Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 107

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II > Part 107

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In the summer of 1834, for the sake of his health, he visited Texas, resolved to settle there, and went on to Mexico City; but, on starting back to warn the Texans of the proceedings against Moses Austin, was taken and thrown in prison, where, during a confinement of several months, his health was fatally impaired. In the hope of recovery, after returning to Mississippi, he made a voyage to Santiago, Cuba, but died off that port, December 31, 1835, in his 42d year.

Walker, Peter. Peter Walker had charge of Concord after Gayoso departed. He reserved an apartment when Governor Sargent lived there, and Gayoso wrote him in 1799 to make arrangements for General Wilkinson to have the place for a residence for his wife. Wilkinson had asked Daniel Clark to request Gayoso to give him the plantation in payment of a debt of the Spanish government to him, on his salary or pension. He was the first clerk of the Adams county court, and resigned in 1802.

Walker, Robert John, was born at Northumberland, Pa., July 23, 1801; graduated from the university of Pennsylvania in 1819; studied both law and medicine, and began the practice of law at Pittsburg in 1821. He was the grandson of William Walker, who came from England about 1710. His father, Jonathan Hoge Walker, a soldier of the Revolution, retired from the office of judge of the United States district court in Pennsylvania to seek better health at Natchez, where he died in 1824. The latter was accompanied by his sister, aunt of Robert J., who married Stephen Minor, of Louisiana. Duncan S. Walker, (q. v.) an elder brother of Robert J., also sought the promising field of law practice at Natchez, and became the partner of Edward Turner. When Tur- ner was elevated to the supreme bench Duncan asked his brother to join him as partner. Robert J., meanwhile, had married Mary Blechenden Bache, a great-grand-daughter of Benjamin Franklin, grand-daughter of A. J. Dallas, and daughter of the famous Pro- fessor Bache. He had gained some prominence at the Pittsburg bar, and demonstrated a remarkable grasp of common and statu- tory law. As chairman of the State Democratic committee at twenty-two years of age, and a brilliant public speaker on politics, he claimed the distinction of bringing forward Andrew Jackson as a candidate for the presidency in 1824. With this prestige he joined his brother at Natchez in 1826. After four or five years' residence he was one of the most prominent lawyers of that famous town, and the death of Griffith, Reed and Adams in 1831-33, gave him a more exclusive field. He collected and annotated the first volume of reports of decisions of the Mississippi supreme court, 1818 to 1832. Pennsylvania had had its "nullification" and "rebel- lion" in the days of George Washington, and this son of Pennsyl- vania, in the time of the nullification excitement of 1832, was a

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firm supporter of Jackson, and sent out an eloquent address in op- position to Calhoun. In 1835 he obtained the opportunity to at- tend one of the banquets to Senator Poindexter, at Raymond, and immediately after Poindexter's attack upon Jackson, delivered a speech of great power in defense of the president and in opposition to the theories that led to disunion. Henry S. Foote proposed then and there that he should be a candidate for the senate in opposition to Poindexter, the strongest man of the State. He and Foote then began a canvass of the State. The campaign was protracted from various causes for nearly two years, and resulted in the election of Walker to the United States senate.

J. F. H. Claiborne wrote of the senatorial campaign : "With some reluctance the Democracy accepted Mr. Walker. It was not easy for those who had seen their printing offices assaulted, and their public meetings dispersed by violence and bloodshed, to accept as their leader in the impending struggle, one who had gone to the enemy on the field of battle, and had witnessed these out- rages in the community in which he resided, without any overt sign of disapprobation." Claiborne wrote with personal feeling, the anti-bank people having used him roughly. He adds that Walker bought a plantation on Pearl river, above Jackson, and made his home there, to avoid the prejudice against a Natchez candidate.

By a strange reversal, while his first campaign for the senate was against the veteran Poindexter, his second was against Seargent S. Prentiss, who began his career as a lawyer in Walker's office. Prentiss was the greatest orator of his time, but he was the Whig candidate and favored the payment of the Union bank bonds, and again Walker triumphed.

