USA > North Carolina > Biographical history of North Carolina from colonial times to the present; > Part 32
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Evermore his soul goes marching over mountains ; yet often his eyes also look upon valleys of beautiful surprise. I approach his work, therefore, with a feeling akin to worship, with awe and with reverence. I shall quote where I can, satisfied that nothing I can say would justify my enthusiasms as much as will his own incom- parable lines.
Though he has not shown the sustained epic flight of the great poets, yet who, even of these, has soared higher than this sonnet :
IMAGINATION.
"Back through the chaos of the primal past, Upon unfailing wings she takes her flight, Or sounds the future's universal night
'Mid worlds to elements resolved at last.
The gates of death unclose and down the vast Cloud-builded stairs she faces shapes that fright,
Or wanders through Elysium's fields of light-
For she would fain all pang, all bliss forecast !
But she shall never on life's bourne-ah me!
If ever on that distant unknown shore!
Preen her adventurous pinions to explore
The date of Him before whose veiled face The universe. with its eternity,
Is but a mote, a moment poised in space !"
Now read this sonnet, culled from Harper's Magasine, a sonnet as fine as that of Blanco White on Night :
MOLLUSKS.
"Down where the bed of ocean sinks profound,
Lodged in the clefts and caverns of the deep,
.
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Where silence and eternal darkness keep, These dumb primordial living forms abound. What know they of this life in the vast round Of earth and air? How wild the pulses leap At love's sweet dream-what storms of sorrow sweep, What hopes allure us and what terrors hound? And scattered on these slopes and plains, below This atmospheric sea, one with the worm And beetle, for a momentary term; What know we more of those ethereal spheres What rapture may be there, what poignant woe, What towering passions and what high careers?"
Stockard's poetry is a twilight full of splendid moments. A far-scouting roamer of unimagined solitudes, no other has so well suggested the measure of immensity. Let me illustrate by these lines from his "Closing Century":
"Yet what is time itself? 'Tis but a swing Of the vast pendulum of eternity."
I could quote much more of equal sublimity, but there are other phases of the poet's genius of which I desire to speak. Stockard has the poet's fury for perfection, and it is because the ideal is his only real that he is so consummate an artist. Yet ever before him, as before all that aspire to immaculate truth, is the realization of the beauty beyond expression, and lines nobler than these have never voiced the divine despair of man :
THE UNATTAINED
"The marble, bosomed in the mountain hoar,
Holds in its heart, waiting some hand most skilled, Forms featured fairer yet than that which thrilled And moved beneath Pygmalion's touch of yore. The instrument's keys await a grander score Than that whose faintest echoes, haply, chilled Mozart with rapture, and an instant stilled His breath, then died away forevermore. There is a scene no painter ever feigned, Of Eden's restful fields-lost visions loved ! Dead shores where tempests hoarse, Titanic roll- .
-
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A song unsung more sweet than that which chained The heart of Hades' King-than ever moved The subtlest chord of Shakespeare's lofty soul !"
To Homer and Shakespeare our poet has reared imperishable memorials. In his "Homer" is all "The surge and thunder of the Odyssey," so vainly essaved in the sonnet of Andrew Lang.
The following poem stalks through the mind like a god trail- ing a cloud of awe. I know nothing finer in all poetry :
SHAKESPEARE
"He heard the Voice that spake and unafraid, Beheld at dawning of primeval light The systems flame to being, move in flight
Unmeasured, unimagined and unstayed.
He stood at nature's evening and surveyed Dissolved worlds-saw uncreated night About the universe's depth and height
Slowly and silently forever laid.
Down the pale avenues of death he trod And trembling gazed on scenes of hate that chilled
His blood, and for a breath his pulses stilled,- Then clouds from sun-bright shores a moment rolled And blinded glimpsed he One with thunder shod,
Crowned with the stars, and with the morning stoled !"
Stockard has that rare mastery of music never absent from great poetry. His tones are not subtle like the sinuous melodies of Poe, nor are they hush-compelling like the orchestral symphonies of Lanier; but often, like Milton's, they seem smitten from the harp of the storm. What grandeur of utterance in the sonnet be- ginning :
"Great Day of Wrath whereof no mortal knows. Nor Angel, nor Archangel of high Heaven."
Then subsiding to a calmer mood he conjures with a wand of lotus, low and sleepy sounds, until amid ÆEolian murmurs we can hear the laugh of silence in a land of leaves. But soon again the young thunder, cradled in the heart of the calm, wakes from his sleep; and, shaking his cloudy locks, leaps to a clime of elemental wars.
