of kindness, to educate their sons in the business and practical demands of life, often to their ruin. But this false idea of parental duty did not obtain in the mind of the elder Mr. Dunn; he taught that a knowledge of the practical affairs of life is as essential to the well-being and success of the boy and man as a knowledge of the books embraced in the curricu- lum of the colleges and universities ; that there is interdepend- ence between the brain and physical forces, and that dwarfing one involves the other. This sound theory of the old practical planter led Poindexter, under protest, to give agriculture a prominent place in his curriculum, and to alternate between the school-room and the farm until he was prepared to enter on his collegiate course with robust mind and a sound body to honor its drafts. Thus prepared, with foundations deeply laid in practical wisdom, he entered Jackson College, at Colum- bia, Tennessee, in his eighteenth year, and in two years was master of all the learning taught in the institution, and his last hours there were crowned with the honors of valedictorian. Dissipation and extravagance found no support in his nature ; his wise training at home had left no room for such accom- plishments. After quitting college he entered on the study of law, but beautiful and accomplished woman tendered him a better situation, and he abandoned his old mistress to become an offering at the hymeneal shrine, and it was twelve years before a reconciliation was effected with the elder spouse.
The devastating ravages of war swept his fortune in the gulf of destruction, but homely and stern old Mrs. Law still held
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many shining shekels, with which she rewarded his return and repentance in 1867, and onward.
After marriage he moved to St. Francis county, Arkansas, and engaged in cotton planting. In 1858 the democratic party of his county nominated and elected him to the legisla- ture, after an exciting contest with his whig competitor. Though an adherent to the cause of the south during the late civil war, he was not engaged in the field of arms. The close of the war found him, in common with southern planters, broken up in capital, and the former system of labor destroyed. This untried system of farming brought to him perplexities and responsibilities which ill-fitted him for success in a field requiring so much more physical than mental application, and drove him into the arms of his deserted spouse, the law, to which he vigorously applied himself. He was admitted to all of its privileges in 1867, and became at once a distinguished success in criminal law. His reputation as a gifted orator soon spread beyond local barriers, and pointed him out as the coming politician of his district.
In 1872 he was a candidate for the electoral college on the Greeley ticket, and in 1876 he was a candidate for the same of- fice on the Tilden ticket, a much more agreeable ticket, in the opinion of the author. In 187S he was a candidate for con- gress in a hotly-contested canvass with Hon. Jo. W. House, Lu- cien C. Gause and Judge J. W. Butler, and was nominated on the one hundred and fifteenth ballot. He served his constitu- ents in congress with distinguished ability, and has continu- ously succeeded himself, being now a member of the fiftieth congress. He has, deservedly, a strong hold on the electors of the first district, and has a large following in the State in sup- port of his aspirations for senatorial honors. In 1885, after a long and warm contest, he was defeated for the senate by the present incumbents, Jones and Berry. As an orator he has no superior, if an equal, in the State. His undoubted and un- swerving fidelity to every trust has earned him a high place in the esteem of his fellow citizens, which now, after ten years service, shines without a blemish.
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ROBERT J. LEA.
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ROBERT J. LEA, LITTLE ROCK.
Robert J. Lea is a native Arkansian. His father, George G. Lea, deceased, was a native of North Carolina, and was graduated at Chapel Hill College. His mother was Miss Sarah E. Wright, born and educated in Virginia, the descend- ant of an old and honorable colonial family, which furnished its quota of soldiers in the war of independence. In 1850 the parents removed to Princeton, Dallas county, Arkansas, where Robert was born, March 10, 1852. He received a thorough academic education in his native village. He entered the law departinent of the University of Virginia in 1872, and gradu- ated at the end of two years in that seat of learning. In 1875 he was by the supreme court licensed to practice in this State. Early in 1876 he located in Little Rock, where he has remained ever since, devoted exclusively to his profession. In 1882 Mr. Lea was a candidate for the office of prosecuting attorney in the sixth circuit, and after an exciting contest was defeated by a very small majority. In 1884 he renewed the contest, and was triumphantly elected prosecuting attorney for the State in the capital circuit. Mr. Lea is a very quiet, unobtrusive man, but is possessed of a very high order of both physical and moral courage when it becomes necessary to defend or maintain his honor. These qualities have sometimes been tested and have never failed to sustain him in high aims and purposes. He is never hasty and precipitate, is always cautious in coming to conclusions in matters of moment, and when convictions are thus reached they are adhered to with firmness, but never ob- stinately. He is a generous, warm-hearted friend, an open, defiant enemy, and scorns all questionable methods.
HENRY GASTON BUNN, CAMDEN.
Colonel Bunn was born in Nash county, North Carolina, on Tar river, June 12, 1838, and in 1844 came with his parents to Fayette county, west Tennessee. In 1849 his parents again moved, this time to Ouichita county, Arkansas. His father was a slaveholder and planter, and very wisely required the lad to alternate his labors at school with the labors of the farm for a few years. Our southern planters, in the long era preceding the 60
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civil war, as a rule neglected the physical development and busi- ness education of their sons, very greatly to the injury of the lat- ter. This mistaken, short-sighted kindness to the shiftless and thriftless boy, in a great majority of instances, was as poisonous to the practical business development of the brain forces as corrosive sublimate is to animal life. The good, practical common-sense of the old North Carolina sire withdrew the temptations spring- ing from idleness and the Pandora's flood of evils born of sense- less prodigality. The physical and the mental forces were nur- tured with equal care in the same school. The probabilities are strong that to these fortuitous conditions and agencies enjoyed in early life the biographer is indebted for his subject. To those who know the warm impulses and the genial side of Brother Bunn's nature this will not appear as matter of philosophic speculation or doubtful conjecture. The balance wheel is in the laboratory of his brain, and prevents the pendulum from describing the arc of extremes.
His first educational facilities were enjoyed in the common schools in Fayette county, Tennessee ; then followed in suc- cession at the village schools at Princeton, in Dallas county, and Eldorado, in Union county, ultimately in thorough prep- aration for college. In 1858, his father having died, his mother sent him to Davidson College, North Carolina, where he labored assiduously in the acquisition of a broad and liberal education, until the cannon's roar from Charleston beach and Fort Sumter proclaimed to the world the inauguration of the mightiest revolution since Cæsar and Pompey fought for the great stake of the Roman empire. The rattle of mus- ketry and roar of artillery inflamed the young man's patriotic heart, and subordinated collegiate aspirations, that he might, without doubt or hesitation, respond to his country's call to the battle-field. In May, 1861, he hurried home from college, that his mother's blessing might rest on his head before he donned the Roman toga for the theatre of war. That mother, with tearful eye and prayerful heart, said : " My son, I know you will honor the name you bear." The highest impulse, the noblest inspiration that can animate human desires is attained when the patriotic mother crushes back the holy flame of her love, and with index-finger points her son to the battle-field as
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