Walker made his maiden speech in the senate in March, 1836, on the reception of memorials for the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia. He opposed the reception as an abuse of the right of petition ,and denounced the abolitionists as incendiaries, seeking to excite insurrections. He said: "Our peculiar institu- tions will yield only at the point of the bayonet; and in a struggle for their defense we would be found to be invincible. This is not the language of a Nullifier or Secessionist. No, it is the opinion of one who ever has opposed, and will continue to oppose those doctrines, as fatal to the perpetuity of the American Union. It is the language of a man whose love of this Union is as warm as the vital blood that gushes from his heart; who values his own destiny here as less than a bubble bursting on the ocean's surge, compared with the duration of this government, and life itself as utterly worth- less were this Union dismembered." He called on Daniel Webster to restrain the abolitionists, and John C. Calhoun to "prevent the formation of a southern sectional and geographical party, which must prove fatal to the permanence of this confederacy." As a Pennsylvanian and Mississippian he perhaps exerted a greater in- fluence than any other man to postpone the "inevitable conflict."

He brought forward the first Homestead bill, in 1836, unsuccess-

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fully. The Pre-emption act that he originated in 1841 became a law in 1844, giving the first settler on land the first privilege as a purchaser. These laws have become settled principles in the law of the land. In 1836 he made a famous speech on this subject, defending "squatters." In this debate and others at this time he met Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay, and dem- onstrated remarkable resourcefulness in argument.

In the senate he generally, as the changing issues permitted, deprecated sectionalism, and expressed admiration of Henry Clay. In this attitude he was associated with Rives, of Virginia. But he was in no wise disloyal to the South, cemented as it was, by the peculiar industrial system. He introduced in congress a bill to appropriate the 2 per cent. fund for the benefit of Miss., which passed the senate in 1840, and carried a grant of land that would build the railroad from Brandon to the Alabama line, and insure the union of the Atlantic and the river. He had also introduced a bill to make two States out of the present Florida, with slavery, as a condition precedent to the admission of the great and populous domain of Iowa, without slavery. Walker was loyal to the leader- ship of Thomas H. Benton long enough to expunge the obnoxious censure of Jackson, and then broke with him, and led the revolt against Benton's dictatorial methods. When Benton was trying to get his army bill up for consideration, Walker had the unpardon- able audacity to sidetrack him with his bill for recognizing the independence of Texas.

He was a slaveholder himself and defended slavery, but not as a permanent condition. When nominated in 1844, for the vice- presidency, by the Democratic party of Tennessee, he wrote his famous Texas Letter, in which he proposed the policy that was afterward followed, except in regard to slavery, for which he rec- ommended gradual abolition in the new State, his theory being that such a State, with Mexico beyond it, would gradually attract the negro population into the latter country, and free the United States for a white population. When the city of Mexico was cap- tured he openly advocated the annexation of that country to the United States, in the interests of humanity. He was an enthusi- astic believer in the beneficence of American institutions. Senator Walker was credited with great influence over President Tyler, the accidental successor of General Harrison, and to the Natchez lawyer was ascribed the veto of the bill rechartering the national bank, which caused the rupture between Tyler and the party that elected him. Because of his help in the election of Polk over Henry Clay, Walker was promised the office of attorney-general ; but he preferred that of secretary of the treasury, and obtained it. It was in this cabinet position that he achieved his greatest fame. The Walker tariff of 1846 is still the theme of orators when tariff is a campaign issue. His treasury reports found great favor in England and were reprinted there by the government. The ware- housing system in the customs service, was originated in his ad- ministration of the finances. When Pierce was elected president

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he tendered Mr. Walker the mission to China with the title of Commissioner, and though private reasons prevented his going to the east, he prepared a statement of the policy of the United States in the Orient that attracted favorable attention. In 1857, when the war was on for the extension or restriction of slavery in the West, President Buchanan, having refused to appoint him secretary of state, persuaded him to become governor of Kansas. Harper's Weekly commented: "Mr. Walker may be regarded as the foster- father of Texas ; may he be equally fortunate with Kansas. He is in the prime of life; just fifty-six, he can afford to disdain the promptings of mere ephemeral ambition; his fortune, we presume is ample ; his fame is catholic. Let us suppose he will put an end to the sempi-eternal squabbles of the Free-State men and the Pro-Slavery men, armed invaders and border ruffians, Sharps rifles from the east and bowie-knives from the west, and let us contemplate him-this great work achieved what reward would be too high for such a man?" But he was put into a bedlam, expected to bring order out of chaos, and the administration refused to support his policy. All he could do was to resign. But he at no time lost that dignity and intrepidity that characterized him.

