USA > West Virginia > Myers' history of West Virginia (1915) Volume II > Part 22
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Concerning Mr. Gallahue's speech and the cause which brought it about, we quote from the West Virginian :
Wetzel County isn't very far from any place in particular as to distance, but in many respects it is pretty remote. Its denizens, like all mountain and highland folks, are strong on liberty of speech and freedom of action. "Montani semper Liberi- Facillis descensus averni"-which by interpretation means "It is always easy to slide into hell from Montana or Libera, but not from West Virginia."
The one particular gallant defender of the clan and stander-up for his native crags and peaks is "The Tall Wahoo of Wetzel," Oliver Gallaher, or Gallahue, according to local nomenclature. "Ol. Gallahue" by that token he is known throughout the length and breadth and height of Wetzel.
He is built somewhat on the specifications of Abraham Lincoln. That is, vertically speaking. He would be about
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neck and neck with that gentleman in length, but now here near him in embonpoint and pulchritude.
He is about 35 or 40, as years go, but age has nothing to do with it. As he himself says, he is "as old as all the sages of the ages, and as young as a chortling cherub laved in the Fountain of Perpetual Youth."
Ile owns a hillside farm up on Fishing Creek, but that doesn't bother him much. He also owns a lot of dogs and guns and is fond of hunting, so long as he doesn't find things and have to shoot them. But his hobby, sport and pastime is the law. And he is always ready and willing to argue any kind of a case in the local justice shops. And speechmaking well. name your subject-anything-and Ol. is there, full of sublime thoughts of his own and everybody else's; gets off with a flying start and romps twice around the ring to any. body else's once. As "Devil John" Willey says, "Ol. kin wrop his tongue aroun' more words to the minute, an' eject em faster'n any chap 'at ever come over the knob." He is untu- tored, as far as schools are concerned, but has tutored himself to such purpose that he has the best things of the master minds pretty well corraled.
Talking about schooling brings us around to the time several years ago when he matriculated at the Fairmont Nor- mal School-and that's what I started to tell about.
He lasted just three weeks there. Soon after he had de scended on that classic town and made it all his own. a "Tom Show" (Uncle Tom's Cabin) opened for a two-night stand at the Opera House. Several of the hot-boy students and staving young blades of the burg had started in at the first to string out Mr. Gallahue, just because he was from Wetzel and looked like a fresh and easy one, but they soon found that they had guessed it wrong, for he was always there eleven to their one. So they had cottoned up to him and proposed to sic him onto the unsuspecting, and then give the haw -haw when the latter got stung. So they proposed to Ol. that they all take in the show, saying that they had the tickets for the first row. They had bought one ticket for that row, and booked them selves far in the rear.
It was a stormy night, and Ol, showed up in a long wet
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rubber coat. high top boots, and hat with a foot wide brim. They had stopped along the way for several sundries and things and entered the theater just at the time Topsy was handing out a well deserved bit of repartee to Mr. Marks, the attorney-at-law. The boys jiggled Ol. to the front of the pro- cession and fell back to their places whilst he, accoutred as he was, strode on after the usher to his place right down by the fiddlers. The burst of applause which the mimic show had just then elicited, was immediately recommenced, aided and abetted, augmented and aggravated by the enthusiastic friends of this spectacular entry. Most of the audience knew him, or thought they did, and at once caught on and likewise trans- ferred their attention to the hero of Wetzel, and by the time he had shed his long slicker and thrown it into his seat with his big hat on top of it and glared around in search of his fol- lowers who hadn't followed, he found himself the recipient of an ovation that was a combination of a Chautauqua salute and a German student's hilee-hilo.
Did he rise to the occasion? He did, and that show stopped right there ; nor would the audience permit it to pro- ceed till their man had finished.
TIIE SPEECH.
With a low, sweeping and far-reaching bow, he sailed in :
"Ladies and gentlemen, fellow citizens and fools, I thank you for your very vociferous applause and for your most cordial reception, which, to me, is as unsuspecting as it is flattering.
"If asked where I hail from, my sole reply shall be, I hail not from Appomattox and its famous apple tree where the conquering hero wrestled the sword of victory from the van- quished foc. Nor did I with the embattled farmers stand and fire the shot heard round the world ; nor with Napoleon, cross the bridge at Lodi and mingle the Eagles of France with the Eagles of the crags, whilst forty centuries were looking down upon us. I hail not from the storied lands across the seas haloed by painter's brush and poet's song and moving tales of daring to do when gallant knights rode forth with waving
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plume and flashing crest to fight for ladies fair, or with lance in rest entered the lists to pluck the bubble of reputation from the cannon's mouth. I hail not from lands of palm and south- ern pine where close by the cottage door the sweet magnolia blooms, while through the dusky wildwood there throbs the mockbird's song, where the balmy jasmine-scented zephyrs gently wait across the perfumed fields, and wake to cestasy the living lyre.
