Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. I, Part 113

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1294

USA > Georgia > Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. I > Part 113

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JOHN ERSKINE was born on Sept. 13, 1813, in Strabane, County Tyrone, Ireland. In the spring of 1820, before he was seven years of age, his family migrated to British America, locating at St. John's, where the husband and father shortly afterward died. The survivors then came to the United States and resided for a time in the city of New York. John returned to Ireland in 1827 and remained I-49

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there with his relatives, attending school until 1830 or later. He had a strong predilection for a seafaring life and for seeing many countries. He spent some years in gratifying this disposition, and while so doing acquired a practical knowledge of sailing and handling ships, which he afterward found of considerable use to him as a judge in the trial of cases in admiralty. In 1838, being strongly threatened with disease of the lungs, he took up his abode in the state of Florida. There and in the lower part of Georgia he taught school for four years. Then, studying law, he became a member of the Florida bar in 1846, at the age of thirty- three. In 1851 he was married to Miss Rebecca Smith, a daughter of Gen. Gabriel Smith, of Alabama. It may interest romantic young lawyers to learn that Judge Erskine entered matrimony by "stealing his wife," in which he was assisted by a sympathetic accomplice, who afterward became governor of Florida. After practicing law successfully in Florida for about nine years, Judge Erskine removed to Georgia in 1855, settling first in Newnan, but finally removing to Atlanta, where he resided for the most part during the rest of his life. He practiced his profession actively up to the civil war, and occasionally in select cases during the war. Among these cases were some in the courts of the Confederate states in which he antagonized that government in proceedings to confiscate debts owing to citizens of the United States. By temper, conviction and conscience he was highly conservative in politics and government. During the progress of the war he frequently quoted to his intimate friends a passage by old Judge Jenkins in the preface to Eight Centuries of Reports, which runs thus: "Amidst the sound of drums and trumpets, surrounded by an odious multitude of barbarians, broken with old age and confinement in prisons, where my fellow-subjects, grown wild with rage, detained me for fifteen years together, I bestowed many watchful hours upon this performance." He quoted the passage for its pathetic and devoted spirit of loyalty and not for its vituperative epithets or censorious implications; for he was as little disposed as any man to denounce or harshly criticize his fellow- citizens of the Confederate states. He differed with the great mass of them in political sentiment, but being one of their number, he conducted himself through- out the war, as he did before and after, with moderation, discretion and kindness. Being a pronounced Union man did not make him the less a personal friend, a good neighbor, or a good citizen for all purposes except active warfare. He felt no hostility to the Federal government, and perhaps nothing could have induced him to take up arms against it. He was spared any extreme trial in this respect, for by holding under his warm friend, Gov. Joseph E. Brown, an honorary ap- pointment with light or mere nominal duties attached to it, he was protected against conscription. He remained quietly in Atlanta until after the city was cap- tured by the Federal army, then he went with his family temporarily to New York and did not return to Georgia until after his appointment and qualification as judge. President Johnson appointed him judge of the United States courts for both districts of Georgia in July, 1865, and the appointment was confirmed by the senate in January, 1866. He presided both in Savannah and Atlanta until after the appointment of Judge McCay in 1882, under the act of congress which pro- vided for a judge in each of the two Georgia districts; then, selecting for himself the southern district, he continued to serve in that district down to the date of his retirement. In 1869-1870 he was strongly recommended to President Grant for appointment to a seat on the bench of the supreme court of the United States. It is known that for awhile the recommendation was favorably considered by the president, but one of the vacant places ultimately fell to Mr. Justice Strong and the other to Mr. Justice Bradley, both nominations being made on the same day. Availing himself of the privilege allowed him by law of retiring for life without