He was consistent with his previous record, when he opposed secession in 1861; but he was not then a resident of Mississippi. In 1863 he was editing the Continental Monthly at New York, as an organ of his political and financial views, and maintaining a high place among the lawyers of the nation, when President Lin- coln sent him to Europe as financial agent. He would accept no salary, only his expenses, and did the work assigned him with great success.

His closing years were passed at Washington, practicing law be- fore the United States supreme court. He died at that city, No- vember 11, 1869. He was in the 30's conceded to be the first law- yer of the State. His education in all departments was as com- plete as the schools of that day afforded. He was a facile writer of poetry, and possessed a marvelous memory. The wonderful fact was known to many that he could write or dictate a long speech and then repeat it verbatim without the aid of the notes. As a speaker he was not flowery, and he did not often resort to appeals to passion or imagination. He was "a man of strong and generous instincts, of great simplicity and kindness of heart, of a most char- itable and confiding temper." He was very quick to defend his dignity and did not hesitate to attack the most formidable adversa- ries. In the course of the litigation regarding the Almedon quick- silver mine, he challenged the famous Jere S. Black, attorney-gen- eral under Buchanan. His person was well-proportioned, but de- cidedly diminutive; "his features were as delicate and gracious as those of a woman." He had eight children, the eldest of whom · was Gen. Duncan S. Walker, of New York. Financially he was a speculator, made a fortune by land ventures in addition to his prac- tice, in Mississippi, and lost it in the collapse that began in 1837. He was chief officer of a company to build a transcontinental rail-

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road in the early 50's, involving such land transactions as were afterward common. In later life he acquired and lost another fortune.

Walkers Bridge, a small hamlet in the south-central part of Pike county, on the Bogue Chitto, 12 miles east of Magnolia, the county seat, and nearest railroad and banking town. The population in 1900 was 52.

Walkiah, a former postoffice in the western part of Hancock county. Mail now goes to Picayune.

Wall, a postoffice of Tishomingo county.

Wallace, a postoffice of Panola county, 13 miles east of Bates- ville, the seat of justice for the southern district of Panola county, and the nearest railroad and banking town.

Wallerville, a village of Union county, on the Kansas City, Mem- phis & Birmingham R. R., 5 miles southeast of New Albany, the county seat, and nearest banking town. It has a church, several stores and a money order postoffice and express office. Population in 1900, 184. .

Wallhill, an incorporated post-town in the western part of Marshall county, 17 miles west of Holly Springs, the nearest rail- road and banking town. The place was named for William Wall. It has a church and a mill. Population in 1900, 65.

Walnut, a post-hamlet and station of Tippah county, on the Mo- bile, Jackson & Kansas City R. R., 16 miles north of Ripley, the county seat, and nearest banking town. Population in 1900, 72; in 1906 the population was estimated at 150. It is located in the midst of a fine farming section, and has 3 churches, several stores, a cotton gin, a saw mill, and a heading factory. The town supports a very good school.

Walnutgrove, an incorporated post-town in the southeastern part of Leake county, 17 miles north of Forest, the nearest railroad station and banking town, on the Alabama & Vicksburg R. R. It is located in a good farming section, and has a large trade from the surrounding country. It has two churches, an excellent school, known as the Mississippi Central Normal School, a steam mill, several mercantile establishments, and a newspaper,-the Dawn of Light,-a Democratic weekly, established in 1885, and now owned and edited by G. S. Ellis. Population in 1900, 207.

Walter, Harvey W., was born in Fairfield county, O., May 21, 1819. His parents were Virginians, and he removed with them to Michigan at an early age. He was thrown on his own resources at the age of fourteen, his father's wealth being swept away. He went to work; taught school and paid for a course in college, and came to Mississippi about 1838. He taught a school at Salem, Tippah County, and read law. In 1840 he was admitted to the practice of law; located at Holly Springs, and soon became pre- eminent at a bar which had few equals in the South. He was public spirited and identified with every enterprise for the advance- ment of his community and State. The Mississippi Central rail- road was projected and completed mainly through his efforts. He

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took great interest in education, and was the patron of every moral and religious movement. He was made grand master of the State lodge of Masons in 1844. He was a candidate for governor against John J. Pettus in 1859, opposed secession, was a member of the convention of 1861 ; entered the Confederate service ; became a lieu- tenant of infantry, but was transferred to the staff of Gen. Bragg, and served as judge advocate till the close of the war. He then resumed the practice of law at Holly Springs. When the yellow fever broke out in 1878 he threw open his doors to the refugees from Grenada. He sent his wife and daughters away, but he and his three sons met their death while heroically ministering to the sick and the dying.

