USA > West Virginia > Webster County > Moccasin tracks and other imprints > Part 17
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17
Who does not admire the intelligence, or instinct, that enables the bobolink to spend the winter in Brazil, a land of summer and gay flowers? Yet the next spring he is merrily singing in his home in northern United States.
It is said that when a person has learned the names of ten birds and can apply the names to the proper species, that he is lost. The pleasure obtained from the ten is so great that he is not content until the name of all the birds that visit his locality have been learned.
.
281
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
Now, I sincerely hope that every boy and girl who reads these sketches will become so completely lost that they will not again find themselves until they have learned the names of all the winter visitants and per- manent residents near their homes. It will then be a very easy and most pleasant task to learn the names of the most prominent summer residents and transient visitants.
Buy a hand book on birds, and take it with you on your outings, and you will be agreeably surprised with the ease and rapidity that you learn to identify our friends in feathers. This applies to elderly persons as well as young people.
THE EAGLE.
There are many traits and characteristics among the different species of birds that have attracted universal attention among civilized peoples. Some birds possess a sweet voice and poets have sung their praises in poetic compositions. Others by their long migratory flights over land and sea, across valleys and mountains, have been praised for that unerring instinct that safely guides them to the end of their long, perilous journeys.
The eagle has claimed attention for many centuries, although he possesses neither a sweet voice nor migratory habits. He braves the snows of a long Arctic winter or endures the panting and dissolving heat of the Torrid zone. He is seemingly at home in all parts of the world, and his vigils are kept on the highest mountain peaks or in the lowest valleys. Some one of the various species is to be found wherever the foot of
282
MOCCASIN TRACKS
civilized man has trod. He is most assuredly a bird of cosmopolitan antecedents and has impressed the human family from the earliest antiquity.
The eagle possesses many of the attributes of mankind and man himself can learn many valuable lessons from this noble bird. He disdains to feed upon anything not slain by his own power. This characteristic teaches us that we should be self-reliant and should not depend upon others for our support or for our ideas. Our own powers rightly used are of greater value to us than bor- rowed ones. although they may be of greater dynamic force.
The eagle is called the king of birds. It is not be- cause he can sing more sweetly, scream more loudly, or fly more swiftly, but it is because of the loftiness of his flight. He posseses a keen eye and he senses the ap- proach of a storm from afar. From his aerie on some beetling crag, he spreads his pinions and by easy and graceful gyrations, he mounts up, and up, until he soars beyond the natural vision of man, and finally reaches a point beyond the storm clouds. With a fear- less eye, he looks down upon lightning-riven clouds. While the earth is being veiled in partial darkness, and while weaker birds are being tossed to and fro by the tempest and vainly seeking cover and protection from the driving rain and hail, he is basking in the sun- shine immune from the fury of the elements.
What a lesson is taught from this upward flight! It teaches us that we are to arise above the petty troubles and annoyances of this life. As we surmount each ob- stacle. we can look down upon them with complaisance
283
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
and self-reliance. Above these troubles all is peace and serenity ; in the midst of them turmoil and discord. The eagle is invigorated and strengthened by his exer- tions; so are we by taking a loftier view of the aims and attainments of this life.
The harpy eagle is a South American species living alone in the deepest forests. He is gloomily silent and quarrelsome. He will attack any animal that comes near him and even man himself is not immune from his ill temper.
Are you acquainted with any persons of whom this eagle reminds you? They are to be found in almost every city, town, or village in West Virginia. They seem to be at cross purposes with the world. They are true Ishmaelites and show their ill temper on the least prov- ocation. They do not freely mingle with their fellow men but prefer to live lonely, solitary lives, neither giv- ing nor receiving a helping hand. It is better to come out in the sunlight of publicity and assist in making this a better world in which to live. Such persons have been characterized as "stars that dwell apart in a fel- lowless firmament." It is said that they do not live in a house by the side of the road where they can be a friend to man.
