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. II, Part 12

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1166

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. II > Part 12

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During the last year of his life Mr. Grady delivered addresses before the New England society in New York, various organizations in Boston, the university of Virginia and other bodies, which gave him a national reputation. In his famous New England banquet speech in New York he said among other things:

"Pardon me one word, Mr. President, spoken for the sole purpose of getting into the volumes that go out annually, freighted with the rich eloquence of your speakers-The fact that the Cavalier, as well as the Puritan, was on the continent in its early days, and that he was 'up and able to be about.' I have read your books carefully, and I find no mention of that fact, which seems to me an important one for preserving a sort of historical equilibrium, if for nothing else.

"Let me remind you that the Virginian Cavalier first challenged France on this continent, that Cavalier John Smith gave New England his very name, and was so pleased with the job that he has been handing his own name around ever since, and that while Miles Standish was cutting off men's ears for courting a girl with- out her parents' consent, and forbidding men to kiss their wives on Sunday, the Cavalier was courting everything in sight, and that the Almighty had vouchsafed great increase to the Cavalier colonies, the huts in the wilderness being as full as the nests in the woods. But having incorporated the Cavalier as a fact in your charming little book, I shall let him work out his own salvation, as he has always done with engaging gallantry, and we will hold no controversy as to his merits. Why should we? Neither Puritan nor Cavalier long survived as such. The virtues and traditions of both happily still live for the inspiration of their sons and the saving of the old fashion. Both Puritan and Cavalier were lost in the storm of the first revolution, and the American citizen, supplanting both, and stronger than either, took possession of the republic, bought by their common love and fashioned to wisdom, and charged himself with teaching men govern- ment and establishing the voice of the people as the voice of God.

"My friend, Dr. Talmage, has told you that the typical American has yet to come. Let me tell you that he has already come. Great types, like valuable plants, are slow to flower and fruit. But from the union of these colonists, Puri- tans and Cavaliers, from the straightening of their purposes and the crossing of their blood, slowly perfecting through a century, came he who stands as the first typical American, the first who comprehended within himself all the strength and gentleness, all the majesty and grace of this republic-Abraham Lincoln. He was the sum of Puritan and Cavalier; for in his ardent nature were fused the virtues of both, and in the depths of his great soul the faults of both were lost. He was greater than Puritan, greater than Cavalier, in that he was American, and that in his homely form were first gathered the vast and thrilling forces of his ideal government, charging it with such tremendous meaning, and so elevating it above human suffering that martyrdom, though infamously aimed, came as a fitting crown to a life consecrated from the cradle to human liberty. Let us, each cherishing the traditions and honoring his fathers, build with reverent hands to the type of his simple but sublime life, in which all types are honored; and in

LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.

our common glory as Americans there will be plenty and some to spare for your forefathers and for mine.

"In speaking to the toast with which you have honored me, I accept the term, 'The New South,' as in no sense disparaging to the old. Dear to me, sir, is the home of my childhood, and the traditions of my people. I would not, if I could, dim the glory they won in peace and war, or by word or deed take off from the splendor and grace of their civilization, never equaled, and perhaps never to be equaled in its chivalric strength and grace. There is a new south, not through protest against the old, but because of new conditions, new adjustments, and, if you please, new ideas and aspirations. It is to this that I address myself.

"Dr. Talmage has drawn for you with a master hand the picture of your return- ing armies. He has told you how, in the pomp and circumstance of war, they came back to you, marching with proud and victorious tread, reading their glory in a nation's eye! Will you bear with me while I tell you of another army that sought its home at the close of the late war? An army that. marched home in defeat and not in victory-in pathos and not in splendor, but in glory that equaled yours, and to hearts as loving as ever welcomed heroes home. Let me picture to you the footsore Confederate soldier, as, buttoning up in his faded gray jacket the parole which was to bear testimony to his children of his fidelity and faith, he turned his face southward from Appomattox in April, 1865. Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds; having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his Confederates in silence, and, lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot the old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and painful journey. What does he find? Let me ask you who went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four years' sacrifice, what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as surrender, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful? He finds his house in ruins, his farm devastated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barn emptied, his trade destroyed, his money worthless; his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away. His people are without law or legal status; his comrades slain, and the burdens of others are heavy on his shoulders. Crushed by defeat, his very traditions gone, without money, credit, employment, material training; and besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelligence-the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves.