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loss of salary, he relinquished the bench in December, 1883, and from thenceforth lived as a private citizen. After his retirement the bar of both districts testified their regard for him and their appreciation of his judicial services by causing to be painted by an eminent artist two portraits of him, one of which was placed in the United States court room in Savannah and the other in the room of the United States district court in Atlanta. These portraits were severally presented with becoming ceremony, and on each occasion a report was submitted and adopted, addresses were delivered by members of the bar, and a response was made from the bench. By his daughter's affectionate diligence these proceedings have been preserved in the form of a printed collection prepared at her instance for private circulation. The evening of his life was tranquil and happy, save in so far as it was disturbed or shaded by physical infirmity. His mind remained vigorous and clear until within a few hours before his death. His interest in the world and his relish for reading and conversation underwent no abatement by reason of age. He was a most beautiful specimen of the well-read, cultivated, amiable, genial and cheerful old gentleman. After a brief illness he died early in the morning of Sunday, Jan. 27, 1895, and on the following Tuesday was buried in Oakland cemetery, Atlanta, by the side of his beloved wife, whose death oc- curred in September, 1879. Their daughter, an only child, Mrs. Ruby (Erskine) Ward, wife of Willard P. Ward, Esq., of New York city, is the sole survivor of this happy family. By instinct and by allegiance to principle he was an honest man. Honesty was incorporated in his constitution as well as in his creed. In thought, feeling and conduct his adherence to it was rigid, continuous, invariable. With- out this great virtue, of course, there can be no worthy life or genuine character, consequently its mere possession confers no distinction, but in some it is better attested and more pronounced than in others, and in him it was manifest in all its purity and beauty. His sterling manhood was the outgrowth of inflexible integrity. Internally and externally, in mind and person, in fact, and appearance, he was a gentleman. The tastes, habits, impulses and principles, the presence and bearing of a gentleman, distinctly marked and characterized him. He was cul- tivated, gracious, refined, accomplished. He "understood the dignity of manners and the language of deportment." He was discriminating and delicate in the observance of all social amenities. His sense of propriety was exact, and though he never neglected form, he rarelv appeared formal or ceremonious. In the practice of well-bred self-denial he was pre-eminent, for in matters of comfort or convenience he yielded precedence to others on all occasions. This he did with such urbanity and polite authority as almost to compel acceptance of the prof- fered courtesy. His politeness was not the disguise or concealment of selfishness, but its elimination. His uniform consistency was such as to preclude any possible doubt of his sincerity. He had a sunny humor and a shrewd and polished wit, but so gentle and genial was his temper and so kind was his heart, that while he delighted to amuse, he was careful never to wound. He was more willing to receive pain than to give it; on the other hand, the communication of pleasure ranked with him as one of the duties of life. He was absolutely without animos- ity or malevolence. He had few enemies, but if their number had been legion he would have forgiven them all. His attachment to friends was sincere, ardent and constant. It may be truly said of him that "he never forsook a friend or forgot a favor." He had a solemn realization and a most vivid appreciation of the blessings with which his lot in life was attended, and his gratitude for them was profound. Heaven he considered their primary source, and their chief sec- ondary source, friendship. Accordingly his gratitude was first to God and next to friends; not only to those who aided in his advancement, but to those also who

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encouraged and sustained him by their good wislies and favorable opinion. So modest was his estimate of himself that he often, in the freedom of private inter- course, expressed astonishment at his own success. But beneath his humility, and lying too deep perhaps for self-consciousness, was a wholesome vanity which prevented undue depression or any lapse of effort or energy. His education was not classical; it was not collegiate. He made no pretension to scholarship be- yond a familiar acquaintance with the common elementary studies. His mind, however, was fairly well disciplined, and his critical faculty was highly developed and constantly exercised. He liked definite thought and accurate expression, and strove diligently for the attainment of both. Though his style was direct, unadorned and unambitious, composition was a great labor to him, and after much toil in writing, correcting and amending, he usually failed to satisfy him- self with the result. He had a clear conception of an excellence which he was rarely able to reach. As a student of literature his taste was fine and his sym- pathy broad and comprehensive. He extracted their choice flavors from a multitude of books. He read for character more than for incident, valuing the latter chiefly for its instrumentality in reflecting or illustrating the former. Char- acter of every rank, from royalty down to the tramp, interested him, and he had a keen perception of types and variations. Memoirs and other forms of biog- raphy had a strong attraction for him. His fund of anecdote touching historic personages was large, but he had certain favorite stories which he was fond of repeating, and which he frequently told more than once to the same auditor. His reproductions were always faithful to the original, thus affording evidence both of his conscientiousness and the accuracy of his memory. He had a fancy for heraldry, a wide knowledge of the great families of England and Ireland, and a remarkable aptitude not only for retaining such knowledge, but for using it agreeably on proper occasions. He knew Ireland and the Irish very thoroughly, and though he retained to the last his affection for his native land, he felt no ill- will against England or the English. On the contrary, an Englishman, Oliver Cromwell, was the historic hero whom he most admired. Next to him he reck- oned Henry the Great, of France. The form of literature wliich was most con- genial to him was the dramatic. He liked to read plays, to study them closely, and to see them performed on the stage. He was a studious reader of Shakespeare and was so familiar with the text of that great master that he could quote with facility very many, perhaps most of the best passages. Falstaff was a perpetual delight to him, and he knew the whole composition of the character as thoroughly as if the fat knight had been one of his intimate personal acquaintances. He was a member of the Players' club of New York, and had pleasant social relations with several eminent actors, among them Booth and Mansfield. His knowledge of the stage and of great performers was quite extensive. He cared, however,. in later life for no acting but the best. The severity of his taste made him hard to please. By long study and much observation he knew what good acting really is. While he preferred the dramatic, other forms of poetry received a fair share of his attention. He could wade through an epic, even a translation of the Lusiad or the Jerusalem Delivered, and the finest lyrics gave him great pleasure and lingered in his memory. It is known that he himself made a few attempts at brief compositions in verse, and in more than one instance was successful in pro- ducing lines pleasing both for their grace and fancy. Of these, the best-known are the following, said to have allusion to his own and his daughter's friend, Mrs. Cleveland, wife of the president:

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"Hadst thou appeared with those entrancing eyes On Ida's mount, beside the sacred three Whose charms contended for the golden prize, Paris had Venus passed and fled to thee, To crown thee queen of beauty, love and purity."

For the society of ladies he had great fondness, and his bearing and demeanor toward them, while cordial, was courtly, deferential, delicate and dignified, sug- gesting a reminiscence of the days of chivalry and of knightly reverence. Many of his most attached friends were ladies, and in his later life he was an acknowledged favorite with young ladies even more than with those who approximated his own age. In practical life and the conduct of affairs he was thoughtful, considerate, cautious. Through a happy combination of shrewdness and prudence he generally hit upon the right thing for the service of his own or any other interest for which he was responsible. He was more sensitive to the hazard of loss than to the hope of gain, but, judged by its results, his timidity was a sort of ingenious courage. His tact, whether in business or in social inter- course, was of the highest order. Even in old age he never made long visits. He was a man of sound discretion to the last, and in nothing was he more discreet than in being silent when there was no occasion for him to speak. To measure him accurately as a lawyer, that is, to gauge the extent of his legal learning with precision, is something not quite easy. He made the impression on some mem- bers of the profession of being more profound than he was, and on others of being less so. The truth probably is, that having a genuine relish for the old law, he occupied himself over much, not with its principles, for that could hardly be, but with its details, their application and consequences. He loved to linger near the sources of the law, and found it so pleasant to do so that he often disliked to move down the stream, except for the exigencies of actual business. It was hard for him to realize that the substance of the law as he first learned it was not the true law for all time. Of course he was aware that changes did in fact take place, but if they seemed to conflict with established principles, unless they were embodied in statutes or attested by the supreme court of the United States, or by the house of lords, or at the very least, by Baron Parke, he was much disposed to regard them as mere novelties of opinion. When they appeared to him to accord with principle or to improve upon the past, he was ready and quite willing to accept them. In real work he was up with the times, and he cited modern authorities freely. He was more fond of reports than of text books. The reports of Plowden, Dyer, Hobart, Coke, Jenkins and others down to and including Meeson and Welsby, afforded him congenial entertainment. He had a sort of passion for knowing things overlooked or not much regarded by the ordinary professional reader. This led to a taste for rare and curious cases, and for unique morsels of early law. Not that he took odd or curious matters seriously, but they amused him. He truly venerated the law, but could smile at its freaks with open enjoyment, or with that bubbling zest that makes merry in solitude. He was not dependent for his merriment on company; least of all in his legal recreations. There is no telling how many good but rather useless things, found in the old books, were stored away in his mind. Much of his law reading in general (as distinguished from study for actual business or particular cases) was influenced more by what afforded pleasure than by what promised profit; yet it is certain that both at the bar and on the bench, very often, as the result of such reading, he recalled instantly not only the true law applicable to the pending controversy, but the legal work or volume in which it was laid down. He frequently did this, while others concerned in the question were groping in