Eagles usually rear their broods in nests situated on the pinnacle of some inaccessible mountain peak, where, in safety, they can scan a thousand depths of nether air. The eaglets soon attain the size of the parent birds, but they are cowering and timid. The mother watches over them in the fondest paternal solicitude. She becomes impatient of their long delay in leaving
284
MOCCASIN TRACKS
their temporary abode. She pushes one after another out of the nest. If one is not strong enough to fly, it is left sitting on the side of the nest, or it is sometimes borne to safety on the back of the mother. This action of the parent eagle teaches us two valuable truths. If we never try to do a thing, it will never be accom- plished. If we make an honest effort, we gain confi- dence in ourselves, and, if we fail, it gives added strength which will enable us to win in a subsequent attempt. In the second lesson taught, we learn to as- sist the weak and helpless. Man does not live for him- self alone. Christ exemplified this when he said, "Bear one another's burdens." By our own selfishness and lack of interest in humanity, we often make the bur- dens heavier for our fellow beings.
The eagle occupies a prominent place in the ornithol- ogy of the Bible. It is mentioned many times by the sacred writers.
The people of the Roman Empire, one of the great universal empires of the world. used the image of an eagle for their standard. It was carried by the victo- rious legions from the tropical regions of Africa to the icy, snow-clad hills of northern Europe. Its victorious advance under the imperial Cæsar in western Europe was checked by the Belgians near the scenes of conflict in the great war of nineteen hundred and fourteen. This emblem in bronze or brass was as sacred to the Roman legionaries as the Stars and Stripes is to the American soldiers. Many centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, a free and powerful nation came into promi- nence in North America. and the eagle became its
285
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
fitting emblem because the noble bird typifies strength, power, and endurance. It is represented on the shield of the United States and also on the silver and gold coins.
Percival, the American poet, gives a very vivid and graphic description of the home and habits of the eagle in one of his poems. He says,
"Bird of the broad, and sweeping wing, Thy home is high in heaven ;
Where the wide storms their banners fling, And the tempest clouds are driven.
Thou art perched aloft on a beetling crag, And the waves are white below
And on with a haste that cannot lag, They rush in an endless flow.
Thy home is on the mountain top ; Thy fields the boundless air,
And hoary peaks that proudly prop The skies, thy dwelling are."
THE CRISIS OF 1861.
William Cooper, the great English poet and hymnist, wrote,
"God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm."
The aptness of this assertion was fully exemplified in the great and irrepressible conflict that culminated in 1861.
The smouldering fires of fifty years burst forth with volcanic fury, and the United States was plunged into the vortex of a great internecine war.
This crisis did not come upon the country like a thunderbolt from a cloudless sky, but its mutterings had been heard by the founders of the Republic-even by George Washington himself. An intimation of it had been wafted from England to the shores of Amer- ica in the wars between the Cavaliers and the Puritans in 1649. Thirty years prior to this event slavery had been introduced into the colony of Virginia. The Cav- aliers and their adherents, for the most part, settled be- low what was afterwards known as Mason and Dixon's line. The Puritans, under the leadership of such men as Brewster, Carver and Endicott, settled in New Eng- land, which was north of the Maryland-Pennsylvania boundary.
It is a well known historical fact that immigration moves along the same parallels of latitude. So it came to pass that the dominant class of people of the two
287
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
sections of the colonies inherited and entertained polit- ical, social, and industrial opinions hostile to each other. British injustice and usurpation united the North and the South against their common enemy. The Revolution was fought to a successful conclusion, and the United States of America, occupying the fair- est portion of the continent, was established.
The importation of slaves was favored by the British government during the eighteenth century, and at the treaty of Eutrecht, in 1713, Great Britain obtained the contract of supplying slaves for the Spanish West In- dies. Many of the colonies objected to the interna- tional traffic in human beings, but it was forced upon them by the mother country. The colonists of Virginia. Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts passed laws against it previous to 1774, but each of these was vetoed by royal authority.
The slave trade question came very prominently be- fore the Constitutional Convention of 1787. All the Southern States, except Virginia and Maryland, de- manded its retention. After a heated debate the ques- tion was compromised by giving Congress power to abolish it in 1808. Congressional Acts passed in 1818 and 1819 authorized the President to send war vessels to Africa to stop the trade in slaves, which was not fully given up until 1865.
A sentiment hostile to slavery began to develop among the Quakers soon after it was introduced into the North. This religious sect drew up a memorial against it at Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 1688. Woolwich and other Quakers openly denounced it from
288
MOCCASIN TRACKS
the pulpit. The Boston town meeting in 1701 passed a resolution against it. Slaves were few in the North but numerous in the South, where the increase and the danger felt from them caused the passage of severe laws respecting them.
The Revolution, as a movement for liberty, with its declaration proclaiming all men free and equal, joined with the humanitarian spirit of the close of the eight- eenth century to increase the anti-slavery sentiment. All the Northern States either abolished slavery about this time or provided for its gradual extinction.