"What does he do-this hero in gray with a heart of gold? Does he sit down in sullenness and despair? Not for a day. Surely God, who had stripped him of his prosperity, inspired him in his adversity. As ruin was never before so overwhelming, never was restoration swifter. The soldier stepped from the trenches into the furrow. Horses that had charged Federal guns marched before the plow, and fields that ran red with human blood in April, were green with the harvest June; women reared in luxury cut up their dresses and made breeches for their husbands, and, with a patience and heroism that fit women always as a garment, gave their hands to work. There was little bitterness in all this. Cheerfulness and frankness prevailed. 'Bill Arp' struck the keynote when he said: 'Well, I killed as many of them as they did of me, and now I am going to work.' Or the soldier returning home after defeat, and roasting some corn on the roadside, who made the remark to his comrades: 'You may leave the south if you want to, but I am going to Sandersville, kiss my wife and raise a crop, and if the Yankees fool with me any more I will whip 'em again.' I want to

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

say to Gen. Sherman-who is considered an able man in our parts, though some people think he is kind of careless about fire-that from the ashes he left us in 1864 we have raised a brave and beautiful city; that somehow or other we have caught the sunshine in the bricks and mortar of our homes, and have builded therein not one ignoble prejudice or memory. * *

"But what of the negro? Have we solved the problem he presents, or pro- gressed in honor and equity toward the solution? Let the record speak to the point. No section shows a more prosperous laboring population than the negroes of the south. None in fuller sympathy with the employing and land-owning class. He shares our school fund, has the fullest protection of our laws, and the friend- ship of our people. Self-interest, as well as honor, demand that they should have this. Our future, our very existence, depends upon our working out this problem in full and exact justice. We understand that when Lincoln signed the emanci- pation proclamation your victory was assured; for he then committeed you to the cause of human liberty, against which the arms of man cannot prevail; while those of our statesman who trusted to make slavery the corner-stone of the Confederacy, doomed us to defeat as far as they could, committing us to a cause that reason could not defend or the sword maintain in the sight of advancing civilization. Had Mr. Toombs said-he did not say-that he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill, he would have been foolish, for he might have known that whenever slavery became entangled in war it must perish, and that the chattel in human flesh ended forever in New England when your fathers-not to be blamed for parting with what did not pay-sold their slaves to our fathers, not to be praised for knowing a paying thing when they saw it.

"The relations of the southern people with the negro are close and cordial. We remember with what fidelity for four years he guarded our defenseless women and children, whose husbands and fathers were fighting against his freedom. To his credit be it said that whenever he struck a blow for his own liberty he fought in open battle, and when at last he raised his black and humble hands that the shackles might be struck off, those hands were innocent of wrong against his helpless charges, and worthy to be taken in loving grasp by every man who honors loyalty and devotion. Ruffians have maltreated him, rascals have misled him, philanthropists established a bank for him, but the south with the north protests against injustice to this simple and sincere people. To liberty and enfranchisement is as far as the law can carry the negro. The rest must be left to conscience and common sense. It should be left to those among whom his lot is cast, with whom he is indissolubly connected and whose prosperity de- pends upon their possessing his intelligent sympathy and confidence. Faith has been kept with him in spite of calumnious assertions to the contrary by those who assume to speak for us, or by frank opponents. Faith will be kept with him in future if the south holds her reason and integrity.

"But have we kept with you? In the fullest sense, yes. When Lee surrendered, I don't say when Johnston surrendered, because I understand he still alludes to the time when he met Gen. Sherman last as the time when he 'determined to abandon any further prosecution of the struggle'-when Lee surrendered, I say, and Johnston quit, the south became, and has been loyal to the Union. We fought hard enough to know that we were whipped, and in perfect frankness accepted as final the arbitrament of the sword to which we had appealed. The south found her jewel in the toad's head of defeat, the shackles that had held her in narrow limita- tions fell forever when the shackles of the negro slave were broken.