"Nor yet from the bleak New England shores, where the breaking waves dashed high on a stern and rock-bound coast. while the stern-faced fathers anchored safe the immortal bark, smoothed off the face of Plymouth Rock, and carved the Ten Commandments upon that everlasting cornerstone of the eter- nal tower of Liberty which lifts its shining turrets to the star spangled azure dome of the blue imperial heavens.
"Not from the vine-clad hills of La Belle France, nor storied castles on the Rhine, nor down among the English lanes where shepherds watch their flocks by night, nor from heather clad hills of the Land of Cakes, where Scottish chiefs. with claymore in one hand and pibroch in the other, charged down across the Culloden Moor and scoured these English hence across the Banks and Braes o' Bonny Doon.
"Nor did I spring like Phoenix from the ashes, or Minerva from the head of Jove, or Aphrodite from the ocean's wave --- from dream of mystic poet, or vision of philosophic seer.
"But-1 do spring from the grand old county of Wetzel. where the soil is so fertile and so salubrious the clime, that her teeming harvests leave no space for the upspringing of that noxious weed. Ignorance (which. I perceive, Hourishes hereabouts in great luxuriance ).
"I hail from the cloud-kissed hills of Wetzel, whose snow- capped peaks lift up their shining fronts to greet the god of day whilst yet ve sluggards of the low land sleep, reclined on couches of inglorious case.
"] hail from Wetzel, beneath whose towering hills and babbling brooks and bosky dells there lies a mineral and an oleaginous wealth that puts to shame the mines of Ophir or the Isles of Ind.
"Wetzel, from whose rugged slopes her sturdy sons fared
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forth at duty's call to imbrue their arms in internecine and fraternal strife what time the dogs of war were loosed. and 1. . n fared back again to reassume the arts of peace and make of this the king-pin county of the warborn State.
"Glorious old Wetzel! whose sons are brave and daugh- ters fair, and which today produces gas enough to light the world, oil enough to lubricate it and brains enough to rule it."
CHAPTER XXXVI.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF SOME NOTED AND UNNOTED PERSONS.
The compiler of this volume believes that it would be an impossibility for any single individual to collect and assemble data covering even the briefest mention of each and every person who has in any way contributed to the upbuilding of our commonwealth; for to do so would embrace practically every man and woman who has ever lived within these bor- ders. But if it were possible to do this, it would probably tax the capacity of the West Virginia Archives of History to hold such records. Therefore, the compiler has selected only a few for biographic subjects. A few of these have attained State- wide, if not world-wide, renown ; while a few others are but little known outside of the locality wherein they have lived. Nevertheless, they have all contributed SOMETHING to- ward the common good of their country.
Arthur Ingraham Boreman.
Arthur Ingraham Boreman, the first Governor of the State of West Virginia, was one of the most striking figures of his time. He stood staunchly by the Union when the war clouds of 1861 began to gather and amid all the dangers and revilings of former friends he adhered to his belief- with un- flinching courage. He was regarded as one of the bravest men of a time that developed all the latent courage in every man's soul.
lle was born in Waynsburg, Pennsylvania, July 24. 1823. At the age of four years he came with his parents to Tyler County. West Virginia, where he attended the school of that day. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1843. in which year he located in Parkersburg, and began the practice
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of his profession, in which he soon rose to prominence. He represented Wood County in the General Assembly of Vir- ginia, in 1855, and served until 1860. He was president of the second convention at Wheeling, in 1861, and which organized the Restored Government of Virginia and prepared the way for the formation of West Virginia. He was elected first Governor of West Virginia ; was inaugurated June 20, 1863. and by successive elections served until 1869, when he was elected a member of the United States Senate, in which body he served six years. After that time he resumed the practice of law in Parkersburg, where he was later elected Judge of the Circuit Court, and served eight years, his term beginning January 1, 1889. He was a natural leader of men, and pos- sessed the confidence of all who knew him. He died at his home in Parkersburg on Sunday morning. April 19, 1896.
Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson.
( From Third Biennial Report State Archives and History.)
