"At a later day when Mississippi was sent a requisition for troops to serve in the war between the United States and Mexico, the difficulty was not to get the requisite number of companies, but to discriminate among those offering in excess of the numbers which would be received. An attempt was made to build a monument to those who fought and died in a foreign land, but it failed. If asked why? The reason is on the surface. It was not woman's work.

"Daughters of Mississippi, you have labored in a cause the righteousness of which only he can deny whose soul is so devoid of patriotism that in his country's strife he could give aid and comfort to the enemy. It would have been a great gratification to me to stand among the survivors of the Mississippi army and in laying the corner-stone of the monument to their deceased comrades to recall their virtues, the mingled attributes of the hero and saint. Please be assured that in spirit I shall be with you. For the zeal with which you have faced all discouragement, and the devotion you have shown to the purpose, which had only its merits for its reward, I pray you to accept from the inmost fibre of his heart the thanks of an old Mississippian. Faithfully, JEFFERSON DAVIS."

"T. K. Oglesby, Esq.:

"My Dear Sir-The set of Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography which you ordered sent to my address has been received. I am not the less thankful to you for your kind attention because I cannot give to the work more than a par tial approval. I very naturally turned to the article which I contributed upon Zachary Taylor, and which I was compelled to compress to bring it within the prescribed limit; but I found the article had been expanded by the addition of matter in regard to his family, which was so inaccurate that I was sorry to have it annexed to what I had written, my consolation being that no member of the Taylor family would believe me to be the author of the addition.

"My next examination was of the article 'Davis (Jefferson).' Here I found the baseless scandal of a romantic elopement revived and reprinted, and all along through that article flowed the misrepresentations current in Northern prints, and attributing to me things I never said, of which I am quite sure,

because they were things I never thought. There is no fitness in my writing to you a full criticism of a work which seems to me guided and inspired by narrow sectionalism, but you will allow me to add, for your kind attention, I am and shall remain very gratefully yours, JEFFERSON DAVIS."

We close this chapter with the following brief, but characteristic, and significant

ADDRESS BEFORE THE MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE, MARCH 10, 1884. "Friends and Brethren of Mississippi:

"In briefest terms but with deepest feelings, permit me to return my thanks for the unexpected honor you have conferred upon me. Away from the political sea, I have in my secluded home observed with intense interest all passing events affecting the interest or honor of Mississippi, and have rejoiced to see in the diversification of labor and the development of new sources of prosperity and the increased facilities of public education, reason to hope for a future to our State more prosperous than any preceding era. The safety and honor of a republic must rest upon the morality, intelligence and patriotism of the community.

"We are now in a transition state, which is always a bad one, both in society and in nature. What is to be the result of the changes which may be anticipated it is not possible to forecast, but our people have shown such fortitude and have risen so grandly from the deep depression inflicted upon them that it is fair to entertain bright hopes for the future. Sectional hate, concentrating itself upon my devoted head, deprives me of the privileges accorded to others in the sweeping expression of without distinction of race, color or previous condition,' but it cannot deprive me of that which is nearest and dearest to my heart, the right to be a Mississippian, and it is with gratification that I receive this emphatic recognition of that right by the representatives of her people. Reared on the soil of Mississippi, the ambition of my boyhood was to do something which would redound to the honor and welfare of the State. The weight of many years admonishes me that my day for actual services has passed, yet the desire remains undiminished to see the people of Mississippi prosperous and happy, and her fame not unlike the past, but gradually growing wider and brighter as the years roll away.