"Under the old regime the negroes were slaves to the south, the south was a slave to the system. The old plantation, with its simple police regulation, and its

LITERATURE AND JOURNALISM.

feudal habit, was the only type possible under slavery. Thus was gathered in the hands of a splendid and chivalric oligarchy the substance that should have been diffused among the people, as the rich blood under certain artificial conditions is gathered at the heart, filling that with affluent rupture, but leaving the body chill and colorless. The old south rested everything on slavery and agriculture, uncon- scious that these could neither give nor maintain healthy growth. The new south presents a perfect democracy, the oligarchs leading in the popular movement-a social system compact and closely knitted, less splendid on the surface but stronger at the core; a hundred farms for every plantation, fifty homes for every palace, and a diversified industry that meets the complex needs of this complex age.

"The new south is enamored of her new work. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life. The light of a grander day is falling fair on her face. She is thrilling with the consciousness of a growing power and prosperity. As she stands upright, full statured and equal among the people of the earth, breathing the keen air and looking out upon the expanding horizon, she understands that her emancipation came because in the inscrutable wisdom of God her honest purpose was crossed and her brave armies were beaten. This is said in no spirit of time- serving or apology. The south has nothing for which to apologize. She believes that the late struggle between the states was war and not rebellion, revolution and not conspiracy, and that her convictions were as honest as yours. I should be unjust to the dauntless spirit of the south and to my own convictions if I did not make this plain in this presence. The south has nothing to take back. In my native town of Athens is a monument that crowns its central hills-a plain, white shaft. Deep cut into its shining side is a name dear to me above the names of men, that of a brave and simple man who died in brave and simple faith. Not for all the glories of New England-from Plymouth Rock all the way-would I exchange the heritage he left me in his soldier's death. To the feet of that shaft I shall send my children's children to reverence him who ennobled their name with his heroic blood. But, sir, speaking from the shadow of that memory, which I honor as I do nothing else on earth, I say that the cause in which he suffered and for which he gave his life was adjudged by higher and fuller wisdom than his or mine, and I am glad that the omniscient God held the balance of battle in his almighty hand, and that human slavery was swept forever from American soil-the American Union saved from the wreck of war.

"This message, Mr. President, comes to you from consecrated ground. Every foot of the soil about the city in which I live is as sacred as a battle-ground of the republic. Every hill that infests it is hallowed to you by the blood of your brothers who died for your victory, and doubly hallowed to us by the blood of those who died hopeless, but undaunted, in defeat-sacred soil to all of us, rich with memories that make us purer and stronger and better. Silent but stanch witnesses in its red desolation of the matchless valor of American hearts, and the deathless glory of American arms-speaking an eloquent witness in its white peace and prosperity to the indissoluble union of American states, and the imperishable brotherhood of the American people.

"Now, what answer has New England to this message? Will she permit the prejudice of war to remain in the hearts of the conquerers when it has died in the hearts of the conquered? Will she transmit this prejudice to the next generation, that in their hearts, which never felt the generous ardor of conflict, it may perpetrate itself? Will she withhold, save in strained courtesy, the hand which, straight from his soldier's heart, Grant offered to Lee at Appomattox. Will she make division of a restored and happy people which gathered above the clouds of your dying captain, filling his heart with grace, touching his lips with praise and glorifying his

MEMOIRS OF GEORGIA.

path to the grave; will she make this vision on which the last sigh of his expiring soul breathes a benediction, a cheat and delusion? If she does, the south, never abject in asking for comradeship, must accept with dignity its refusal; but if she does-if she accepts with frankness and sincerity this message of good-will and fellowship, then will the prophecy of Webster, delivered in this very society, forty years ago, amid tremendous applause, be verified in its fullest and final sense, when he said: 'Standing hand to hand and clasping hands, we should remain united as we have been for sixty years, citizens of the same country, members of the same government, united, all united now and united forever.' There have been difficul- ties, contentions and controversies, but I tell you that in my judgment:

" 'Those opposed eyes, Which like the meteors of a troubled heaven, All of one nature, of one substance bred, Did lately meet in th' intestine shock, Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks March all one way.' "

In December, 1889, Mr. Grady contracted a severe cold while speaking in the open air on his visit to Plymouth Rock, and shortly after returning to Atlanta he died on the morning of Dec. 23. There was general mourning throughout the country upon the announcement of his death, and his funeral on Christmas Day was attended by the largest concourse ever seen in Atlanta. Many notable tributes were paid him by distinguished orators, poets and journalists.