Among the passengers on board a ship lying at the wharf at London in 1748, but bound for America, was a young man, John Jackson, twenty-three years of age, whose home had been in one of the parishes near that city. In time he arrived in Maryland, and two years later, in Cecii County, that State. he wedded Elizabeth Cummins. Immediately thereafter, they sought and found a home near the site of the present town of Moorefield, now in Hardy County, West Virginia. From there the family crossed the Alleghany range and located on Buckhannon River, at what was long known as Jackson's Fort, on the site of the present town of Buckhannon, in Upshur County. Here they reared a family of eight children, and, late in life, removed to Clarksburg, in Harrison County. where the father died in 1801, in the eighty-sixth year of his age ; his wife, having survived him until 1825, died at the age of one hundred and five years. Their eldest son, George, was a soldier in the Revolution, then a prominent lawyer in Clarksburg ; a member of the General Assembly of Virginia from Harrison County, from 1786 to 1789, and again in the
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year 1800; after which he was a member of the Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Congresses. After the death of his father, he removed to Zanesville. Ohio, where he spent the remainder of his life. In Clarksburg he left his eldest son. John G., a prominent lawyer, who, as the successor of his father, was a member of the Eighth, Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh. Thirteenth and Fourteenth Congresses; and the first Federal Judge of the Western District of Virginia. Ilis first wife was Miss Payne, a sister of pretty Dolly Madison, the much admired wife of President James Madison ; his second wife was the only daughter of Governor Meigs of Ohio. He died at Clarks- burg in 1845. aged forty-six years.
Edward, the second son of John and Elizabeth (Cum- mins) Jackson, fixed his home on the West Fork River, near the site of the present town of Weston, now in Lewis County ; he was long a surveyor in that region, where he acquired a large estate. Hle wedded first a Miss Hadden, by whom he had three sons-George, David and Jonathan-and three daughters, one of whom married a man by the name of White. while the others wedded brothers of the name of Brake. By a second marriage. Edward Jackson added to his family nine more children, one of whom was Cummins Jackson, to be noticed hereafter.
Jonathan Jackson, the third son of Edward and Mrs. ( Hadden ) Jackson, attended the old Male Academy at Par- kersburg and then read law with his cousin, Judge John C. Jackson, at Clarksburg. by whom he was induced to locate for its practice in that town. Soon, thereafter, he wedded Julia Beckwith Neale, a school-day acquaintance and the daughter of Thomas Neale and Margaret (Winn) Neale, a daughter of Minor Winn, who resided on the west side of Bull Run Mountain, Virginia. She was a close student and became the possessor of a good education : she was rather a brunette, with dark brown hair, dark grey eyes, a handsome face, of medium height, and symmetrical form. Jonathan Jackson had reared a neat cottage of three rooms in Clarks- burg, to which he took his Parkersburg bride : and herein were born four children-Elizabeth. Warren. Thomas Jonathan. and Laura. The father, Jonathan, had inherited from his
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father, Edward, a comfortable patrimony and had a promising future, but being of a generous nature, he became deeply in- volved by personal security for others, and when cut down in the meridian of life, every vestige of his property was swept away. He died of a malignant fever, contracted while nursing his eldest child, Elizabeth, who sank into the grave but two weeks before the father.
