USA > Georgia > Georgia's landmarks, memorials and legends, Volume I > Part 5
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"Among the famous beauties of Baltimore in 1861 were the Cary sisters, to whose home as loyal Southern- ers 'My Maryland' soon came. The fiery appeal to Southern valor was declaimed again and again by one of these, Miss Jennie Cary, to her sister Hettie, with the
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expressed intention of finding an appropriate musical accompaniment for the verses; and this search was con- tinued until the popular 'Lauriger Horatius' was tried and thereupon adopted. The risk of reducing it to publi- cation was somewhat serious, but Miss Rebecca Lloyd Nicholson spoke out : 'I will have it published. My father is a Union man, and if I am put in prison, he will take me out.' She then took 'Lauriger Horatius' in a Yale song-book to her father's house near-by; and after copy- ing the music carried it to Miller and Beacham. They supplied her with the first copies from the press, besides sending her other songs until they were arrested and put in prison." There were some minor variations made in the text to fit the music. Says Miss Jennie Cary : "The additional 'My Maryland' was a musical necessity and it came to me as a sort of inspiration." It has been stated that Mr. Rozier Dulaney, of Baltimore, originally pro- posed this addition; but to Miss Cary belongs the credit.
According to Professor Andrews it was furthermore an extraordinary coincidence that the young girl, Miss Rebecca Lloyd Nicholson,1 who undertook to have the song published on her own responsibility should have been the grand-daughter of Judge Joseph H. Nicholson, whose wife, Rebecca Lloyd, figured so largely in adapt- ing the Star-Spangled Banner to the tune of Anacreon in Heaven and who had it published in musical form. Says he: "The grand-daughter carried the words and music of 'Maryland, My Maryland' to the publishers in 1861 as her grand-mother had done with the 'Star-Span- gled Banner' nearly fifty years before." Subsequently Charles Ellerbrock, a young German music teacher and a Southern sympathizer, changed the musical adaptation of 'My Maryland' from the Yale song to the statlier measure of its original, 'Tannenbaum, O Tannenbaum'; and in this way it was finally perfected.2 Subsequent to the first battle of Manassas, the famous war-lyric was
1Miss Nicholson, through her relationship to Francis Scott Key, inherited the original manuscript of "The Star Spangled Banner," written on the back of an envelope. M. P. Andrews. Introduction to Randall's Poems, p. 15. 2Songs of the Civil War. The Century, August, 1886.
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JAMES RYDER RANDALL
rendered for the first time at the headquarters of General Beauregard, near Fairfax Court House, Va., by the Cary sisters, on July 4, 1861 .*
Oliver Wendell Holmes pronounced 'Maryland, My Maryland' the finest anthem produced by the Civil War. He is also said to have placed it among the very fore- most of the world's martial lyrics. But while the author's fame will rest undoubtedly upon this gem, there are many competent critics who consider his 'Resurgam' in no wise inferior. To this number belongs ex-Congressman Wil- liam H. Fleming, who places it, in point of merit, even above Cardinal Newman's "Lead Kindly Light." Though importuned to cast his lot in the North, where larger salaries were offered, Randall refused to leave his be- loved Southland. He often felt the pinch of adverse fortune, but he was never charmed by the glitter of gold. It is of interest to note that Randall was the first to plead effectively the cause of an American memorial to Edgar Allan Poe; and to his loyal pen is due the hasten- ing, in some degree at least, of the final reward into which the author of the "Raven" has at last come. If there are notes of bitterness in the great war-lyric of Randall, they were wrung from his loving heart by the passionate hour in which they were penned. He. was himself the apostle of tenderness; and one needs only to turn to the poems of Whittier to find that the gentle Quaker bard of New England has indulged in no less caustic terms. There can be no doubt that the poem will live. The breath of immortality is in its lines, and the fame of Randall is secure even from death itself.
*"It has been affirmed that Mr. Randall received $100 for 'Maryland, My Maryland,' and the statement has been widely quoted. The fact is that an appreciative reader and friend sent him, as author of the poem, some time after its publication, $100 in Confederate currency, with which he may possibly have been able to purchase a pair of shoes, but he did not solicit or receive direct compensation for any of his poems, a statement which, in all probability, can be recorded of no other modern poet of genius or repu- tation."