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thick darkness. To cite or produce the needful learning when it was unexpected was a sort of by-play which he much enjoyed, but always in a quiet way and without the least ostentation. He liked to surprise by turning on light which others were not ready to furnish. He was well-versed in the law of special plead- ing, and had a keen relish for it, both its theory and its practice. His expertness as a special pleader was an accomplishment of which he was somewhat proud. While a practitioner at the bar it gave him real pleasure to ensnare an adversary by the adroit use of a replication or a rejoinder, to say nothing of the rebutter. He knew the subtle mystery of "giving color," and in handling the traverse "de injuria" he was supposed to be especially able and effective. He was fond also of a special demurrer, and of all the nice and refined distinctions which that searching instrument of pleading flushes for discussion where special pleading prevails. The whole system of special pleading having been abolished in this state at the close of the last century, only in the Federal courts did he have, after he removed to Georgia, any outlet for his skill in this kind of forensic combat, and he lived to see the system disappear from these courts also. He deplored its destruction. He deplored its destruction, both as a partial disarming of the legal profession and as a calamity to public justice, for with Lord Coke he devoutly believed "the law speaketh by good pleading." He was aware, however, of the abuses of which special pleading in its full vigor and extreme application was susceptible, and was not averse to the improvements which it underwent in England by the new rules. Indeed, he considered it still further improvable. What he really desired to stand and remain permanent was the essence of the system, in its substantial elements. In the moral attributes of a judge he was truly great-none could be greater. He loved justice and administered it in mercy. By diligent and conscientious labor he endeavored to ascertain the very right of every case and to give every litigant his due. His judgments were ren- dered without favor, except favor to justice, and without fear, except the fear that they might be erroneous. It was incumbent upon him as matter of official duty to prepare written opinions; nevertheless, he did prepare quite a number. Several of these may be seen in the thirty-fifth volume of the Georgia Reports, and some of the same cases, together with others, appear in Abbott's United States Reports. On certain questions of grave importance, as, for instance, taking the test oath by attorneys at law, he made the pioneer decisions, and was afterward followed (though perhaps without acknowledgment) by the supreme court of the United States. The great debt of Georgia and her people to Judge Erskine is not so much for the details of his judicial administration as for its spirit; its spirit of gentle justice; its spirit of law civil as distinguished from law military; the spirit of law in its benignity as distinguished from law in its fury or the fury of its minister. This spirit manifested itself and became conspicuous at the very outset of his judicial career, though it was not fully appreciated by the public at large until many years afterward. He was a true civil magistrate, a true ambassador of peace at a time when war, though it had relinquished arms, was still raging in the emotions of many, and in the greedy craving of some who, eager for the spoils of conquest, hoped that much of what sword and fire had left might be taken by a sort of judicial pillage through summary sentences of condemnation under the confiscation laws. This hope was doomed to utter disappointment and defeat, in so far as it rested upon the Federal courts in Georgia. Judge Erskine, refusing to adopt the short and sharp practice which was said to prevail in one or more of the neighboring states, maintained that there could not, should not, be any summary condemnation in his courts, but that every case had to await investigation and determination by a jury. This gave

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cooling time, and enabled many persons to avail themselves of the more ex- tended amnesty which was subsequently granted. The consequence was that none of the people subject to his jurisdiction underwent the misery and distress of losing by peace the little they had not lost by war. There was no confiscation of property in Georgia. Honor to the wise, moderate, upright and incorruptible judge. Honor to his name and memory, now and for all time!

GEN. CLEMENT A. EVANS, who is author of the chapter in this work on the military history of Georgia, cites with some pride his nativity as a Georgian and the occurrence of his infancy amidst the terrors of the Creek Indian' war in southwestern Georgia, in 1836. Coming from an ancestry that participated in the revolutionary struggle and in the various wars of the Union, he entered life in Stewart county, at a time and place, where his people were in battle with the Indians and where no family was entirely safe from savage hostility. His father was a farmer and his first years were spent upon the farm." Early, however, a move was made to Lumpkin, the county town, for the purpose of educating the children of the household, and in that delightful place, whose inhabitants were noted for refinement, hospitality and wealth, he received his early education. After his graduation from the law school of Judge William Tracy Gould, in Augusta, which was at that time the resort of young students, ambitious to obtain education for the bar, he was admitted to the practice of law just before he had attained the age of nineteen years. Returning to his native county, he opened his office among those who had known him from his boyhood, and with very little delay obtained an excellent business. The bar at that time in southwestern Georgia, was composed, as it is now, of some of the finest lawyers in the state. Many of them were, in fact, noted jurists. Among the nestors of the profession were Seaborn Jones, Alfred Iverson, Hines Holt, and Judge Wellborn; and, some- what younger, although not less noted, were Benning, Blanford, Worrill, Tucker, Perkins, Wimberly and many others. Among the yet younger were Sloan, Clarke, Douglas, Harrell and the like. After entering this field, when the conflict was sharp, and meeting cordial treatment and achieving success, Mr. Evans was invited to a co-partnership with his former preceptor, Col. Worrill, which he accepted. After that his life as a lawyer was spent in the firm of Worrill & Evans until, obtaining the ready and generous consent of his partner to conduct the business alone, he entered the Confederate army in the first year of the war, having been engaged in active practice eight years. The confidence shown in his general ability by his county people is shown by his election soon after he was twenty- one years of age to the office of judge of their county court, which was a court of extensive jurisdiction in civil suits, and involved the care of the county business in general. The service of his county being well rendered in this position, he was again soon honored by election, at the age of twenty-six, to the senate of Georgia, at the gravely important period when the questions which resulted in the Confederate war, agitated the whole country. In those questions he took what was called the "southern rights" side, and was placed upon the electoral Breckinridge ticket as an alternate during the warm political canvass of 1860. Although young, he had been trained in political debate, and went ardently into the canvass espousing the fortunes of the Breckinridge democratic party, although he had deplored the division of his party at Charleston, and its breach into the two factions of Breckinridge and Douglas. After the election of President Lincoln, he first favored what was termed the co-operative movement, which was designed to effect a union of all the southern states in a concerted separation from the United States, and introduced in the legislature resolutions to that end. But