Had it not been for Whitney's invention of the cot- ton gin, in 1793, the great crisis might never have oc- curred. The destiny of a nation is often changed by very small occurrences. This invention gave a new im- petus to slavery by making the production of cotton enormously profitable. It made a large portion of the people of the North, who were interested in cotton manufacturing, dependent upon slave labor to supply the raw material for their spindles. After this time the people of the South began to defend slavery as a posi- tive good in spite of its obvious disadvantages. Aboli- tion societies first formed about 1793 began to languish in 1808.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 arranged that slavery could not exist west of the Mississippi river and north of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes, except in the case of Missouri. The American Colonization Society tried to palliate the evils of slavery by emanci- pation and colonization.
About 1830 the agitation against slavery took a more
289
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
acute phase and for thirty years it was the all-absorb- ing political theme. It was during these eventful years that American statesmanship in the opinion of many historians reached its zenith. The young Southerners, nursed and pampered in the lap of ease and luxury, had ample time in which to study politics, oratory, and government. They were sent North and even to Europe to complete their education. Thus equipped they were able to meet any antagonist on the hustings. The North, with its splendid schools and colleges, furnished a group of statesmen of matchless worth, courage, and ability. It was at this period of our history that the great forensic battles of intellectual giants were waged. The young orators and statesmen of today would ask no greater honor than to be permitted to break a lance in the arena of a great oratorical conflict where such momentous questions are decided.
The tariff and State rights questions were freely discussed and were closely allied with that of slavery. The North and the South naturally took opposite sides of each of these questions. The great Webster-Haynes debate occurred in the United States Senate, in 1830, and South Carolina soon after passed the Nullification Act. Fortunately for the nation Andrew Jackson, a fearless statesman and firm believer in the sacredness of the Union, was president at that time, and the way- ward state was forced to retrace her steps, and the crisis for the time being was past.
Slave labor demanded more and more new territory. The Mexican war was forced upon the country at the behest of the slave oligarchy to satisfy this ever in- creasing demand. It forced the repeal of the Missouri
290
MOCCASIN TRACKS
compromise in 1854, which plunged Kansas into a civil war and gave her a baptism of blood. The Supreme Court, the highest tribunal in the United States, sus- tained this repeal in the Dred Scott case in 1857. The great compromise of 1850 was thought by many states- men to forever settle the question of slavery. This be- lief soon proved a delusion and a snare. They soon learned that one could not compromise with evil. The crucial question. the extension of slavery into the terri- tories, soon overshadowed every other issue. Many per- sons living in the North had no desire to interfere with slavery where it already legally existed, but they were unwilling to see it extended, while the slave owners claimed a Constitutional right to their property in slaves as essential if they were to have any share in the common territories. The Fugitive Slave law of 1850, and the unwillingness of the Northern people to exe- cute it. assisted in precipitating the conflict. In the meantime the presidential election of 1860 approached. The great and often victorious Democratic party split asunder and slavery was the wedge. The Northern wing nominated Stephen A. Douglas, the Little Giant of Illinois, and declared that the voters of a territory should decide for or against slavery. The Southern wing nominated John C. Breckenridge, a dashing cav- alier, of Kentucky, and declared the right of slave own- ers to take their slaves into the new territories. John Bell, an old line Whig of Tennessee, was nominated by the Constitutional Union party on a platform declar- ing for the Union. the Constitution, and the enforce- ment of the law. The Republican party, formed at
291
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
Jackson, Michigan, in 1854, met in its second national convention at Chicago and wisely passing by all the old politicians nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, a lawyer by profession, but comparatively unknown to a very large majority of the voters. The platform de- clared against the extension of slavery into new terri- tory, but made no declaration against it where it al- ready legally existed.