CHAPTER IX
Oglethorpe: His Monument and His Mission
J AMES EDWARD OGLETHORPE, the Founder of the Colony of Georgia, was the most illustrious Englishman to cross the sea during the period of American colonization. His relinquishment of a career in Parliament for the purpose of establishing in the New World an asylum for the unfortunate debtors of England proves him to have been a philanthropist without a peer among his contemporaries. To realize what choice spirits were sometimes thrown into debtor prisons and what ordeals of torture men of gentle blood were oftimes forced to endure under an infamous system of imprisonment for debt, one needs only to read "Little Dorrit," a tale in which the greatest of English novelists has portrayed the life of the Marshalsea. But Oglethorpe was not satisfied merely to launch his humane experiment. For ten ardu- ous years he undertook in his own person to defend the Colony of Georgia not only against the savage foes of an unknown wilderness but against the haughty power of Spain. The treaty which he made with the Creek Indians at Coweta Town, after a hazardous journey of three hundred miles through a trackless forest proves him to have been a far-sighted statesman who, by a well- timed coup of diplomacy, brought a powerful confederacy of warriors to the side of England during the French and Indian campaigns. His defeat of the Spaniards at the battle of Bloody Marsh when, with a mere handful of men, outnumbered in a ratio of ten to one, he checked
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the advancing power of Spain and made the continent an Anglo-Saxon heritage, proves him to have been a con- summate master of the art of war.
Returning to England he continued to mold events. For more than a decade, we find him a power in Parlia- ment. His marriage in 1745 to an heiress, Elizabeth Wright, daughter of Sir Nathan Wright, a baronet, brought him a long rent roll and served to enlarge his influential family connections. Ten years later, he be- came the official head of the Royal Army, with the full rank of General. In the most brilliant coterie of the Eighteenth Century, a group of intellects which included the great lexicographer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, with Bos- well at his elbow; the renowned artist, Sir Joshua Rey- nolds; the celebrated poet, Dr. Oliver Goldsmith; and the foremost orator of his time, Edmond Burke; we find in this select company of immortals the tall figure of General Oglethorpe. He was too old, at the outbreak of the Revolutionary struggle, to accept the command of the British forces in America, but he was the ranking soldier of Great Britain .* It is also a fact of some interest to note that his sympathies were upon the side of the Colonies. Boswell, in his "Life of Johnson," makes fre- quent allusion to General Oglethorpe, and the great sol- dier's biography was to have been written by no less renowned a pen than Dr. Johnson's, but for some reason the author of "Rasselas" failed to execute this task. The portrait of Oglethorpe painted by Sir Joshua Rey- nolds was lost in the destruction by fire of his famous country seat, Cranham Hall. Alexander Pope, in a
*"The assertion has frequently been made, though the authority for it is not conclusive, that being the senior of Sir William Howe there was offered to him the command of the forces to subjugate America in the War of the Revolution, but that he declined the appointment, assuring the ministry that he knew the Americans well, that they would never be subdued by force of arms, but that obedience would be secured by doing them justice." History of Georgia, by Wm. B. Stevens, p. 207, New York, 1847.
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famous couplet, extolled the great philanthropist.1 Han- nah More, in a gossipy letter, refers to him with some degree of gusto as her new admirer. Thomson, in his poem on "Liberty," pays lıim a fine tribute, and, in his most famous production, "The Seasons," he alludes still further to his humane experiment.2 The hardships of the Georgia Colonists are also rehearsed at some length in Goldsmith's "Deserted Village."3 The friend of Bishop Berkley, the patron of John Wesley, and the col- league of Horace Walpole, the great man who founded Georgia was a personality of Titanic proportions. Royal favor was not bestowed upon Oglethorpe because of the well-known attachment of his ancestors to the House of Stuart. According to an old account, he was himself a foster-brother to the Pretender.4 This explains why Eng-
1"One driven by strong benevolence of soul Should fly like Oglethorpe from pole to pole." Pope's Epistle to Colonel Cotterell.
The same poet adds:
"Thy great example shall through ages shine; A favorite theme with poet and divine; To all unborn thy merits shall proclaim, And add new honors to thy deathless name."
2"Lo, swarming southward, on rejoicing suns Gay colonies extend; the calm retreat Of undeserved distress; the better home Of those whom Bigots chase from foreign lands; Not built on Rapine, Servitude, and Woe, And in their turn some petty tyrant's prey; But bound by social freedom firm they rise Such as of late an Oglethorpe has formed, And crowding round the charmed Savannah Seas." Thomson's "Liberty."