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becoming quickly satisfied that this movement could not be made practicable, he advocated separate state action. Immediately after it became evident that war would ensue, Evans offered his services as a soldier. His tastes were military, and had been gratified in peace by active connection with the volunteer companies of his town, and through these he had acquired knowledge of military tactics and discipline, which prepared him, as well as inspired him to enter upon the duties of a Confederate soldier. In all that was required of such a soldier he devoted himself from the beginning to the close of the long bloody struggle. His first promotion was to the rank of major, and next to colonel of the Thirty-first Georgia regiment. Then he was commissioned brigadier-general, succeeding Gen. Gordon to the command of his brigade, and after Gordon was assigned to the command of a corps, he was assigned to the command of the division composed of the Virginia brigade of Gen. Terry, containing the old Stonewall brigade, and the brigades from Louisiana of Stafford and Hayes, commanded by Col. Waggoman; and, also, his own Georgia brigade. In these several positions he served in the commands of Stonewall Jackson until his death, and then with Ewell, Early and Gordon, all in the army of Lee, sharing with his men the dangers of the great battles, the many skirmishes and the increasing privations of the famous war, receiving several severe wounds, and surrendering under Lee at Appomattox, with guns still hot from firing at the latest hour. Fully recognizing that the issue made had been settled, Gen. Evans returned home and advocated the restoration of his state at once to all its former position in the Union, and urged such progressive measures as would make the Union valuable to the state. His addresses were all in advocacy of honorable assent to the arbitrament of the sword without any servile concessions; of cordial invitation to capital and immigration; of general improvement in all material development and of full confidence in the recuperation of the south. Gen. Evans has been a member of the Methodist church from his youth, and accustomed to take public part in the work of religious bodies, but after the close of the war he joined the Georgia conference, in which as a minister, he was placed in charge of several important positions, and has now the management of two valuable financial interests of his conference. In his business life, before and since the war, he has had the management of several large enterprises, which have been successfully conducted, and has uniformly taken a conspicuous part in all public affairs. He organized, and as president, guided to success the Augusta Real Estate and Improvement company, and also the Augusta and Summerville Land company, and was an active director in the Augusta Exposition company, and the Cotton States and International Exposition company of 1895. His political life consisted of an open and active espousal of the democratic party and advocacy of its candidates, without seeking office himself, until, in 1894, he was then, for a time, a candidate for nomination by the democratic convention for the office of governor, and discussed throughout the state the leading issues of the day, but perceiving that his party was threatened with disruption into factions, he withdrew by a notable public letter, and afterward canvassed the state in behalf of party principles and harmony, contributing very greatly to the success which followed. Gen. Evans has been widely known for his patriotic acceptance of the true results of the late war. His address as early as 1875, at the laying of the corner-stone of the splendid Confederate monument in Augusta, Ga., was copied extensively by the press of the United States. He is also thoroughly devoted to the comradeship and cause of the Confederate states. He was the first president of the Confederate Survivors' Association of Augusta, and afterward president of the Confederate camp in Atlanta. He is now major-general, commanding Georgia division, United Confederate Veterans, and actively interested in collecting Con-

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Memoirs of Georgia; containing historical accounts of the state's civil, military, industrial and professional interests, and personal sketches of many of its people. Vol. I, Part 113

Author: Publication date: 1859 Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association Number of Pages: 1294

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1294