This was the most exciting presidential election in the history of American politics, as well as the most sectional in its characteristics and in its results. Dur- ing the campaign several of the Southern states de- clared their intention of seceding from the Union if Lincoln was elected. But little attention was paid to these threats, however, as they had often been heard on previous occasions. George Washington had foreseen the danger of sectionalism and had given warning in his farewell address to the people of the United States. The whole world knows the result-Lincoln's election and the secession of South Carolina, December 20, 1860, soon to be followed by Mississippi, Florida, Ala- bama, Georgia, Louisana and Texas. O, for a Jackson instead of Buchanan as President of the United States ! Nothing was done by the president to check the South in its mad career. Buchanan hid behind the pitiful sub- terfuge that the National government had not the power to coerce a state. At the close of President Buch- anan's administration the flag of the United States was flying at only three points in the seven seceded States. The United States army still held Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina. Fort Pickens at Pen-
292
MOCCASIN TRACKS
sacola, Florida, and Key West, the Southern extremity of that State. Every other fort, arsenal, dockyard, mint, custom house, and court house had been seized by the dis-unionists and turned to hostile use. By these means they obtained artillery, small arms, ammunition, and supplies of war for immediate use. They obtained five hundred thousand dollars in specie at the New · Orleans mint. The government of the United States was not in anyway prepared for hostilities. The army consisted of but twelve thousand available troops, and the navy was so small that it did not amount to one large squadron, and its most effective ships were at points remote from the scene of conflict.
The financial affairs of the government were even in a more deplorable condition. The credit of the United States that had been of the very best standing in the past had been almost entirely destroyed. In the closing weeks of Buchanan's administration the Secretary of the Treasury was forced to borrow money at the ruin- ous rate of 12% per annum to pay the running ex- penses of the government. In view of these facts it is little wonder that the dis-unionists laughed to scorn any attempt on the part of the United States government to arrest their progress. much less to subdue them and force their return to the Union.
Palliation. conciliation, concession and compromise were often heard and the almost unanimous opinion in the South, shared largely by the North, was that to precipitate war would be to abandon the last vestige of hope for the restoration of the Union, and drive the other slave-holding States into the Confederacy which
293
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
had been formed with Jefferson Davis as its President.
The Southern representatives for the most part re- signed and on their return home declared that they had left the Union a corpse lying in state in the National capitol. This rash boast had an element of truth in it, yet the corpse was a very lively one as subsequent events amply proved.
The fourth of March drew near. "What will Lincoln do when he becomes President?" was the all-absorbing question in both the North and the South. There was an element of uncertainty in regard to his actions, be- cause he had been mysteriously silent on all public questions since his election in November. Who was this Abraham Lincoln that was to guide the Nation through the great crisis? Born in the State of Ken- tucky under the most adverse circumstances his coming into the world gave little promise of either usefulness or greatness. His parents were extremely poor, and were of that class known as "poor white trash" to the slave-holding aristocracy of the South. He was taken to Indiana early in life and later to Illinois by his parents. He had no educational advantages except those which he made for himself. But he had what was better-good natural ability, and a determination to win success. By sheer force of character he climbed the treacherous ladder of success to its topmost round. He was known among his friends as "Honest Abe ;" he was a lawyer without spot or blemish; a friend to whom one could confide the innermost secrets of the heart without the least fear of betrayal; a man whose name was not enrolled in any church book, yet he
294
MOCCASIN TRACKS
recognized the workings of a Supreme Being in all human affairs; he was a Moses especially prepared and endowed by God himself to be the leader in crushing the most formidable rebellion in universal history, and to strike the shackles from four million human beings held in bondage more galling than that of the Israelites in Egypt; he was a true type, and exemplar of his race. his country, and his government; forcible in speech and faultless in logic, he enriched the language with new thoughts, new definitions. new maxims, new parables, and new proverbs. In the language of the im- mortal Shakespeare,
"His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, 'This was a Man.'"
Such a man left his humble home in the State of Il- linois on one of the darkest days in the darkest period of United States history for Washington to become the chief executive of a divided and a disorganized Repub- lic. The speeches made on this ever-to-be remembered journey contain no declaration of policy or purpose touching the impending troubles. He had the practical faculty of discerning the chief point to be reached, and then bending every energy to reach it. He saw that the one thing needful was his regular, constitutional inauguration as President of the United States. Poli- cies, both general and in detail, would come after that. "Let us do one thing at a time, and the big things first." was his homely, but expressive, way of vindicat- ing the wisdom of his policy.
295
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
The president-elect reached Washington in the night time. He had been advised by friends that it would be unsafe for him to go through Baltimore on schedule time. So a secret journey was planned and carried into effect. This was always a matter of deep regret to Lin- coln. Threats that he should never be inaugurated were numerous, and Joseph Holt, Secretary of War, took every precaution to insure safety by marshaling troops in and around Washington. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred on inauguration day. The North, that had been in a fever of excitement, now breathed freer, since the President was safely inaugurated and was living in the executive mansion.