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Both of these moods find glorious expression here :
AFTER READING A TREASURY OF SONNETS "Vague visions fill my brain to-night,-high deeds Round Ilium's shadowy wall ; old Memnon grey With vacant gaze looks toward the rising day, And breathes with mystic lips of ancient creeds. Through Morven's haunted halls my fancy leads. And Loda's spirit bends o'er me,-far away On unblest shores. through cities of Cathay, By perilous passes where the eaglet feeds. Confusing sounds awake,-celestial strings, The clash of cymbals, tramp of armed bands, Songs fugitive, from Pelion's height outblown : Round Anthemusia's slumberous island sings Brave Orpheus to his comrades, of home lands Dim visioned, long across the seas unknown."
Can anything be more musical than the following? SOME VERSES CAROL
"Some verses carol blithely as a bird And hint of violet and asphodel ; While others slowly strike a funeral bell, Or call like clarionets till, spirit-stirred, We hear the mustering tramp in every word. In some, the ocean pounds with sledges fell, Or Neptune posts with blare of trumpet shell By shores that visionary seas engird. As soft as flutes, they croon the lullabies Of cradle years ; play clear as citherns; wail Like harps Æolian in the grieving wind ; Some are the deep-drawn human moan by pale And silent faces 'neath lack-lustre skies, Peering through panes on darkness unconfined !"
In the next sonnet is a variety of tone and a potency of sugges- tion beyond that of any with which I am acquainted.
MY LIBRARY
"At times these walls enchanted fade, it seems, And lost, I wander through the Long Ago- In Eden where the lotus still doth grow. And many a reedy river seaward gleams.
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Now Pindar's decp-stringed shell blends with my dreams, And now the elfin horns of Oberon blow : Or flutes Theocritus by the wimapling flow Of immemorial amaranth-margined streams. Gray Dante leads me down the cloud-built stair, And parts with shadowy hands the mists that veil Scarred deeps distraught by crying winds forlorn : By Milton stayed, chaotic steeps I dare,
And. with his immaterial presence pale,
Stand on the heights flushed in creation's morn !"
Like Milton, our post dares to come into the open to voice a noble indignation-dares to wage merciless campaign against the tyrannies of the time. Now fronting "Wrong as with a thousand spears," he assails "castled Error, mailed in guile :" now, stand- ing lonely on Truth's lighted tower, he challenges the lurking min- ions of the million-tented lie.
As fine as the best of Watson's "Purple East" is that grand war-cry :
"Nations of earth with one firm purpose rise And visit with vengeance fell the Ottoman race."
Already I have spoken of Stockard's melancholy, which, like a recurring monotone, rises and falls, murmuring softly of un- sounded deeps. He keeps tryst with cheer only in the twilight and sadness is never beyond call. No matter in what untroubled Arcady he pitches the tent of his song, he cannot forget how fleet- ing are the joys of life. Occasionally his musings remind me of the minor tones of some of the younger Dutch poets : of Kloos, with his passion for death ; of Helena Swarth, to whom sorrow is be- come a luxury, and of van Eeden, that philosopher of tears.
He is forever haunted with the beginnings of things ; yet also he has that noble conception of human destiny which makes the poet a prophet. Behind the subjective sorrow he sees the radiant objectivity of the larger vision-sees
"Into a day gilt with perpetual sun."
All of his words are
"Brave with the promise of unrisen days,"
АИІЗОЯЛО STRO
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HENRY JEROME STOCKARD
for he cannot but feel
"_life's pangs and tears Parts of some large, divine-appointed Whole."
All the various phases of life he beholds as gradual approaches to the oneness which is God. His poetry is a call to arms, a sum- moning to a higher pilgrimage. It pulses with the upward surge of the soul.
Surely poet never sang finer optimism than that voiced in this great sonnet :
THE PAST
"O ye that pine for the vanished years, as pined Odysseus for one glimpse of Hellas more ; That toward them lean, as toward their fading shore
Poor exiles, unto earth's far ends consigned,
Lean to reclaim some echo which, confined, Birdlike shall sing in memory's mournful door- Know this: life's earlier land lies on before-
Not over widening seasons far behind ! And we shall find it in the great To-Be. It lapses not away, as to our eyes Doth seem, but swiftly and forever nears!
As brave Magellan who sailed the uncharted sea,
Full circling earth, saw his home shores arise, So shall we come again on our lost, happy years !"
