USA > Georgia > Floyd County > Rome > A history of Rome and Floyd County, State of Georgia, United States of America; including numerous incidents of more than local interest, 1540-1922, Volume I > Part 32
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DE LA MESA AND THE TAB- LEAU .- Capt. Chas. A. de la Mesa succeeded Capt. Kyes as reconstruction officer of the United States Army at Rome, and opened up the so-called Freedman's Bureau at 530 Broad St. Here he tried to bring housewives and newly-freed servants into agreement as to what should be paid for services
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and wash. In the event agreements could not be reached privately, the contestants were hailed before Capt. de la Mesa. Naturally that official's life was full of misery. Clashes be- tween provost guard and citizens were frequent, but not of a serious nature, for it was bad policy for either side to carry a chip on the shoulder .*
It was reported that Wmn. Hemphill Jones had a spat with the captain. It may have been over wash or some- thing else, but Mr. Jones picked up a foot tub or a wash tub and slammed Capt. de la Mesa over the head with it, according to the report. The cap- tain enjoyed a considerable range. He once went to Summerville, and the picture of his leaving resembled that of Wm. J. Burns 50 years later, bid- ding farewell to Marietta. A young man at Summerville claimed that Capt. de la Mesa insulted or mistreated his sister in some transaction, and pro- ceeded to arm himself. He was halted by the late Jno. W. Maddox, then a resident of the Chattooga town, and Capt. de la Mesa moved on. At Dal- ton Capt. de la Mesa was served with papers in a court action, but explana- tions were made and the case was thrown out. There were other similar incidents in the path of Capt. de la Mesa's duty, concerning which, hap- pily, there is no longer any feeling.
Capt. de la Mesa hung out a large United States flag in front of the bu- reau, and forced all passersby to sa- lute it. Of course he was acting under orders; Romans made a wide detour. Then came the tableau in May, 1867,- an intensely "dramatic" affair.
In order to replace pews in the local churches and to repair other damage done by the Northern soldiers, ** the female members of the congregations had formed a society to present tab- leaux at the old city hall, southwest corner of Broad Street and Fifth Ave- nue, where the Fifth Avenue Drug Company is now located. On this par- ticular occasion the managers were
*Capt. De la Mesa is supposed to have come from Brooklyn, N. Y., and to have been a native of Spain. He had a daughter, Miss Lella de la Mesa, who married A. C. Fetterolf, of Upper Montclair, N. J. At the time of her marriage, the family wrote to Rome for a picture of the old Freedmen's Bureau, and the request was complied with by Mrs. Ed Harris. Capt. de la Mesa died a good many years ago, and it is understood that his widow remarried. ** Quite a while after the war, the Gov- ernment sent a representative to Rome to as- sess the damage done the First Baptist church. Hearings were held at this institution, and some spicy comments were made by the women who testified, notably Mrs. Eben Hillyer. An award of about $600 was recommended to Washington, and this amount paid the church.
Mrs. J. M. Gregory, Mrs. M. A. Nevin and Miss Mary W. Noble, and they received a surprise and shock when Capt. de la Mesa bought tickets for himself and his beautiful brunette wife, and planted himself in his mili- tary trappings on a front seat. The following is a summary of two ac- counts of the affair:
"The audience filed in, some of the young women with noses pretty high in the air at sight of the 'intruders.' The tableau was 'The Officer's Funeral,' and all went well for a while. The de la Mesas enjoyed the first part and applauded liberally. A little play pre- ceded the tableau, in which Mrs. Hiram D. Hill (then Florence Mitch- ell, daughter of Col. Daniel R. Mitch- ell), played the part of the Irish Maid of Cork, thrummed a piece on her guitar and was wooed by the hero.
"Then-bless Patsy !- the fireworks! The curtain went up on the tableau in question. There stood 'Ferd' Hutchings, Dave Powers, 'Billy' Gib- bons, 'Tal' Wells and Leonidas Timo- leon Mitchell. 'Coon' Mitchell, by the way, was a son of old Daniel R. and the very man who had carried Gen. Neal Dow, the famous Maine aboli- tionist, to Libby Prison, Richmond, from Mobile. All the others had fought the 'Yankees' with the Rome Light Guards. And now they had the temerity to stand up before the 'Yan- kee' reconstruction officer in their uni- forms of gray! Furthermore, the of- ficer's casket was draped in a battle- torn Confederate flag, the property of Col. Sam Gibbons, father of Billy. Com- pleting the scene were Miss Belle Lo- gan as the widow, and Mrs. Hill's niece, little Irene Hicks, as the orphan.
