Neely s Library of Choice Literature 
 
 It ETA 11^ 5O CEXTS. Entered as Second Class. 
 
 The Princess of Alaska Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 In The Quarter Robert W. Chambers. 
 
 The Man in BlacH Stanley J, Weyman. 
 
 The Anarchist; A Story of To-Day Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 A Rented Husband Voisin. 
 
 Hawaiian Life; or, Lazy Letters from Low Latitudes Charles 
 Warren Stoddard. 
 
 Love Affairs of a Worldly Man Maibelle Justice. 
 
 Love Letters of a Worldly Woman Mrs. W. K. Clifford. 
 
 On a Margin Julius Chambers. 416 pages. 
 
 For Life and Love Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 The Passing Shoiv Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 Delilah of Harlem Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 The Masked Venus Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 Prince Schamyl s Wooing Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 The Little Lady of Lagunitas Richard Henry Savage. 
 
 Nance A Kentucky Romance Nanci Lewis Greene. 
 
 Madam SapphiraVdgea Saltus. A Fifth Avenue Story. 
 
 Are Men Gay Deceivers ? Mrs. Frank Leslie with Author s Por 
 trait. 
 
 Miss Madam Opie Reed, Author of a Kentucky Colonel. 
 
 The Fallen Race Austyn Granville. A strange narrative of the in 
 terior of Australia. Beautifully illustrated with half-tone en 
 gravings. 
 
 When a Man s Single J. M. Barrie, Author of "The Little Minis 
 ter." 
 
 A Young Lady To Marry, and other French Stories Claretie Mai- 
 ret, Guy de Maupassant, Coppee, Noir, and Greville. 320 pages. 
 
 The Adopted Daughter Edgar Fawcett. His most powerful book. 
 
 Stveet Danger Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Beautifully illustrated with 
 half-tone engravings. 320 pages. 
 
 Bitter Fruits Madam Caro. Illustrated with beautiful half-tone en 
 gravings 320 pages. 
 
 L Evangeliste Alphonse Daudet*; 320 pages,. nius^rfcteci with beau 
 tiful half-tone engravings. 
 
 Remarks by Bill Nye Edgar Wilson frY^. 5QO pages, 150 illustra 
 tions. 
 
 Hypnotism Jules Claretie. 
 
 For sale by the trade, or will be mailed by the Publisher on receipt 
 
 of price. 
 
 F, TENNYSON NEELY, PUBLISHER, 
 
NEELY S POPULAR LIBRARY. 
 
 RETAIL., 25 CENTS. Entered as Second 
 
 The Major in Washington City Major Randolph Gore Hampton. 
 
 (Second Series.) 
 
 Rose and Ninette Alphonse Daudet. 
 The Minister s Weak Point David Maclure. 
 At Love s Extremes Maurice Thompson. 
 By Right, Not LatvR. H. Sherard. 
 Ships That Pass in tlie Night Beatrice Harraden. 
 Dodo; A Detail of the Day&. F. Benson. 213 pages. 
 A Holiday in Bed, and Other Sketches J. M. Barrie. 180 pages. 
 Christopher Columbus; His Life and Voyages Franc B. Wilkie. 
 In Darkest England and the Way Out Gen. Booth. 375 pages. 
 Uncle Tom s Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe, with Author s Biogra 
 phy. 512 pages. 
 
 Dream LifeTk. Marvel (Donald G. Mitchell). 234 pages. 
 CosmopolisPaul Bourget. 350 pages. 
 
 Reveries of a Bachelor Ik. Marvel (Donald G. Mitchell) . 
 Was it Suicide ? Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Author s Portrait. 
 Poems and Tarns James Whitcomb Kiley and Bill Nye. Over 100 
 
 illustrations. 230 pages. 
 
 An English Girl in America Tallulah Matteson Powell. 
 Sparks from the Pen of Bill NyelW pages of Bill Nye s beet 
 
 stories. 
 
 People s Reference Book 999,999 facts. 208 pages. 
 Martha Washington Cook Book 352 pages, illustrated. 600,000 
 
 sold. 
 
 Health and Beauty Emily S. Bouton. 288 pages. 
 Social Etiquette Emily S. Bouton. "Manners Make the Man." 288 
 
 pages. 
 