In the center of Atlanta stands the Grady statue-a handsome bronze memorial which is visited every year by thousands of tourists from every quarter of the Union. But the great journalist and orator does not need a monument to keep his memory fragrant. His name is still a household word in Georgia, and it is synonymous with genius, patriotism, charity, public spirit and enterprise. There has been only one Henry Grady in this generation.

PREFACE TO MEDICAL HISTORY.

As is common with writers I preface these chapters with an apology. Under the circumstances I feel that I am entitled to charity from critics. If they knew the difficulty of obtaining the data necessary for such work they would not be censorious. Much of the data from which these chapters were written were obtained from pamphlets, newspapers and personal recollections of my profes- sional brethren. I have done the best I could under the circumstances. I have as carefully as possible verified the correctness of the statements made in these chapters, and am satisfied that they may be relied upon. Let it be remembered that these chapters are not intended to be either a consecutive or full history of medical matters in Georgia. Such a history cannot be written for the reason that the necessary data have not been preserved. I have written as best I could upon what appeared to me to be the most interesting and important questions relative to the medical profession of our commonwealth, and express the hope that I have succeeded in discharging the task to the satisfaction of my professional brethren. With these explanations I submit my work to the generous, noble- hearted physicians of Georgia.

EUGENE FOSTER.

CHAPTER V.

BY EUGENE FOSTER, M. D., AUGUSTA.

THE MEDICAL PROFESSION OF GEORGIA-TOPOGRAPHY-CLIMATOLOGY- ENDEMIC AND EPIDEMIC DISEASES-HISTORY OF YELLOW FEVER IN GEORGIA-PUBLIC HEALTH LAWS-SANITATION-THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH-LAWS GOVERNING PRACTICE OF MEDICINE-REGULAR MEDICAL COLLEGES-MEDICAL ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA-MEDICAL JOURNALS- INSANITY-STATE LUNATIC ASYLUM.

TOPOGRAPHY.

F ROM the Commonwealth of Georgia, by J. T. Henderson, Esq., commis- sioner of agriculture of Georgia, 1885, I extract the following facts: "Georgia is naturally divided into a number of zones, extending across the state in direction approximately parallel with the coast line, differing more or less in geology, topography, climate and production. The state presents great variety in her topography. From an extensive area of nearly level surface in South Georgia the country graduates towards the north through undulating, rolling and hilly lands to a mountainous region of diversified character in North Georgia, rising at the same time from sea level to an altitude of 5,000 feet. The state is divided by bold defines into three divisions: lower, middle and upper Georgia, each having, along with much diversity in itself, some prominent characteristics in common throughout its extent. The first of these natural divisions, belonging to the south, that of southern or lower Georgia, extends from Florida and the Atlantic coast to a line crossing the state from Augusta to Columbus, and passing at the heads of navigation, near Milledgeville and Macon. This is an approximately level, sandy region, covering more than half of the state, and embracing all the cretaceous and tertiary formations. This section graduates from sea level to about 500 feet. Beginning with the low marsh lands on the coast, the country rises by terraces, first to the height of twelve or fifteen feet above tide, and next, thirty or forty miles inland, to a height of seventy-five or one hundred feet. Beyond this the surface varies from nearly level to undulating, and becoming hilly in the upper, or northern part. Middle Georgia is a broad, hilly region, having few elevations that are designated as mountains, and these, with few exceptions, are such as would hardly receive the distinctive name of ridge in the more northern portions of the state. Lands too steep for the plow are of rare occurrence over the larger part of this area. Pine mountain, in Harris, and Graves mountain, in Lincoln, are elevations of a few hundred feet above the surrounding country, that form conspicuous features in the landscape. Stone mountain stands 600 feet above the surrounding country, and covers, at its base, an area of about one square mile. This is a mass of denuded granite, destitute of vegetation, except here and there a bush or scrubby tree that finds foothold in the crevices of the rocks. The

Eugene Foster M. D.