"Capt. de la Mesa began to boil; his wife reddened sympathetically as the boys began to sing that famous and heart-touching song, 'The Officer's Fu- neral :'
'Hark, 'tis the shrill trumpet calling, It pierceth the soft summer air, And a tear from each comrade is fall- ing,-
The widow and orphan are there; The bayonets carthward are turning And the drums' muffled sound rolls around,
But hears not the voice of their mourning, Nor awakes to the shrill bugle sound.
'Sleep, soldier, though many regret thee
Who stand by thy cold bier today, Soon, soon will the kindest forget thee,
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And thy name from the earth pass away; The man thou didst love as a brother, A friend in thy place will have gained,
Thy dog will keep watch for another And thy steed by a stranger be reined.
'Though many now mourn for thee sadly,
Soon joyous as ever shall be,
Thy bright orphan boy will laugh gladly
As he sits on some kind comrade's knee;
There is one who will still pay the duty
Of tears to the true and the brave, As first in the bloom of her beauty, She knelt by her boy soldiers' grave!'
"Miss Ford stepped from behind the arras and sang 'The Jacket of Gray,' and as she concluded, with the line 'Fold it up carefully, lay it aside!' she lifted a soiled and thread-bare coat into full view of the audience. A shower of applause followed. The de la Mesas boiled over, and trudged out of the hall, to the accompaniment of a perfect chorus of boos and cat-calls, and a shrill defi flung above the tumult by a young 'Rebel,' 'Go it; that's not the first time you ever ran from that flag!'
"'Della Meezer, lemon squeezer !' shouted an impertinent little boy.
"This 'good riddance of bad rub- bish' (as the players expressed it) was thought to have ended the inci- dent, but not so. Capt. de la Mesa sent a hot message to headquarters in Atlanta, making a charge of high trea- son, and requesting a company of sol- diers to spirit away the culprits. In the meantime, the Federal commander had recognized all the offenders and had clapped handcuffs on each and marched them to the guard room in the courthouse between files of troopers with fixed bayonets. Several of the young women went to the 'prison' to console the boys, and one of them, un- accustomed to Federal uniforms, asked quite audibly, 'Do all these dogs wear collars?' The cordon around the pris- oners was only drawn the tighter.
"After the boys had spent a night thus, a company of 59 soldiers from Atlanta appeared at the Rome rail- road station, marched up Broad Street with bayonets fixed, and escorted the 'prisoners' and Capt. de la Mesa to the station, where they caught the next train for the state capital. A
tremendous crowd gathered and sul- lenly watched their friends and their enemies go away. De la Mesa turned baek at Kingston. He had obtained the services of another company or part thereof somewhere, and these escorted him back to Rome, and for several days kept watch over him and his bureau, until the excitement had subsided. Henry A. Smith, bookseller who had lost an arm in the war, was due to have been arrested, too, but he had prudently gone to visit relatives up the Etowah river. The women, also, it was rumored, would be held as traitors.
"Col. Mitehell got on the train with the intention of going to Savannah to protest with Judge Erskine, of the Federal Court. Instead, he wired Judge Erskine from Atlanta. The two got into touch with Gen. John Pope, commander of the distriet, and a release order came within three weeks. However, the order did not forestall serious indignities to the captives, who had been confined in a miserable pen or eage. They were taunted and eursed by their captors, who prodded with bayonets gifts of sweetmeats sent by relatives and sym- pathizing friends, and forced them to eat the poorly prepared food that had been provided for them.
"A telegram announced the release to Romans, and a huge crowd welcomed the boys at the station, and a supper at the City Hall softened the sting of their humiliation and enabled them to chalk up the event as one of fate's weird pranks."
Mrs. Hiram Hill adds the following:
"Our home in the Fourth Ward had been divested of its sides, blinds, doors, plastering and everything that the Union soldiers could tear down or earry away, and we had gone to live at the old Buena Vista Hotel, south- west corner of Broad and Sixth Ave- nue, where Seale & Floyd's garage and a grocery store now are. My father owned this place and occupied a small one-story house on the west side of it as his law office. Mrs. de la Mesa had been coming to the hotel from next door to give instructions to a Rome woman who was sewing for her, and when I saw her after my brother's arrest, I told her to get out of the hotel and stay out. She sent mte ' word that she would march me up and down Broad Street in charge of two soldiers and under a United States flag. I defied her to try it, and she
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THE FREEDMEN'S BUREAU ON BROAD STREET.
This structure, still standing near Sixth Avenue, was the headquarters of Capt. Chas. A. de le Mesa during the Civil War. Capt. de la Mesa participated in a number of hair raising episodes. Rome's oldest brick building is at the right.
never did. There would have been a lot more trouble in Rome, Ga.