"And here can I forget the generous hand That touched with human woe, redressive searched Into the horrors of the gloomy jail? Unpitied and unheard, where misery mourns; Where sickness pines; where thirst and hunger burn, And poor misfortune feels the lash of vice." Thomson's "Seasons."
3See McIntosh County, on the Altamaha settlement.
4Frances Shaftoe published a Narrative, in London, In 1707, declaring that the pretended Prince of Wales was the foster-brother of Oglethorpe; and also that the latter's mother was at one time the medium through whom Oxford, Bolingbroke, and even Queen Anne herself held communion with the exiled Stuarts. Consult Bolingbroke's Letters. See also Oglethorpe County,
OGLETHORPE MONUMENT.
THE MONUMENT TO GENERAL OGLETHORPE, FOUNDER OF THE COLONY OF GEORGIA, IN CHIPPEWA SQUARE, SAVANNAH.
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land failed to knight the first man of his age. But there was little need for England to lay the accolade of her chivalry upon one of God's noblemen .* General Ogle- thorpe died at the patriarchal age of ninety-seven. He lived to see the Colony which he founded an independent commonwealth and to meet John Adams, the first am- bassador from the United States to the Court of St. James. He was buried at Cranham Church, in Essex County, England, where his last resting place commands an outlook upon the North Sea.
Pride and gratitude have always mingled in the emo- tions with which Georgia has contemplated the career and cherished the name of Oglethorpe; but almost two centu- ries elapsed before an adequate monument to the great humanitarian was reared in the city which he founded. At last, under bright skies, on November 23, 1910, in the city of Savannah, a superb bronze statue surmounting a pedestal of granite, was unveiled in Chippewa Square. The total cost of this handsome memorial was $38,000, of which sum the State of Georgia and the city of Savan- nah each contributed $15,000, while the remainder was raised by patriotic organizations. In attendance upon the exercises of unveiling were: Governor Joseph M. Brown, of Georgia; Governor B. B. Comer, of Alabama; Hon. A. Mitchell Innes, representing the Court of St. James, in the absence of Ambassador Bryce, then on a return visit to England; Daniel C. French, the distin- guished sculptor; David C. Barrow, Chancellor of the
*The following Oglethorpe bibliography may be helpful to students: Memoirs of General James Edward Oglethorpe," by Robert Wright, London, 1867; "Life of General Oglethorpe," by Henry Bruce, New York, 1890; "James Oglethorpe, the Founder of Georgia," by Harriet C. Cooper, New York, 1904; "James Edward Oglethorpe," an address at the Annual Banquet of the Georgia Society of Sons of the Revolution, at Savannah, February 5, 1894, by Judge Emory Speer, included in a volume of speeches on "Lee, Lincoln, Grant," etc., New York and Washington, 1909; and Judge Charl- ton's oration at the unveiling of the Oglethorpe monument in Savannah, November 23, 1910.
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University of Georgia; Mrs. J. J. Wilder, President of the Georgia Society of Colonial Dames of America ; Mrs. John M. Graham, State Regent for Georgia of the Daugh- ters of the American Revolution; Right Reverend Fred- erick F. Reese, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia; Judge Walter G. Charlton, orator of the day; official representatives of various patriotic orders and numerous dignitaries both State and Federal. Several visiting military organizations were also present, con- stituting, with the local companies, an impressive page- ant. Facing the enemies of the Colony, the statue of Oglethorpe looks toward the south and west. The great soldier and civilian is portrayed in the typical English dress of the period, appropriate to the rank and station in which he moved. On the granite pedestal is a bronze tablet bearing the inscription which follows:
Erected by the State of Georgia, the City of Savannah, and the Patriotic Societies of the State to the memory of the Great Soldier, Eminent Statesman, and Famous Philanthropist, General James Edward Oglethorpe, who, in this city, on the 12th day of February, A. D., 1733, founded and established the Colony of Georgia.