MEDICAL HISTORY.

summit affords a view reaching beyond the limits of the state. The Chattachoo- chee ridge is a prominent feature, forming a long water divide, reaching nearly across the state, from Habersham to Troup county. Atlanta is situated on the crest of this ridge. One conspicuous feature of the larger portion of middle and north Georgia is the existence of fragmentary stones, usually of quartz rocks, scattered over the surface of the lands. Upper Georgia embraces a section with striking peculiarities of surface and great variety of soil. Northeast Georgia varies from 1,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level. Northwest Georgia, generally distinguished as the Limestone region, ranges from 600 or 700 to 2,500 feet, and has an extent of 3,360 square miles, covering the larger part of ten counties. Some of the features of these divisions of the state, particularly the topography, pass by almost imperceptible graduations into each other, but nevertheless become well marked distinctive characteristics of the geological divisions to which they pertain. About 3,000 square miles, ncar the Atlantic coast, has an altitude of 100 feet or less above the tide; 29,000, or about half of the state, ranges from 100 to 500 feet ; 20,000 square miles, from 500 to 1,000 fect; and about 6,000 square miles is above the altitude of 1,000 fect. A large part of the last area consists of steep ridges and mountains, some of which, in the Blue ridge, reach an altitude of about 5,000 feet above sea level. The mountainous parts of the state lie in one degree of altitude north of the thirty-fourth parallel. The Appalachian chain enters the state with several parallel lines of elevations. The highest of these, the Blue ridge, has an altitude of from 3,000 to nearly 5,000 feet. The Cohutta range, continuous with the Unaka of Tennessee, 3,000 feet in altitude, with an abrupt escarpment toward the valley of the Oostanaula, on the west, lies about twenty rniles west of the Blue ridge. Next in order, on the northwest, comes the Lookout and Sand mountain table lands belonging to the Allegheny system. Between the principal ranges of mountains here enumerated are the numerous minor elevations or ridges observing a general parallelism. These decrease in heiglit toward the southwest, and ultimately die out, the most easterly ranges disap- pearing first, and the others in succession. The Blue ridge, as an unbroken chain, extends only about one-third the distance across the state, terminating abruptly. The Cohutta range continues into Alabama in a low elevation, known as Dugdown mountain; while the Table Land mountains, with their associate ridges, extend with decreasing altitudes many miles into Alabama.

MOUNTAIN ELEVATIONS.

The following are the elevations above the average sea level of some of the prominent mountains and other points of interest in the state, determined by the United States coast and geodetic survey: Sitting Bull (middle summit of Nantahela) in Towns county, 5,046; Mona (east summit of Nantahela) in Towns, 5,039; Enota, Towns, 4,797; Rabun Bald, Rabun, 4,718; Blood, Union, 4,468; Tray, Habersham, 4,403; Cohutta, Fannin, 4,155; Dome, Towns, 4,042; Grassy, Pickens, 3,290; Tallulah (northwest summit), Habersham, 3,172; Tallulah (southeast sum- mit), Habersham, 2,849: Yona, White, 3, 167; Walker, Lumpkin, 2,614; Lookout (at High point), Walker, 2,391; Pine Log, Bartow, 2,340; Lookout (at Round mountain), Walker, 2,331; Pigeon (at High point), Walker, 2,329; Skit, 2,075; Sawnee, Forsyth, 1,968; Kennesaw, Cobb, 1,809; Stone mountain, De Kalb, 1,686; Sweat, 1,693; Lavender, Floyd, 1,680; Cleveland Church, White, 1,616; Taylor's ridge, Chattooga. 1.556; Dahlonega Agricultural college, 1,518; Mt. Alto, Floyd, 1,505; Clarkesville court house, Habersham, 1,478; Carnes moun- tain, Polk, 1,296; Atlanta, Capital (flag staff), 1, 163.

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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. II, Part 12

Author: Publication date: 1859 Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association Number of Pages: 1166

Author:
Publication date: 1859
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga., The Southern historicl association
Number of Pages: 1166