"I suppose Capt. de la Mesa was carrying out orders and ruled sternly for that reason. He and his wife im- pressed me as people of refinement, and I was especially struck with her beauty and the style of her clothes." *
DRAMATIC
A SCENE. - When William Smith entered his last illness in January, 1852, he summoned several friends whom he wished to transact certain business matters for him re- lating to his property in Rome. While they were still with him in the cot- tage on Howard Street where he died, he raised himself to his feet by hold- ing to his chair, and said:
"Gentlemen, you will have to help me to my bed. I have done all that I can do for myself."
They assisted him, and when he was comfortably stretched out, he con- tinued :
"I am not a member of any church, but I have done the best I could in this life. Whatever I have had has belonged to the people of this commu- nity. No man has ever been turned away hungry from my door if I had anything to divide with him.
"You gentlemen know that I have served this section, and if my body is of any use to science, I ask you to take it when I am gone."
Col. Smith had waited for Col. Al- fred Shorter to come, so they could have a settlement with respect to the property they owned equally. Col. Shorter sent his representative, Col. C. M. Pennington, to see Col. Smith.
"I am glad to see you, Col. Pen- nington," declared Col. Smith, "but I sent for Col. Shorter."
Col. Pennington delivered the mes- sage promptly a second time, and it was 24 hours before Col. Shorter found it convenient to come. When he ar- rived, Col. Smith raised himself on his left elbow, and with his right hand reached under his pillow. Col. Shorter drew back and Col. Pennington step- ped between them. During one of Col. Smith's naps Mrs. Smith, the wife, had removed his pistol.
"Alfred Shorter, you are a rascal!" shouted Col. Smith, the old-time fire flashing from his small, black eyes. "This is a fine time to come to see a man-on his death bed!"
Shortly before noon the next day, Jan. 27, Col. Smith died. Only a few days before, his grandson, William Cephas, had been born to Dr. and Mrs. Robt. Battey.
The Widow Baldwin, whom Col. Shorter had married at Monticello, placed at his disposal $40,000 in cash, a handsome fortune in those days of low values. Col. Shorter brought this to Rome with him at the instance of Col. Smith, and invested it in the land which Col. Smith had acquired, and made certain improvements thereon. Col. Smith's energy and Col. Shorter's
leng business head made an ideal combination, and their partnership interests grew rapidly. After the Civil War, Col. Shorter settled with Mrs. Battey, the daughter, for $10,000 cash, and took her receipt.
It was a satisfactory ending of an unfortunate affair, and left Col.
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Shorter free to conserve his part, most of which went to Shorter College for the education of young women of the South .** %
HENRY W. GRADY AT ROME .- As a youth, Henry Woodfin Grady had visited his uncle, Henry A. Gart- rell, in Rome, and thence had gone to see another branch of his family at Floyd Springs .** Capt. Gartrell re- moved to Athens in 1865, after hav- ing served Rome as mayor in 1859-60. Pleasant recollections of Rome and a chance visit with the Georgia Press excursion in 1869 caused Mr. Grady to anchor his quill, paste pot and shears at the foot of Tower Hill for three years.
Col. E. Hulbert, superintendent of the W. & A. (state) Railroad, had in- vited the Georgia press to send rep- resentatives for excursion into Southeastern Tennessee, Northwest Georgia and Northeastern Alabama, to write up the natural resources of those sections. The excursion started from Atlanta at 7 a. m., Wednesday, August 25, 1869. At Cartersville the members were addressed on the sub- ject of minerals, agriculture and the new railroad to Van Wert, Polk County, by Mark A. Cooper, grand- father of J. Paul Cooper and father of John Frederick Cooper, of Rome. Thence they went to Chattanooga, 100 strong. Then they turned southward, and arrived at Rome via the Rome Railroad, on their special train, at 1:30 a. m., Friday, Sept. 3.
True to the spirit of newspaper en- terprise, young Grady, then only 19, rushed to the sanctum of Editor Mel- ville Dwinell, of the Rome Weekly Courier. The hour was unearthly, yet the editor had remained at his desk to "cover" the momentous event of the arrival of the excursionists. Capt. Dwinell stated that he had left a col- umn open. Mr. Grady declared a col- umn would hardly start the story he bore, so Capt. Dwinell side-tracked some of his livest news and no doubt a few advertisements. Mr. Grady had been writing his "yarn" on the train. He continued it for an hour, and for good measure threw in an optimistic editorial squib. A faithful printer hand-set type the balance of the night and The Courier woke up the citizens with Mr. Grady's remarkable narra- tive. It was a sample of journalistic endeavor to which the quiet Hill City had not been accustomed.