 Looking Forward An imaginary visit to the World s Fair. Illus 
 trated. 250 t pages. ,..,, 
 
 For sale by the trade, or..wi|i-be mailed by the Publisher on receipt 
 
 , ; * : f of price. 
 
 F. TENNYSON NEELY, PUBLISHER, 
 
 OHCIO-A.OO. 
 

 ; M 
 
 : gseesiK*Ki 
 
 THE LYNCHING. 
 
 See page 1 24 
 
SECOND SERIES OF 
 
 THE MAJOR 
 
 I N 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY. 
 
 M/SOOR? FiANDOLPKr GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 . : * >- * 
 
 SOME AMUSING AND AMAZING LETTERS FROM A 
 SOUTHERN STANDPOINT. 
 
 F. TENNYSON NEELY 
 
 Publisher 
 
 CHICAGO NEW YORK 
 
 1894 
 
COPYRIGHTED, 1894, 
 
 BY 
 JOHN A. COCKERILL 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 THE success which attended the publication of 
 " The Major " in the columns of the MORNING AD 
 VERTISER and subsequently in book form has in 
 duced me to present the public with a second series 
 of these casual letters. 
 
 For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the first 
 volume, into whose hands these pages may chance 
 to fall, it may be said that Major Randolph Gore 
 Hampton is a peculiar but not altogether rare type 
 of the Southerner. Born in Alabama in the slave 
 period, he came into possession of his father s estate, 
 near Tuskegee, in 1858. His father, Colonel Cal- 
 houn Hampton, had lived in careless luxury, as did 
 most of the slave-owners in that period, and his only 
 son, " The Major," as we know him, grew up as most 
 Southern youths, with little or no taste for educa 
 tion, but with boundless capacity for sport and out 
 door amusement. His father s estate when he in 
 herited consisted of 1,500 acres of cotton land, a 
 strong force of slaves, and the horses, mules and 
 machinery incident to a plantation of that period. 
 At the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion the 
 Major had so mismanaged in his prodigal way as to 
 
 (7) 
 
8 Introductory. 
 
 reduce the plantation to 1,000 acres, heavily mort 
 gaged. 
 
 A firm believer in the South and its institutions, 
 he promptly enrolled himself in the Eighth Alabama 
 Regiment and rose from Captain to Major before the 
 close of the War. He served in the Army of North 
 ern Virginia with marked bravery and devotion and 
 was at Appomattox when the surrender of Lee prac 
 tically closed the terrible contest between the sec 
 tions. 
 
 In the Spring of 1865 the Federal General Wilson, 
 marching ruthlessly with cavalry through Tennessee, 
 Alabama and into Georgia, called at the Major s 
 plantation, designated as "The Juleps," Briar Root 
 P. O., and left it in desolation. Thirty of his negroes 
 followed the Federals, as did a number of his mules, 
 and all his cotton was given to flames. Returning 
 in bitterness, he became an Implacable and a leader 
 among the Unreconstructed. 
 
 The election of 1892 resulting in the complete 
 triumph of his party, he felt that the time had come 
 when the South could assert itself as the potent and 
 dominating force in the Union and he interpreted 
 that victory as a guarantee that all the wrongs of his 
 beloved South would be righted and all the damages 
 growing out of the War, which he held to be un 
 constitutional, promptly adjusted, Having a claim 
 against the Federal Government for $50,000, interest 
 included, he was induced by a few of his neighbors 
 to go to Washington City in August, 1893, to urge 
 the complete fulfillment of the Chicago platform 
 and the prompt payment of the Southern War 
 Claims. 
 