"It has been said that I should apply to the United States for a pardon; but repentance must precede the right of pardon, and I have not repented. Remembering as I must all which has been suffered, all which has been lost, disappointed hopes and crushed aspirations, yet I deliberately say: If it were to do over again, I would do just as I did in 1861. No one is the arbiter of his own fate. The people of the Confederate States did more in proportion to their numbers and means than was ever achieved by any in the world's history. Fate decreed that they should be unsuccessful in the effort to maintain their claim to resume the grants made to the federal government. Our people have accepted the decree; it therefore behooves them, as they may, to promote the general welfare of the Union, to show to the world that hereafter as heretofore the patriotism of our people is not measured by lines of latitude and longitude, but is as broad as the obligations they have assumed and embraces the whole of our ocean-bound domain. Let them leave to their children and their children's children the good example of never swerving from the path of duty, and preferring to return good for evil rather than to cherish the unmanly feeling of revenge. But never teach your children to desecrate the memory of the dead by admitting that their brothers were wrong in their effort to maintain the sovereingty, freedom and independence which was their inalienable birthright. Remembering that the coming generations are the children of the heroic mothers whose devotion to our cause in its darkest hour sustained the strong and strengthened the weak, I cannot believe that the cause for which our sacrifices were made can ever be lost, but rather hope that those who now deny the justice of our asserted claims will learn from experience that the fathers builded wisely and the constitution should be construed according to the commentaries of the men who made it. It having been previously understood that I would not attempt to do more than return my thanks, which are far deeper than it would be possible for me to express, I will now, Senators and Representatives, and to you, ladies and gentlemen, who have honored me by your attendance, bid you an affectionate, and, it may be, a last farewell."

XVIII.

ANALYSIS OF HIS CHARACTER.

And now, in concluding this "outline," it only remains for us to give a brief analysis of his character, and we cannot better do so than by reproducing the following from our pen which appeared in the Richmond Dispatch the day after Mr. Davis died.

JEFFERSON DAVIS, THE.CHRISTIAN SOLDIER, STATESMAN, AND · PATRIOT-BY REV. J. WILLIAM JONES, D. D.

"ATLANTA, GA., December 6. "The death of an old man who has more than lived out his four-score years would ordinarily excite but a passing interest. But the death of this great man who for so many years was a prominent figure in American history, who was a born leader of men, who has been a central figure in the most stirring events ever enacted on this continent, and who has borne himself as grandly in peace as in war, in the shades of retirement as in the bustling activities of public life-the death of such a man will attract universal attention, elicit general comment, and recall incidents of interest not only in this country, but in the civilized world as well.

"Other pens will give detailed sketches of his eventful life, be it mine only to recall here some personal reminiscences of the man as I knew him, and honored him, and loved him, and to give a brief outline of his character which was well worthy of the careful study and imitation of our young men.

"I first saw President Davis on the field of First Manassas. Having the honor of being at that time 'high private in the rear rank' of the famous old Thirteenth Virginia regiment, which (in the brigade commanded first by Kirby Smith, and after he was wounded by Colonel Arnold Elzey) came on the

field at the supreme crisis of the battle, we saw a great stisand heard vociferous cheering near the Lewis house, and were soon permitted to join in the general enthusiasm with which we greeted 'our President.'

"As I recall him as he appeared that day, sitting his horse with the easy grace of the trained horseman, I endorse the description of him given by a writer who saw him in a memorable scene in the United States Senate not long before:

"In face and form Davis represents the Norman type with singular fidelity if my conception of that type be correct. He is tall and sinewy, with fair hair, gray eyes, which are clear rather than bright, high forehead, straight nose, thin, compressed lips, and pointed chin. His cheek-bones are hollow, and the vicinity of his mouth is deeply furrowed with interesting lines. Leanness of face, length and sharpness of feature, and length of limb, and intensity of expression, rendered acute by angular facial outline, are the general characteristics of his appearance.

"It was upon that memorable day at Manassas that T. J. Jackson, who had just won his soubriquet of 'Stonewall,' is reported to have pushed aside the surgeons who were dressing his wounds and to have exclaimed, tossing his old gray cap in the air: There comes the President. Hurrah for the President! Give me ten thousand men and I will be in Washington to-night.'

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"And there can be but little doubt that if the President had known 'Stonewall' [Thunderbolt,' 'Tornado,' or 'Cyclone' would have been a much more appropriate soubriquet for him] as well then as he knew him afterwards, that he would have given him the men, for it is now a part of the history of that great victory that, so far from stopping the pursuit of the routed enemy (as was falsely reported at the time), President Davis was exceedingly anxious to push them across the Potomac, and at one time issued a peremptory order to that effect, which was only countermanded at the earnest request of Generals Johnston and Beauregard.

"The next time I saw President Davis was during the 'seven days' battles around Richmond,' during which that pleasing incident occurred of his gently rebuking General Lee for being so far to the front as to endanger his valuable life, and was in turn mildly chided by the General for 'risking the