Grady's wonderful speech, "The New South," delivered before the New
England Society of New York, N. Y.,. Dec. 22, 1886, is well known. At Rome on this occasion, however, he ap- pears to have struck his original "New South" note, as follows:
"Every citizen of Cherokee Georgia has long been convinced that our min- eral resources are unsurpassed, and all that was wanting was for some- one to make a start, and induce men of means to come among, to aid in developing the same. . . . Our broth- ers of the quill will now have some- thing interesting to write about and for a while, at least, will devote their time to something more substantial than polities, and of infinitely more advantage to our bankrupt people. It is refreshing to see men of all politi- cal shades quietly traveling together, and for once making a united effort to forget political differences, and to lend their efforts to the more laudable cause of developing the great wealth that nature had bestowed upon us. Cuffee for once has been forgotten. The splendid scenery of our moun- tains and valleys, with the battlefields, which give us a prominent place in history, has made a deep impression upon the minds of all, and proclaims in thunder tones what men will do when pressed to the wall. Mutual forbearance seems to exist, and we predict that in future a better state of sentiment and feeling will prevail."
At this time, maybe, Grady made arrangements to work for The Cour- ier. The preliminaries may have been started by letter a while before. At any rate, he soon came back.
At 3 p. m., after a speech by Mayor Zach Hargrove and a serenade by a brass band and dinner at the Choice House, the party left for a trip down the Coosa River on the Steamboat Etowah as the guests of Col. Wade S Cothran. After inspecting the Round Mountain and Cornwall, Ala., iron works, they came back to Rome Sunday on the Etowah, put up at the Choice House and Monday morning at 9 left by rail for Selma, Ala. Wed- nesday morning at 6:30 the editors re- turned to Rome, had breakfast at the Choice House and departed two hours later for Atlanta, where the "junket"
*Col. Pennington was authority for the por- tion of the above narrative relating to the pistol ; he told the story to Judge John C. Printup. Mrs. Robt. Battey was authority for the statement that Col. Smith sent for Col. Shorter to make a settlement, and that the $10,000 was later paid to her.
** Doyle A. Moore, of Rome, is kin to the Gradys through this branch.
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ended. On both these stops Mr. Grady fraternized with Editor Dwinell.
The impelling reason why Grady went to Rome lies largely in the realm of surmise. The lad was possessed of a proud spirit which he called ambi- tion and which a handful of sniping contemporaries, less talented, might have called bumptiousness. He was precocious to the extent that he had become an orator in his knee pants, and he was made to suffer more than once because he pitted his skill against older competitors. Through a politi- cal deal at the University of Virginia he had suffered a keen disappoint- ment, and it is likely that in associat- ing himself as "free-lance" corre- spondent with the Atlanta Constitu- tion he was inviting rebuffs that his gifts did not warrant. The Constitu- tion's editor was Col. Carey W. Styles, an experienced journalist, who, by the way, had been involved in the Yacht Wanderer affair nine years before at Savannah. Col. Styles had sat up with legislators at Milledgeville before Henry Grady had ever thought of them, hence when the dashing young collegian essayed to pass voluminous editorial sentence on a governor or a congressman, it was out of the ques- tion.
Grady was trying to marry. He was fired with ambition to take the lead in molding public opinion, He enjoyed writing "from the street and hustings," but he preferred the dignity of a job at a desk. Brain work was one thing to Henry Grady, and "leg work" another. The Constitution was a new concern, having been founded in the summer of 1868, had a full staff, and could not find a regular place for him yet awhile. Further- more, Henry was ambitious enough to believe that what he was writing, mostly of a political nature, was just about as important as anything in the paper, and had as much right to "front page" position as the other stuff they were printing. He believed that an excursion of the state's lead- ing editors was a big news event, and was worth writing columns every day, perhaps. Consequently, he wielded a loquacious pen. The Constitution's tel- egraph tolls became enormous when Press Excursion news started from Cartersville and continued through Chattanooga and Rome. Henry was shooting readable material, but they couldn't see it at the office; they cut his dope to the bone and dropped his pen name, "King Hans." In the following fashion did they knock him
off the limb in a squib of Sept. 10, 1869:
"We are compelled by pressure upon our space to abbreviate and condense the report of the Press Excursion pro- ceedings. Neither the editors nor the proprietors of this paper were pres- ent."
Wow! that should hold any young man, no matter how brilliant or pro- gressive, in entirely reasonable bounds.