Introductory. 9 
 
 He arrived in Washington full of hope. He final 
 ly took up his residence in Hominy Hall, a board 
 ing house kept by Sylvester Toombs, a venerable 
 Georgian who had gone to Washington some years 
 previous, to urge a War Claim, and who was forced 
 to maintain himself by entertaining such of his 
 Southern friends in the Capital as desired the com 
 forts of home and congenial Southern society. The 
 chief boarder in this Southern retreat was ex -Judge 
 Fairfax Carter, of Virginia, an attorney for Southern 
 claimants, with whom the Major established pleasant 
 relations at once. He soon found that his faith in 
 President Cleveland was misplaced and, despite his 
 heroic efforts, he discovered an unwillingness upon 
 the part of Congress to pay Southern War Claims,, 
 re-establish the State Banking system or curtail the 
 pensions of Union Veterans all of which the Major 
 solemnly believes to be the religious duty of the said 
 Congress. The hopes, the disappointments, the dis 
 couragements and the vicissitudes of The Major are 
 set forth in his frank and disingenuous letters. He 
 is presented as an exaggerated type of a class of 
 fierce Sectionalists now slowly passing away. He is 
 the natural result of environment, false education and 
 unbridled prejudices. Unaccustomed to writing, he 
 expresses in a crude way the thoughts and impulses 
 which rise as events unfold around him. His chief 
 points are his seriousness and the fixed belief, under 
 all circumstances, that he is a chivalric, high-keyed 
 gentleman. He is proud of his birthright, of his 
 State and his Cause, and entirely unconscious of the 
 weakness and irregularity of his orthography. A 
 superficial student of politics, he manages to express 
 
IO Introductory. 
 
 some trenchant thoughts and is the unconscious 
 channel of some homely, vigorous truths which it is 
 just as well, perhaps, that the country should hear at 
 this time. 
 
 And such as the bibulous, aggressive Major is, the 
 country is welcome to him. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 NEW YORK, April, 1894. 
 
THE MAJOR AND THE BATTLE FLAGS. 
 
 HE REBUKES A CONNECTICUT YANKEE HOW A 
 MEAN YANKEE LIVES A CARD SHARPER INVADES 
 HIS POKER ROOM A CALL FROM AN EX-UNION 
 SOLDIER. 
 
 "SEE HERE, OLD NUTMEG, SEZ I." 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON CITY, Oct. 7. 
 
 I see that the survivors of a Mississippi ridgement, 
 C. S. A., are to return the colors to the Fifty-third 
 
12 : v Th e^MajpK.in Washington City. 
 
 Illinois which our boys captured at the battle of 
 Jackson, Miss. Considerable friendly correspondence 
 has taken place between our gallant boys and a G. A. 
 R. post in Bloomington, 111., the home of our noble 
 Vice President, and the formal transfer of the colors 
 will soon take place. Personally I am not in favor 
 of givin up so much as a cussed rag that we captured 
 from the Northern hirelings/ and for that reason I 
 have my keen objections to these proceedins ; but I 
 think my sober Southern intellect has penetrated a 
 neat disguise here. From what I know of the feel- 
 ins of the people of the South I am willin and 
 anxious to make a solemn affidavit that this isn t a 
 genuine battle flag. And that reminds me of an 
 incident. When the glad tidins spread like wild 
 fire through the South, endurin Mr. Cleveland s 
 first term, that he proposed to return our stolen 
 flags there was a skin-deep feelin that we ought to 
 reciprocate. And I am the individooal that told 
 them how to do it. One evening in Brackenridge 
 Blackburn s saloon in Tuskeegee I spoke to the 
 boys to this effect : 
 
 " If we have to send back any battle flags for 
 appearances sake let us send em fake battle flags." 
 [Sensation.] " Keep the battle torn and blood 
 stained trophies to hand down to our children as 
 evidence of our patriotism and prowess and fix up 
 some counterfeit colors for the sneakin thieves up 
 North." [Cheers.] " We can do it easy as rollin off a 
 log. Yankee flags is damd cheap down here." [Laugh 
 ter.] " I may say that they are a drug on the mar 
 ket." [Continued laughter.] " There is nothin that 
 I can recall that goes a beggin for customers as they 
 do." [Screams of laughter.] " Therefore when you 
 want to send a battle flag back to our hated adver 
 saries go to a grocery store and buy one for fifteen 
 
The Major and the Battle Flags. 13 
 
 cents, shoot it full of holes, drag it in the mud, pour 
 coffee over it and send it along with friendly and 
 fraternal greetin s C. O. D." 
 
 You bet the suggestion was cheered to the echo, 
 and, carried away by the exuberance of the moment, 
 Colonel Virginius Jackson, a relative of " Stonewall," 
 ordered the drinks and paid for them. If Mr. Cleve 
 land had not been thwarted in his noble intentions 
 probably the best intentions the feller ever had 
 we would have met him half way in the battle-flag 
 business, and the above is the way we would have 
 done it. 
 