Of Stockard's lyrics, I have space for only a few words. In these, as in his sonnets, he is altogether himself. Full of fine brooding is the poem "Come Tenderly, O Death"; and richer melancholy than that of "Pallida Mors" is nowhere to be found.
Splendid is the "Review of the Dead," where before us march
"Battalion on battalion, riders pale On dim, mysterious chargers."
This has all the qualities that make for permanence :
"The Hand that binds the star In its far center, and around it rolls Through space its worlds, with never halt nor jar, .No less my step controls.
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The same unfailing Hand Hath led me forth from still eternity, 'Twill guide me onward through star vistas, and I follow trustingly."
"Lead me, O God," not inferior to Newman's great hymn, thrills with the same Christian trust. "Bethlehem," too long to quote here, J. H. Boner called "an immortal poem." The following is a triumph : THE LOW INN
"Pilgrim, what though prone, belated, You are hastening but to win Somewhere down the lonely valley The low inn.
"It has housed full many a traveler Peasant, monarch, prophet, Christ, And the cheer that it dispenses Has sufficed.
"Drink the slumber giving beaker And forget the hurting cold While the gradual shades of evening Are unrolled.
"Sleep, nor fear, for you shall waken To the warden's call at dawn; And a child, in some glad morning, Journey on."
Some of Stockard's serenades and lullabies are among the best in the language. Here is a lyric which any poet might be proud to have written :
NOCTURNE
"Night closing in on reaches gray Of marsh and dune and shingle lone, Whose hush brings out the far away Eternal moan.
"Darkness, unbeaconed, unconfined, A mist along the void that sleeps ;
A lost forlorn and crying wind From central deeps.
"O ship that sailed with canvas black Into the dolorous waste of sea, From its uncharted zones bring back My love to me."
1
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mont tirol sin Iml ifall
HENRY JEROME STOCKARD
393
I have not yet spoken of Stockard's patriotic poems. The "Last theo Charge at Appomattox." one of the greatest of war lyrics, is the finest memorial of the Lost Cause. Here are two stanzas :
"Scarred on a hundred fields before, Naked and starved and travel-sore, Each man a tiger hunted. They stood at bay as brave as Huns, Last of the Old Sonth's splendid sons, Flanked by ten thousand shotted guns, And by ten thousand fronted.
* "But the far ages will propound What never sphinx had lore to sound Why in such fires of rancor The God of Love should find it meet For Him, with Grant as sledge, to beat On Lee, the anvil, at such heat Our nation's great sheet-anchor."
There are many other poems in which the heart of the old North State is heard beating in every line; others that sym- bolize "the great renascent South," but these we must forego.
Even finer than that fine fragment of Tennyson's, by which it seems to have been suggested, is this lyric :
THE AMERICAN EAGLE
"Brooded on crags, his down, the rocks, He holds the skies for his domain : Serene he preens where thunder shocks And rides the hurricane.
"The scream of shells is in his shriek ; His wings, as swords, whiz down the air; His claws, as bayonets, gride; his beak, As shrapnel-shards, doth tear.
"Where Shasta shapes its mighty cone, Where Mitchell heaves into the skies, Silent he glares, austere, alone, With sun-outstaring eyes!"
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Set to appropriate music, what a magnificent national hymn this would make! It is one of the most notable songs ever written.
Stockard is not prodigal of his genius. Now and then a song or a sonnet, long prisoned in the silence of his mind, flashes out like a splendor of surprise.
Here, however, is the man chosen by nature to write the great epic of the South. Could he but be given the leisure to devote him- self to this work, he would more than justify the privilege. Such poetry as his is too sublime to be popular, and I fear it will be long before our poet shall enter into his heritage of fame. But when he is known, as known he must be, I am confident that he will occupy a niche not lower than that of Poe and of Lanier.
Leonard Charles van Noppen.