Governor Joseph M. Brown, assisted by Mrs. J. J. Wilder, President of the Georgia Society of Colonial Dames of America, unveiled the monument. The prayer of invocation was offered by the Right Reverend Fred- erick F. Reese, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Geor- gia, after which the orator of the day, Judge Walter G. Charlton, President of the Oglethorpe Monument Asso- ciation and President of the Georgia Society of Sons of the Revolution, was presented to the vast assemblage. Addresses were also delivered by the British representa- tive, Hon. A. Mitchell Innes and by the Chairman of the Monument Commission, Hon. J. Randolph Anderson, who made the formal tender of the monument, in an eloquent
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speech. Judge Charlton reviewed at some length the illustrious career of Oglethorpe. He sketched the times which produced him, narrated the circumstances which led to the Colonial experiment, and dwelt upon his sacri- fices, his achievements, and his principles. The great battle of Bloody Marsh received exhaustive and thorough treatment. From the standpoint of historical criticism, the oration of Judge Charlton was a masterpiece of patriotic eloquence, characterized throughout by judicial impartiality, by keen analysis, and by rare scholarship. The following salient paragraphs from Judge Charlton's speech will fitly conclude this resume of the exercises. · Said he in part :
"Near two centuries ago a man of strong and noble nature sought here and there in London a missing friend, whose character and kindly qualities kept him in affec- tionate remembrance. His search brought him at length to the debtors' prison of the Fleet, where in vilest sur- roundings, deliberately imprisoned in a narrow cell with victims of smallpox, he found the friend of his youth, dying of that loathsome disease. When he departed from that horrible scene, his life was consecrated to a great purpose. With the passing of the years there came a bright day in the long ago, when as the soft voices of spring were calling back to life and glory the sleeping beauties of nature, there landed upon what was destined to become a sovereign state a small band, selected to start upon its career the most remarkable experiment in the history of colonization. The purpose had reached its fulfilment, for the sorrowing friend was Oglethorpe; the adventurers, the passengers of the Anne; the land, the commonwealth which holds our allegiance, our hopes, our happiness. *
"There has been nothing like it in the history of man- kind. They were the weak and the oppressed of earth. Few in number, untrained in military venture, unskilled in civic construction, their mission was to build for all
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time an empire in a wilderness and hold it against the war-like savage and the armies and navies of one of the greatest powers of Europe. Even as they set foot upon the shore, facing them were the hordes of Indians whom they were to resist, whilst to the south were gathering like unto the storm-clouds of the coming tempest the hosts of Spain. Yet from the tragic elements of failure came victory, for in the divine purpose of the Almighty it had been ordained that there should also stand upon the soil of Georgia at that moment the one man in all the world through whom victory might come. * **
"Influence and opportunity brought him a commis- sion, in his fifteenth year, under Malborough, and after· the peace of 1712 he served under Prince Eugene in the campaigns on the Danube. There could have been no better martial schooling. But in this English boy was something beyond military enthusiasm. Working in his active brain was the constructive force which molds statesmen, and so directs and rules the destinies of nations. He might in the parliamentary career upon which he entered in 1722, have attained distinction, or, restive in the subservient crowd which dog the footsteps of the great, he might have gone prematurely to that life of quiet which in the distance awaited his coming. It was otherwise ordained. The pen of a great novelist a century later aroused to indignant protest the English mind against the iniquities of imprisonment for debt, and the echo of that far off revolution in public sentiment * sounded at length in the constitution of Georgia.
"His work accomplished ; his mission fulfilled, on July 23, 1743, he sailed for England, never to see again the land to which he had devoted the best years of his life. He was too great to escape the calumnies of the small and the ingratitude of the narrow. Having passed to payment the expenditures made by him out of his per- sonal fortune, the English government revoked its action
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and appropriated his money. Having availed themselves of his military talents, the advisers of royalty court- martialed him on grounds which were dismissed as slan- derous. Finally, he withdrew from the service of an ungrateful monarch and entered upon the last stage of the journey of life which was to end on July 1, 1785. King and courtier might see in him only a successful rival for the fame which it was not given them to attain, but with the great spirits of his time he became a welcome guest. Authors laid tributes at his feet and poets bound about his brow the laurel wreaths of victory. Georgia and her fate never passed from his thought. Tradition has it that in the days of the Revolution he was tendered the command of the English forces, and refused to take up arms against the Colony he had founded. Whether it be true or false, never in thought or word that history records was he ever disloyal to the Colony to which he had devoted the best years of his life.