"Damn 'em, I'll fix 'em!" muttered Henry, who had been introduced by V. A. Gaskell, of the Atlanta New Era, and J. S. Peterson, of the Atlanta In- telligencer, as the Constitution's "rep- resentative" on the editors' jaunt. He shot a wad of his copy at Melville Dwinell, editor of the Rome Weekly Courier, over the signature "Zip." Ed- itor Dwinell ate his contributions with a relish; sometimes they ran several columns long, but it was good read- ing, and it landed Henry a nice job. He put over three columns Sept. 3, and duplicated with three a week later-quite a contribution to a four- page newspaper.
Right proudly did Capt. Dwinell pave the way for the young literary crusader under date of Friday, Sept. 10, 1869:
"To the Readers of the Courier: With this issue of our paper we pre- sent Mr. Henry W. Grady in the ca- pacity of associate editor. The vigor, versatility and polish of his pen has recently been exhibited in his corre- spondence for the Atlanta Constitution over the nom de plume of 'King Hans,' and we may reasonably hope with his assistance to materially increase the interest of these columns. Feeling con- fident that this effort to interest and please will be successful, we let Mr. Grady make his own bow to the pub- lic .- M. Dwinell."
Mr. Grady's bow follows:
"The above notice renders necessary the infliction of a salutatory upon you. We shall be as brief as possible. We are young and without editorial judgment or experience, yet we hope that the enthusiasm with which we en- ter upon our new profession and the constant labor with which we are de- termined to bend to our work may par- tially, at least, atone for these de- ficiencies.
"The Courier shall be in the future, so far as our management is concern- ed, devoted as it has been in the past to the dissemination of useful and in- teresting information, to the bold as-
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sertion and maintenance of correct po- litical opinions and to the development of the best interests of the commu- nity.
"We enter the editorial ranks of the state with ill feeling toward none, but with kindness toward all. We shall cheerfully and with vigor co-operate with the press in the furtherance of any project which tends toward good, and we shall endeavor with courtesy and politeness to adjust nicely any dif- ferences of opinion which may arise between us and any of our contem- poraries.
"Begging in conclusion that the justice you render us may be tempered with mercy, we don our harness and enter the lists.
"Most respectfully yours,
"HENRY W. GRADY."
The young journalist's "bold asser- tion of correct political opinions" found expression in the same issue of The Courier in the following editorial broadside leveled at Governor Rufus B. Bullock, who also was a guest on the Press Excursion :
"His Accidency."-" 'We were de- lighted with Governor Bullock-he is the right man in the right place, and will do all that any man could do to restore Georgia to her former condi- tion of peace and prosperity.' "-Talla- dega Sun.
"The above tribute to the accident that now occupies the Gubernatorial Chair, though clipped from a Radical paper and written by a Radical re- porter, whose official duty it was to become enamored of the Accident and all of his party, has a considerable significance notwithstanding.
"The truth of the matter is that any man who knows nothing of Bul- lock's political filthiness will inevit- ably become 'delighted with him,' etc. We have never, in the whole course of our life, seen a man who was gifted with so great an amount of beguiling blarney as is this man. Present him to a Democrat and the sweetness of his countenance is absolutely appall- ing; infinite smiles ripple over his cheeks and break in soft laughter on his lips; a thousand and one benevo- lent sparkles are beamed from his eyes; his nostrils play with kindly pal- pitations, and-believe me, for I tell ye the truth-his whiskers resolve themselves into a standing committee to invite you just to walk down into his heart and take a place in that
large and open receptacle. Oh, his face is tremendously delusive!
"We were presented to him, and went to the presentation primed with about a dozen pardon proclamations, and about three of his reports on the condition of Georgia. We had serious- ly contemplated taking a friend along to prevent the murderous onslaught, which we were afraid our outraged feelings would urge us to make upon the Accident when introduced to it. And lo! when the crisis came we found ourself basking calmly beneath his ra- diant countenance like a rose beneath an April sky. A clear voice saluted us with a dreamy kind of tenderness, and we found ourself exclaiming, 'Surely this man is not our enemy!'
"We looked for the famous 'sinister expression' which, according to novel- ists, invariably resides about the nose and eyes of a villain. But we found it not; the nose possessed a very mild curvative, and the eyes were gushing with cheery good humor. Instantly, as a last resort, we had to commence recounting his crimes, in order to pro- tect ourself against his blandish- ments, and actually had to come down to the appointment of Foster Blodgett before we could sufficiently hate him to satify our Democratic conscience. How deep down and how effectually does this man hide his rascality!
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