ДИТЯЛО НТЯОН
1
JETHRO SUMNER
T HE settlement of Granville's territory, from Edgecombe County to Granville inclusive, was chiefly made by immigrants from Virginia, among whom were many families of conse- quence whose various members attained distinc- tion in North Carolina. Among these were the Sumners. Luke Sumner often represented Chowan County in the Provincial Congresses and was chairman of the Committee of Safety of his county and rendered important service during the Revolutionary War. David Sumner likewise was a member of the Provincial Congress of August, 1775, was a member of the Com- mittee of Safety of Halifax, and lieutenant-colonel of militia. James Sumner was lieutenant in the company of Light Horse. Robert Sumner represented Hertford County in the Provincial Congress of 1776. Elizabeth Sumner married Elisha Battle, who was a Representative from Edgecombe in the Revolutionary Con- gresses, and from her are descended that family of Battles that has been so prominent in North Carolina. The most eminent of all of the Sumners, however, was Jethro Sumner, the subject of this sketch. All of these kinsmen were grandchildren of William Sumner, who was a freeholder in Virginia about the year 1688, and who was associated with the substantial families of the Old Dominion. Jethro Sumner was born on his father's plantation, called Manor, about one mile from the town of Suffolk, in the year
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1733. When about twelve years of age he had the misfortune to be deprived of his father's care, but his early life seems to have been passed amid circumstances of affluence.
In 1758 Governor Dinwiddie gave him a letter of recommenda- tion to Colonel Washington, who was then on duty in western Virginia, and young Sumner was appointed a lieutenant in a Vir- ginia regiment of which William Byrd was colonel, and which was attached to the forces of General Forbes on an expedition against Fort Du Quesne. Sumner remained in the service until his regi- ment was disbanded in 1761, receiving at that time three years' training that was of invaluable service to him in after life. That he made his mark as a young officer is manifest, for on November 26, 1760, Colonel Boquet, his commander, committed to his trust a separate command at Fort Bedford ; and on two occasions Sum- ner marched with his regiment down the Holston River against the Cherokees, who were then being reduced to subjection after their horrible massacre of the garrison of Fort Loudoun, which was just west of the present county of Swain. When peace came and his regiment was disbanded, young Sumner lingered a few years in Virginia and then removed to North Carolina, settling at the court house of the new county of Bute, which was located near the dividing line between Warren and Franklin Counties. There an inn was established, kept by one Elliott, but owned by Sumner; and from its accounts it appears that Sumner had lo- cated in Bute prior to November, 1769. In 1772 Sumner was ap- pointed sheriff of Bute County, having already attained a posi- tion of prominence in his new home. He had married, had a goodly estate, and was leading the life of a prosperous gentle- man. In 1774 a captain in the British Army, J. F. D. Smyth, who was making a tour through the Colonies, recorded his impressions of Sumner, saying that he was "a facetious man" and "one of violent principles.".
Sumner's first appearance in a representative capacity was at the Hillsboro Congress of August, 1775, he being then in full sympathy with the other patriots of the province. At that time the militia was organized, two regiments of Continentals raised,
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and six battalions of Minute Men, and Sumner was appointed major of the Minute Men of the Halifax district. In November, 1775, Governor Dunmore of Virginia seized Norfolk, and North Carolina hurried troops to the aid of the Virginians. Colonel Howe marched his regiment there, and on the 28th day of Novem- ber the Committee of Safety ordered Colonel Long and Major Sumner, with what Minute Men and volunteers they could raise, to press forward with the utmost dispatch. The North Caro- linians gained great credit in that campaign; and while the part that Sumner played was not particularly recorded, yet his action was so highly appreciated that at the next meeting of the Provin- cial Congress, when four more Continental regiments were raised, Sumner was awarded the colonelcy of the first of the new regi- ments. Colonel Sumner's regiment was during that Summer in South Carolina, and perhaps participated in the defence of Charleston. At any event it accompanied General Lee on his expe- dition to take St. Augustine in Florida. On the 3d of September, 1776, the condition of his regiment at Savannah being distressing, by direction of General Lee, Colonel Sumner himself returned to North Carolina in order to obtain for his soldiers the equipments of which they stood in need. In his orders to Colonel Alston he said :
"You ought to be particularly careful of the discipline and to your utmost keep up a good understanding among the officers and soldiers. You are at all times to keep up strict discipline, but to reserve a mode of clemency, as being among young troops. Be careful in seeing no fraud is done them by the commissaries and their pay regularly to a month delivered to them by their captains."
These directions give a keynote of Sumner's management of his men.