"He had striven with success for the betterment of the weak and helpless in an age of abject selfishness. He had made an empire with a handful of the oppressed of earth, and the work had survived. He had overcome the Indian by persuasion and kindness and won the abiding friendship of the savages he had been sent to slay. He had encountered the most powerful foe of England and driven him in disastrous defeat before his scant battle- line. Reversing all the traditions of Colonial administra- tion, he had been tolerant and just. He was a builder and not an iconoclast; a statesman and not a schemer; a soldier and not a plunderer.
"Brave and wise and merciful, the end he accom- plished placed him in historic perspective a century ahead of the day in which he worked. Honest in an era of guile, without fear and without reproach, he comes to us with his unstained record, to live so long as Georgians shall stand upon the ancient ways and see and approve the better things of life. In all his brilliant career-in the hour of stress, in the moment of victory-no clamor-
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ous sound of vain and self-applauding words came from his lips. There was no need. That which he did sends its triumphant paens down the centuries; and over his illustrious career Georgia stands guard forever."*
*Consult: Files of the Savannah Morning News and of the Savannah Evening Press for November 23-24, 1910.
CHAPTER X
Fort Frederica: 1735
O N the west side of St. Simon's Island, at a point which commands the entrance to the Altamaha River, stands an ancient pile, the origin of which can be traced to the days of Oglethorpe. It is the oldest of Georgia's historic ruins. Some of the very guns which were used to expel the Spaniards may be seen upon its moss-covered ramparts; and not only the earliest but the bravest memories of Colonial times cluster about its dismantled walls. Except for the part which it played in checking the haughty arrogance of Madrid, an altogether different sequel might have been given to the subsequent history of North America, for here it was that the Castilian power in the Western Hemisphere was for the first time challenged and the march of Spain toward the North halted by an overwhelming victory for the English Colonies.
Only some twelve miles distant from the beach, an automobile brings the visitor in less than half an hour to the picturesque old ruin and puts him in touch with the romantic life of two centuries ago.
The road to Frederica winds through splendid forests of live-oak, weirdly and gloomily draped with pendant mosses. It skirts the historic battle ground of Bloody Marsh, passes underneath the famous Wesley oak, and commands a view of Christ Church, within the sacred precints of which there are a number of tombs wherein
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repose the dust of the old planters, whose elegant homes and fertile acres have long since been abandoned.
If the visitor prefers he can make the trip to Frederica by water.
The site of the old fort was well chosen. It faces one of the several streams into which the delta of the Alta- maha River divides on approaching the ocean, but it so happens that the channel which it overlooks at this point constitutes the most important outlet to the sea. Ogle- thorpe possessed the trained eye as well as the stout arm of the soldier. He saw at once the strategic valne of the bluff, while in the level area of ground which stretched behind it he found the ideal spot for his future home town. It was on his return trip from England that he transported hither some of the new colonists and began to erect the fort, which was to guard the exposed southern frontier of Georgia. The original structure was in the main built of tabby, a concrete material of lime mixed with shells and stones. It was quadrangular in shape, provided with four bastions, and defended by eighteen-pounders. Oglethorpe himself superintended the work of construction and taught the men to dig the ditches and to turf the ramparts. There were two large magazines, sixty feet in length and three stories in height included within the stockade. The barracks were at the north end of the town, where they occupied quar- ters ninety feet square. Over the gateway rose a tower, while on either side there were bastions two-stories in height. and twenty feet square, each equipped with heavy guns. To furnish adequate water supplies, a well was dug within the fort.
When everything was completed, Oglethorpe made another trip to England to recruit his famous regiment, which was destined to become one of the best military organizations in the service of the King. In honor of Frederick, Prince of Wales, the stronghold was chris- tened Frederica.
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FORT FREDERICA
But time has spared only the barest remnant of the ancient citadel which saved the continent of North America from Spanish domination. Only the walls of the old fort have been spared. Not a vestige of the town survives. Says one who has often visited the historic spot *: "It is a shame to think how the blocks of tabby were carted away to build the lighthouse and the negro quarters, so that nothing remains of the old town of Frederica. I remember when a child seeing a house on the ruins of the old battery and I can recall how I peeped down with awe at the magazine below. If our patriotic societies had been earlier founded how much might have been saved from vandal hands. But we are thankful to save even this remnant, which the greedy waves had already overthrown when we determined to preserve it. On these very blocks of tabby the great and good Oglethorpe may have laid his hand. It is preserved in honor of him, the Founder of Georgia, whose energy was boundless, whose watchfulness was unceasing."
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