 It would tickle me half to death to learn that 
 these old sap-suckers of the Fifty-third Illinois are 
 to get a " salted " battle flag. I m goin to write 
 down to Mississippi and find out about this. 
 
 I was introduced to a slab-sided cider maker from 
 Connecticut the other day, who grasped me by the 
 hand and said he was always " glad to greet a man 
 from the New South." If there is anything that 
 makes me chafe in the harness it is to hear flap 
 doodle about the so-called " New South." I was 
 hot in "a minute. " See here, old Nutmeg," sez I, 
 drawn myself up to my full hite, " you will obleege 
 me by makin no allusions to the New South. 
 There ain t no * New South/ and if your blue-nosed 
 children live to be centipedes they ll never see one. 
 The South is the same dear, old blessed South she 
 was afore our Second War for National Independ 
 ence. This she is to-day, old Nutmeg, and ever 
 shall be, world without end, AMEN!" and I ejacu 
 lated the last word with such vehemence that old 
 shad-belly from Bark Hampsted sunk into his shoes. 
 I won t have any of this " New South " nonsense 
 
14 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 around where I am. I d as soon hear of a town 
 down in my State called Sherman. 
 
 # * * 
 
 In the Metropolitan bar yesterday a miserable 
 red-eyed, shabby-genteel man approached me and 
 introduced himself as Colonel Hoke, from Tatnall 
 County, Gawjah. He said that his people had in 
 duced him to come to Washington and assist in the 
 work of securing recognition of their War Claims, 
 and knowing that I was the pioneer in this work he 
 wished to co-operate. I saw at oncet that he was a 
 base fraud. I told him that at first I supposed that 
 Washington City had phillypeened Tatnall County 
 and that they had sent him on as a present, but he 
 growed somewhat indignant and sereus. So I said 
 to him: "Colonel, I m right here and doin all that 
 can be done to secure justice for the impoverished 
 South. I think I have as much influence with this 
 Administration as you are likely to have and every 
 thing pretty much rests with Grover Cleveland. I m 
 with you very much like the nigger that was ridin 
 along the road one day on a mule and fell asleep. 
 The mule was strollin quietly when he stopt to 
 scratch some flies off his stummock with his hind 
 foot. In doin so he caught the toe of his shoe in 
 the stirrup and had to stop still on three legs. The 
 nig woke up an lookin around and seein the mule s 
 foot in the stirrup he hollered : Looky hyar, Mister 
 Mule, by golly, ef you re gwine ter git up I se gwine 
 ter git down ! Now Mr. Mule, from Gawjah, ef 
 you re goin to get up and run this business of mine 
 here in Washington I m goin to git down. They 
 ain t room for two such Southern patriots as us." 
 The old slob pertended to be hurt but I smoothed 
 him down with the loan of a dollar. I found out 
 afterwards that he had been hangin around Wash- 
 
The Major and the Battle Flags. 15 
 
 ington for eight or ten years and that he come from 
 somewhere on the Eastern Sho of Maryland. If he 
 interferes with me and my work I ll make him wish 
 he was located on the Eastern Sho of Pattygony. 
 # * * 
 
 A party of us Southern gentlemen was discussing 
 the other evenin the sad condition of some of our 
 folks who are here waitin for office and the straits 
 that some are reduced to are really heart renderin. 
 It is as much as we can do to keep our Hominy Hall 
 boardin house runnin on Southern patronage. 
 Couldn t do it if it wasn t for my makin close col 
 lections from the boarders for the Widow Toombs. 
 One of the gentlemen in the groope referred to, by 
 way of explainin how little is required to sustain 
 human life after all, said he d heard of a mean Yankee 
 man here in town who was livin on fifty cents a 
 week. He said this man had a married sister livin 
 over in Georgetown that he visited and took dinner 
 with every Sunday. He d eat enough then to last 
 him till Tuesday, On Wednesday he d go downtown 
 and buy a quarter s worth of tripe which he cooked 
 in his room over a coal oil lamp. Tripe always made 
 him deathly sick. He d gorge himself with this 
 tripe and that would put him to bed and destroy his 
 appetite till Sunday. Then he d repeat the George 
 town visit, etc. Everybody laffed over this, and 
 one man wanted to know what the Yank did with 
 the other twenty-five cents, but that, of course, 
 went for rent and incidentals. While this anneck- 
 dote created some merriment it set me to thinkin. 
 I said to myself, just think of us Southern Cavaleers, 
 generous, whole-soled and improvident, tryin to live 
 in a Government with a race of Puritans that can 
 produce such a man as the one referred to. But 
 that s been our trouble. While we live in the most 
 