The inaugural address was calm but firm. It re- moved all unfavorable impression existing in the North relating to Lincoln's position on secession and slavery. He said that his election did not endanger the institu- tion of slavery in states where it already existed and admitted that under the Constitution fugitive slaves could be returned to their masters. He did not define his position on the extension of slavery into new terri- tory. He earnestly and most tenderly pleaded with those who would dissolve the Union. He said, "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The gov- ernment will not assail you. You can have no conflict without yourselves being the aggressors. You can have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, pro- tect and defend it. I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. Though passions may have
296
MOCCASIN TRACKS
strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection."
These noble words brought a feeling of hopefulness to the North, but it failed to strike a responsive chord in the South. It left the people of the South the alter- native of war or of receding from their stand for seces- sion. In his selection of his cabinet Lincoln showed a magnimity unsurpassed in the history of American politics. He made Seward, his chief competitor for the presidential nomination, Secretary of State. Two oth- ers of his rivals at Chicago were given cabinet posi- tions. These were Chase and Cameron, who were to preside over the Treasury and War Departments re- spectively. In this way the party factions were united but he was censured for his actions by many party friends.
One of the first things to which Lincoln directed his attention was to prevent the border slave states from joining the already seceded states. By prompt action Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware were kept within the Union. Upon the secession of Virginia, the western part of that commonwealth was erected into the sovereign state of West Virginia. This was the only geographical change in the gigantic struggle of four years duration.
By the middle of April, 1861, the people of the South were very much dissatisfied with the fact that Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, was doing nothing to protect and consolidate the Confederacy. This do-nothing policy was for the purpose of provoking Lincoln into some hostile act. In this way the North would appear before the world as
297
AND OTHER IMPRINTS.
the aggressors in bringing on the war. A prominent member of the Alabama legislature told Davis that if he did not sprinkle blood in the face of the Southern people they would shortly be back into the Union.
Strenuous efforts were made by both sides to control Virginia. "Strike a blow," said Roger A. Pryor, "and Virginia will secede from the Union." The blow was struck. The flag of the United States was fired upon at Sumter and the mine was exploded that drenched the country with blood. What a spectacle for poets and painters ! A gray haired man of seventy years, standing with lighted match in his hand ready to touch the fuse at the word of command.
This hostile act consolidated public sentiment in the North. The same paper that carried the news of the fall of Sumter contained the call of the President for seventy-five thousand volunteers.
An outburst of patriotic fervor greeted Lincoln's call for soldiers to regain the property of the United States seized by the Confederates. Enthusiastic public meetings were immediately held in all the free states from Maine to California. "Down with Secession" was the slogan, or rallying cry, in village and city as well as rural communities. Farmers left the team standing in the field and hastened away to enlist. Law- yers threw aside their briefs. They enrolled as soldiers and their clients did likewise. Teachers and students cast aside their books and hastened away. In the his- tory of popular uprising no parallel can be found in all the world. The same enthusiasm met Davis's call for troops in the South. Men and boys vied with each other in enthusiastic enlistment.
298
MOCCASIN TRACKS
No braver men ever enlisted under any banner than these citizen soldiers proved themselves to be on many a hard fought battle field. They freely and unflinch- ingly yielded up their lives for the flag under which they fought. They were all, all Americans and the same indomitable courage was manifested on both sides.
The boys in Blue as well as the Gray showed that they were fitting descendants of the old Revolution stock. Heroic deeds of valor were performed by the soldiers of both Grant and Lee. Thousands of these filled unmarked graves on the battle fields of both the North and the South.
After four years of warfare the South surrendered ; the country was again united; the slaves were freed ; the right of secession was extinguished; a better un- derstanding and a better appreciation of each other ex- ists between the two sections.
The Civil War cost an enormous sum of money. and the sacrifice of many lives, but it was a great uplift to the Nation. Such a great sacrifice of life sobered and chastened the people.
The South after a few years made rapid strides in education and wealth. A new South, phoenix like, sprang from the ashes of the old.
Lincoln, by his devotion to the Union. and by his tender, pathetic solicitude for the soldiers and their sorrowing friends, endeared himself to the people. In soberly guiding the Nation through the stormy seas of treachery and rebellion he immortalized his name. When the Ship of State proudly rounded the rocks and shoals into the harbor of safety, the brave Captain lay dead upon the deck.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.