Thomas Jonathan, the subject of this sketch, the third child of Jonathan and Julia (Neale) Jackson, who bore the name of his father and maternal grandfather, was born at Clarksburg, West Virginia, January 21st, 1824; and was in his third year at the time of his father's death, when his mother was left a widow with three helpless children, without a home or the means of support. But she was not without assistance, for the Masonic Fraternity, of which the father had been a faithful member, gave her a small house and in this humble abode, with her fatherless children, she spent the greater part of the few years of her widowhood. Here she taught a little school, and also added to her support by sewing. In 1830 she was married a second time, Captain Blake B. Woodson, of Cumberland County, Virginia, becoming her husband. He was a lawyer of good education, and social and popular man- ners, but much her senior, and a widower without fortune. Soon after the marriage Captain Woodson removed to the new County of Fayette, where he, in 1831, was appointed the first clerk of the county. Here, but a year after the removal. the wife sickened, died, and was buried in a lonely spot, amid towering mountains, at what is now the town of Ansted, in Fayette County. ller grave was long neglected, but has been recently marked by a stone erected by Captain Thomas D. Ranson, of Staunton, a veteran of the famous "Stonewall Brigade." Before the removal to Fayette, the orphan children were separated : the mother took the youngest-Laura-to live with her : Warren was sent to live with his aunt, a Mrs. Brake ; and Thomas Jonathan, our subject, found a home with his bachelor half-uncle, Cummins Jackson, a farmer and mill- owner on the West Fork River, about six miles below the town of Weston, in Lewis County, and distant eighteen miles from Clarksburg. Here he remained until he was eighteen
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years of age. in the meantime performing the usual labor about the mill and on the farm, and in winter time attending the schools of the neighborhood. At the age of sixteen he served as a constable in Lewis County. He was ambitious, with an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Early in 1842 a young man from the Congressional District in which young Jackson lived had received an appointment as Cadet to the Military Academy at West Point, but had found upon enter- ing that the discipline and hard study were too severe to suit his self-indulgent tastes, and resigned and returned home. Soon this was spoken of in the neighborhood ; and while Cummins Jackson was having a horse shod at a shop nearby. the blacksmith looked up and said: "Now, here is a chance for Tom Jackson, as he is anxious to get an education." llis uncle caught the suggestion and, on going home. tokl the boy of the opportunity to get a Cadetship. This fired his heart
and he began at once his efforts to secure the appointment. Armed with a letter signed by all his neighbors, addressed to Hon. Samuel Hays, then a member of Congress from that District. and dressed in a suit of homespun, he made his way to Washington City, where Mr. Hays introduced him to the Secretary of War. Hon. John C. Spencer, who was so much pleased with his appearance that he ordered a warrant for his appointment to be immediately made out.
Young Jackson entered the Academy July Ist, 1842. a. at the expiration of four years was graduated with the rank of brevet Second Lieutenant, standing seventeenth in his class of fifty-nine members. Among his classmates were Generals George B. Mcclellan. John G. Foster. Jesse L. Reno, D. N. Couch, Truman Seymour, M.D .. L. Simpson, S. D. Sturgiss. George Stoneman. Innis N. Palmer. Alfred Gibbs, George II. Gordon. Frederick Myers, Joseph N. G. Whistler, and Nelson H. Davis, of the United States Army ; and Generals John .1. Brown, John Adams. Dabney H. Maury. D. R. Jones, Cadmus M. Wilcox. Samuel B. Maxey, and George E. Pickett. of the Confederate Army. The Mexican War was in progress, and Lieutenant Jackson was at once ordered to join the First Regiment of Artillery, then at New Orleans. Complying. he entered Mexico with the army of General Taylor, under whom
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he served until transferred to the command of General Scott. His military career was one of distinction and rapid promo- tion. He was engaged in the siege of Vera Cruz, and in the battles of Cerro Gordo, La Hoya, Oka Lake, Contreras, Cherubusco, Molino del Rey, the storming of Chapultepec, and the capture of Mexico. In the conquered city, he received the rank of Major. Returning home with the army, he served in Fort Columbus, New York, in 1848; in Fort Hamilton, New York, in 1849, and was engaged in the Seminole War in Itorida, in 1851. February 29, 1851, he resigned his commis- sion and returned to Virginia, where he was elected Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Instructor of Artillery Tactics in the Virginia Military Institute at Lexing- ton, which position he filled until the beginning of the Civil War. Immediately upon the secession of Virginia, Governor Letcher issued to Jackson a colonel's commission, and he took command of a small body of troops in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry. We can here make but a brief recapitulation of his subsequent career. Promoted to the rank of Brigadier General June 17, 1861, he, on the 2nd of July, checked for a time t' . advance of General Patterson at Falling Waters. He bore an important part in the battle of Bull Run, where, in the lan- guage of General Barnard E. Bee, of South Carolina, "He stood like a stone wall." October 7 he was commissioned a Major-General, and in January, 1862, marched into Western Virginia. striking Bath and Romney. March 23, he engaged General Shields at Kernstown, and early in May forced Banks to abandon Front Royal. Hastening his command to Rich- mond, he threw it against MeClellan's rear and saved the for- tunes of the Confederate arms at Gaine's Mills. His achieve- ments of the next few days won for him the distinction of being one of the great commanders. He was engaged in the invasion of Maryland, and September 15 captured Harper's Ferry with more than 11,000 prisoners, then joined Lee in time to do the severest fighting at Antietam. October 11, 1862, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant-General, and wit- nessed the battle at Fredericksburg in December. May the 2nd, 1863, he succeeded in turning Hooker's flank at Chan- cellorsville, but in the darkness of the evening, as he was
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returning with his staff to his own lines, he was fired upou by mistake by his own men and received a wound from the effects of which he died May 10, 1863.