On the 15th of March, 1777, the North Carolina Regiments moved north to join Washington. General Nash was in com- mand of the brigade, which was a part of Lord Stirling's divi- sion, and the North Carolinians displayed courage at the Battle of Brandywine, and won still greater renown on the 4th of Octo-
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ber at the battle of Germantown, where Sumner's regiment lost heavily. The brigade endured the sufferings of Valley Forge; and at Monmouth, being on the left flank of the army, rendered particular and notable service. The North Carolina troops suf- fered heavily at the North, and on account of their diminished numbers, in May, 1778, they were consolidated into three regi- ments commanded respectively by Colonel Clark, Colonel Patten and Colonel Sumner ; and on January 9, 1779, Sumner was pro- moted to be brigadier-general and was ordered South to aid in the defence of Georgia and South Carolina. His brigade had the post of honor in the attack on the enemy at Stono Ferry on June 20, 1779. To insure success he ordered his men not to fire, but to use their bayonets only. They, however, met with such a deadly fire that they could not be restrained from returning it. They behaved with great spirit; but because of the failure of a part of the plan intrusted to Moultrie, General Lincoln deemed it best. to abandon the movement. Shortly after that battle active opera- tions ceased, and Sumner having fallen a victim to the malarial fever of the South Carolina swamps, in July returned to North Carolina to reestablish his health, also being engaged in forward- ing recruits for his depleted brigade. In November, however, he was again with Lincoln, rendering efficient service; but later he was detached to raise four new regiments of Regulars in North Carolina. He thus, fortunately, was not with the army when Lin- coln capitulated at Charleston in May, 1780, surrendering the entire Continental Line and a brigade of North Carolina militia that had joined in the defence of Charleston. The situation at the South now was full of peril, and the North Carolina Assembly recognized it.
To assist Governor Nashi a board of war was organized : Cas- well was appointed major-general in command of all the militia, and Sumner and the other Continental officers in the State were seeking to form Continental battalions. On June 13th Gates was appointed to the command of the Southern Department, and De Kalb was sent South along with a Maryland brigade under Gen- eral Smallwood, a Delaware regiment, and a brigade of Virginia
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militia under General Stevens. De Kaib's camp was established on Deep River, and Caswell moved with the North Carolina militia to Cheraw. Gates on the 25th of July reached De Kalb's camp, and, moving forward, on the 7th of August joined Caswell and met with disaster at Camden on the 15th of August.
It is worthy of note that somewhat earlier General Lillington, in command of a brigade of militia in South Carolina, had called particular attention to the value of the services of Major Hall Dixon, of the Continental Line, who was with him; and in the Battle of Camden Major Dixon had command of some militia who covered themselves with glory. The advantage of thus em- ploying experienced Continental officers at this critical juncture was very apparent, and Governor Nash seems to have realized it. He called for a second draft of militia and formed a brigade of 1200 men, which he placed under the command of General Sumner, who moved to Salisbury and then to the south of Char- lotte. Gates was at that period reforming his Continentals at Hillsboro. Towards the end of September Cornwallis took posses- sion of Charlotte, and Sumner fell back to McGoin's Creek, where early in October he was joined by General Butler's brigade and by General Jones's Halifax brigade. Perhaps at Gates's sugges- tion General Smallwood, who claimed credit for valuable service at Camden, and who was now the officer next in rank to General Gates, was appointed by the Legislature major-general and offered the command of the North Carolina militia, and he ac- cepted the appointment. General Sumner was with his command on the Yadkin on the 10th of October when General Davidson reported to him the defeat of Major Ferguson, and he transmitted the intelligence to General Gates. A few days later, however, General Smallwood arrived in his camp and took command. Cornwallis having withdrawn from the State, it seems that the militia returned to their homes. Sumner felt keenly and resented Smallwood's appointment over him. On the 2d of December General Greene arrived at Charlotte, and superseding Gates, took command. He at once directed General Sumner, as the senior officer of the Continental Line in the State, to use renewed activity
og ni sisilin lo obsshd sic phismmost
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in reestablishing the North Carolina Continentals, and Sumner, ably aided by the other Continental officers in the State, was en- gaged in organizing the new troops and equipping them. Early in February, on the return to the State of Lord Cornwallis in pur- suit of Greene, Sumner tendered his services and those of all the Continental officers to the Governor and urged their employment.
On the 27th of January, 1781, the Legislature met at Halifax. The Board of War was then discontinued and a Council-Extraor- dinary was substituted for it, the members being General Caswell, Alexander Martin and Allen Jones. General Caswell was again appointed major-general and assigned to the command of the militia of the State. Towards the close of February Corn- wallis was at Hillsboro and Greene was in the hills of Orange awaiting reinforcements of militia to give battle. General Greene now directed General Sumner to tender again the services of the Continental officers to discipline and command the militia, and Governor Nash utilized some of the officers in that way, and Sumner hoped to have the command of a brigade.
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