Walters, a postoffice of Smith county, 15 miles northwest of Raleigh, the county seat. Forest is the nearest banking town.

Walthall, the capital of Webster county, is an incorporated post-town, 30 miles northeast of Winona, and 6 miles north of Eupora, the nearest railroad, telegraph and express station, on the Southern Ry. It was named in honor of Gen. Edward C. Walthall, the distinguished Confederate leader. The original county seat for Webster county was located at the old town of Greensboro, a few miles to the southwest of Walthall, and for many years the county seat of Choctaw county. The courthouse at Greensboro was burned in 1871, and the town rapidly fell into decay. In 1876, the site of the present town of Walthall was chosen for the county seat, and the county records were moved there on May 11 of that year, and a prosperous little town soon grew up. Unfortunately, when the Georgia Pacific, now the South- ern Railroad, came through this section in 1889, Walthall was left about five miles to the north, and the town has not grown very rapidly in consequence. It is located in a good farming region. A Democratic weekly newspaper is published here, the Warden, established in 1881, and now owned and edited by Troy Langston. Population in 1900, 170. The Walthall Normal School, a co-educational and non-sectarian institution, was established here in 1887; E. Morgan Shaw is the Principal.

Walthall, Edward Cary, was born at Richmond, Va., April 4, 1831, and when ten years of age accompanied his father, Barrett White Walthall, to Holly Springs, which became the new home of the family. Here he received his literary education, mainly in the noted classical school, St. Thomas Hall. He read law with his brother-in-law, George R. Freeman, of Pontotoc, for one year, and continued the study while deputy clerk of the court at Holly Springs, until admitted to the bar in 1852, when he removed to Coffeeville, and formed a law partnership with Judge Cheves. Four years later he was elected district attorney, an office he re- tained until the war. His first oration was delivered, within this period, at a reunion of the St. Thomas debating society at Holly Springs. He was married in 1856 to Sophie Bridgies, who died in the same year, and in 1859 to Mary Lecky Jones, of Mecklenburg county, Va. Among the volunteer companies organized in 1860-61

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was the Yalobusha Rifles, of which F. M. Aldridge was elected captain and Walthall first lieutenant. They rendezvoused at Union City, and were assigned to the 15th infantry, Col. W. S. Statham. June 15, about ten days after the organization of the regiment, Lieut .- Col. J. W. Hemphill resigned, and Lieut. Walthall was elected to the vacancy. The first service of the regiment was at Cumber- land Gap, whence they advanced into Kentucky under Gen. Zol- licoffer, in the winter of 1861-62. There was a disastrous encounter with George H. Thomas at Fishing Creek, and a terrible experience of rout and misery. But the steadfast heroism of Walthall and his regiment shone out all the more brilliantly with such a setting, and he became at once famous throughout the Confederacy. At the organization of the 29th regiment, at Corinth, Walthall was elected colonel, April 11, 1862. In this capacity he served under Beauregard at Corinth and in the retreat to Tupelo, and, in Chal- mers' brigade, accompanied Bragg in the movement to Chatta- nooga, and the advance into Kentucky, where Chalmers' brigade made the famous assault at Munfordville. In November Bragg rec- ommended him for promotion, and he was commissioned brigadier- general, to date from June 30. At the organization of the Army of Tennessee (q. v.) he was given command of a Mississippi bri- gade. Sickness kept him out of the battle of Murfreesboro, and his next great field was Chickamauga. Here, part of the army had the good fortune to strike Federal regiments on the line of march, and without great difficulty achieved a victory. But it was Walthall's duty to attack a line partly protected by log breastworks, and here, again, he met George H. Thomas. His brigade lost 32 per cent. in killed and wounded, but he siezed and held the main road to Chattanooga. In mid-November, with a brigade worn down to 1,500, he was ordered to hold Lookout Mountain, the point of great- est danger on Bragg's line investing Chattanooga, the Confederates being menaced by another Federal army brought from Vicksburg and Virginia. Assailed by Hooker's force of 10,000 men, Walthall fought the famous "battle above the clouds." Says a Northern writer, "Situated as he was, Walthall and his Mississippians made one of the bravest defenses that occurred anywhere at any time during the war. It was sublimely heroic under fearfully exasper- ating circumstances." The greater part of his brigade was cut off and captured. With the remnant he made a gallant fight on Mis- sionary Ridge, next day. When confusion and disorder reigned, Walthall, though painfully wounded, kept the field, held the enemy in check, and when the army was safe across the Chickamauga was lifted from his saddle unable to walk. At the opening of the great Atlanta campaign he was given another important duty, the holding of Resaca, essential to the safety of Johnston's army. Polk's army did not arrive in time to make this possible, but Wal- thall held his ground two days under the attacks of McPherson. He was promoted to major-general, and given command of Cantey's division of Polk's Army of Mississippi. He was an important fac- tor in the repulse of Sherman at Kenesaw mountain, in the assaults