The following is the inscription on the plinth of the west- ern side of the monument :- -
JACKSON STONEWALL
ERECTED AS A MEMORIAL TO THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS BY CHARLESTON CHAPTER NO. 151 UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY
Why They Called Him "Stonewall".
At the first battle of Manassas, July 21, 1861, the first great battle of the Civil War, General Jackson's Brigade ot Virginia Volunteers -- twelve companies being from West Virginia-saved the day for the Confederate arms. The Con- federates were falling back, General Barnard Bee's Sonth Carolina Brigade was retreating. Jackson's Virginians were standing under fire. Bee, in his effort to rally his own men. called out : "See! There stands Jackson like a stone-wall." Henceforth his brigade was known as the "Stone vall Brigade."
"Jackson stands there, like a stone wall," he said, As he pointed his sword across the battle-field ; Thus the name-none prouder on spotless shield Than "Stonewall," the soubriquet to valor paid." John G. Gittings.
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STONEWALL JACKSON IN ROMNEY.
Early in January, 1862, Stonewall Jackson captured Romney. There was little opposition. General Lander hit a few hours before the Confederates arrived. Jackson was in command of this part of the State, and he regarded Romney as of considerable importance, and left General Loring to hold the town with a force deemed sufficient to resist successfully any Union troops in the vicinity. Having established Loring in Romney, Jackson returned to Winchester, and soon after this resigned from the army of the Confederacy. This is a point in history not generally known, and but imperfectly un- derstood. A true account of his resignation, and his reasons for that step. is properly given in detail in the history of Hampshire County : for he was promoted to that action be- cause the secretary of war for the Southern Confederacy inter- fered with his plans at Romney, and undid his work. Follow- ing is a history of the matter :
Jackson left Loring in Romney and returned to Win- chester. Shortly afterward. January 31, 1862, J .P. Benjamin, secretary of war for the Southern Confederacy, ordered Jack- son to recall Loring and his troops from Romney to Win- chester, having taken this step without consulting Jackson or ascertaining what his plans were. This was resented by Jack- son, who, under date of January 31, 1862, wrote to the sec- retary of war as follows:
"Your order requiring me to direct General Loring to re- turn with his command to Winchester immediately has been received and promptly complied with. With such interfer- ence with my command I cannot expect to be of much service in the field, and accordingly respectfully request to be ordered to report for duty to the superintendent of the Virginia Mili- tary Institute at Lexington, as has been done in the case of other professors. Should this application not be granted, I respectfully request that the president will accept my resigna- tion from the army. I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedi- ent servant.
T. J. Jackson."
As soon as the secretary of war received Jackson's resig- nation he sent an officer to Governor Letcher to acquaint him
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with the fact, and the governor hastened to the war office and urged Mr. Benjamin not to take action in the matter until General Jackson could be heard from further. The secretary agreed to the governor's proposal, and the resignation was laid aside. Returning to his office. Governor Letcher wrote a long and earnest letter to General Jackson at Winchester, urging him to recall his letter. Scarcely was this letter finished when a letter from Jackson, written January 31. the date of his resignation, was delivered to Governor Letcher, saying :
"Governor: This morning I received an order from the secretary of war to order General Loring and his command to fall back from Romney to Winchester immediately. The order was promptly complied with, but, as the order was given without consulting me, and is abandoning to the enemy what has cost much preparation, expense and exposure to secure. and is in direct conflict with my military plans, and implies a want of confidence in my capacity to judge when General Loring's troops should fall back, and is an attempt to control military operations in detail from the secretary's desk at a distance, I have, for the reason set forth in the accompanying paper, requested to be ordered back to the institute : and if this is denied me, then to have my resignation accepted. 1 ask as a special favor that you will have me ordered back to the institute. . As a single order like that of the secretary's may destroy the entire fruits of a campaign. I cannot reasonably expect, if my operations are thus to be interfered with, to be of much service in the field. A sense of duty brought me into the field and has thus far kept me. It now appears to be my duty to return to the institute, and I hope that you will leave no stone unturned to get me there. If I have ever acquired. through the blessings of Providence, any influence over troops. this undoing of my work by the secretary may greatly di- minish my influence. I regard the recent expedition as a great success. Before our troops left here, January 1, there was not, so far as I have been able to ascertain, a single loyal man in Morgan County who could remain at home in safety. In four days that county was entirely evacuated by the enemy : Romney and the most valuable portion of Hampshire County were recovered without firing a gun, and before we had even
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