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at Peachtree Creek and Ezra Church, and the defense of Atlanta. When Hood advanced into Tennessee, Walthall had two horses shot under him in the bloody assault at Franklin. After the first day's fight at Nashville, where Thomas attacked Hood, he was given command of French's division as well as his own, and on the retreat he commanded the flower of the army, eight brigades, forming the infantry rearguard, to cooperate with Forrest's cavalry. After great suffering he finally reached the vicinity of Tupelo with a remnant of his command numbering less than one of its brigades eight months before. At Bentonville, N. C., in April, 1865, com- manding a division of Georgians and Tennesseeans, he gave his last battle orders, cheering to a last charge brave men who knew there was no hope of victory, only a chance to die. At this time his reputation as a soldier was secure. He and Nathan Bedford Forrest and John B. Gordon were the most - famous volunteer leaders of the South. A distinguished Missis- sippian once said in the presence of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston that he regarded Walthall as the greatest man he ever knew; to which Johnston replied, "If the Confederate war had lasted two years longer General Walthall would have risen to the command of all the Confederate armies." (Mayes' Lamar, p. 120.) His advance- ment was rapid, but not as phenomenal as it might have been, had not his modesty and generous consideration of others intervened. On the death of Bishop Polk he might have gained command of the Army of Mississippi, but he recommended his senior in age and experience, A. P. Stewart. Returning to Coffeeville in 1865 he re- sumed his law practice, as a partner of Col. Lamar. In 1871 he re- moved to Grenada. He was a leader in the civil struggle for good government, and took a prominent place in the councils of the Democratic party, being chairman of the State delegation in the national conventions of 1868, 1876, 1880 and 1884. Lamar wrote to him in 1868: "Do you know that but for you I could not keep up? I would have given up long ago, and never made an effort." When Lamar resigned from the United States senate to become secretary of the interior, Walthall was appointed to the vacancy, and took up Lamar's mantle as the great leader of manly reconcil- iation. At his death, Senator Spooner, of Wisconsin, said of him : "I utter a conviction, born of a consciousness of the influence which his candor and breadth and frankness and the earnest hope, often expressed by Senator Walthall, for renewed friendship and fra- ternity between the sections of our country, had upon my own thought and feeling, when I say that to him and to his presence, more than to any other, is due, in my judgment, the obliteration here of sectional animosity, and the restoration of that amity and confidence so essential to the prosperity and the strength of the Republic." His service in the senate began in December, 1885, and continued until his death, a period of more than twelve years. Senator Spooner noted that he soon, in an unostentatious way and without effort, became a leader of peculiar power and influence on the Democratic side. It was the tribute unconsciously and nat-

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urally paid to him by appreciative colleagues because of the nobil- ity of his character and the wisdom of his judgments. He was an able and erudite lawyer. He possessed in a wonderful degree the elements which would have made him a great judge. He was essentially reflective, with fine power not only of analysis but of generalization, and of rare judgment. He was usual- ly discriminating and with profound and nice ethical sense; a safe man to consult with the utmost confidence when any one had any doubts upon a question of honor or propriety of conduct.

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Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 107

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032