1 6 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 fertile and luxurious section that the sun ever shone 
 on, we give no thought to saving. We live luxoori- 
 ously and extravagantly, while these skinflint, thrifty 
 Yankees save all they get holt of and then go round 
 talkin about their industry. It ain t industry, it s 
 meanness that makes them appear prosperous. But 
 what s the use grumblin ? 
 
 # # * 
 
 At our poker parlor last evenin an incident oc 
 curred which pained me greatly. A young gentleman 
 from Southern Maryland named Brutus Tarquin 
 Cockey, which I had known for several weeks, 
 dropped in at the place and introduced a Mr. Rogers, 
 of Savannah, Ga., who appeared to be as fine a man 
 as ever was. They got into a game of draw, and 
 Cockey won about $800. I was surprised at his 
 luck, but after he and his friend had went out a 
 smart chap come and told me that Rogers was a pro- 
 feshional card sharp from New York and that he used 
 to know him in Lowell, Mass., where he was raised. 
 By the spirit of Calhoun, but that did rile me ! To 
 have our place invaded by a skin gambler was bad 
 enough, but to have honorable Southern gentlemen 
 (three of them M. C. s) robbed by a sneakin, taller- 
 faced Yankee, made me paw the earth. I grabbed 
 my hat and started for them. I hunted the town 
 over but couldn t find hide nor hair of em, and it s 
 providential I didn t, I reckon, for there d been 
 mournin in at least two families. To think of that 
 young Marylander, belongin to a good Southern 
 family related to Lord Baltimore, travelin around 
 with a Yankee card thief. What is this generation a 
 comin too ? Has honour been drove out of the 
 Southern people by contact with the sordid, unskru- 
 pulous Yankees? I fear that the war not only ruined 
 us financially but that it degraded our Southern 
 
The Major and the Battle Flags. 17 
 
 character. I was so mad about this eppersode that 
 when I got back to the house and old Colonel Vesu 
 vius Doswell bantered me for a single-handed game 
 of draw I got out a deck of marked cards and done 
 him out of $250, all he had a thing I haven t done for 
 some time, as I m gettin too old to see the marks 
 
 well now. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I was called on yesterday by a impudent Captain 
 Hector Bruce, who introduced himself by sayin that 
 he was from Wisconsin and that his ridgement was 
 with General Wilson when his cavalry raided through 
 Tuskeegee in the spring of 65. He merely wanted 
 to gaze on me. I said, " I suppose you re one of the 
 dirty mob that robbed my plantation, takin my 
 horses, cattle and chickens and burnin my cotton 
 and fence rails?" He said he personally had never 
 harmed any sivilian in the South, and he tried to be 
 right pleasant, but I wouldn t have it. He told about 
 Tuskeegee bein a great place for schools and how 
 when General Wilson was goin to burn the printin 
 office of a rebel paper a widow woman come up and 
 said that the property was hers and that it was this 
 printin office that printed all the bibles and school 
 books for that part of the South. She said that she 
 was loyal and she took a solemn oath not to let any 
 more rebel newspapers be printed on her press and 
 the General let her go. I said, " That s all right, no 
 doubt, but I was just leavin Appomattox for home 
 about the time you mounted robbers went through 
 our helpless section. If I d been there you d a had 
 something besides a loyal widow to deal with. You 
 left me with a claim for $50,000 against the Govern 
 ment, which I mean to have paid, but if I had been 
 at home some of your folks that s now drawin pen 
 sions would have never got a chance to receipt for a 
 2 
 
1 8 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 cent. I suppose you think it s funny to talk to me 
 about your military exploit in Alabama, but I want 
 you to know that I don t forget and I don t forgive, 
 and, old as I am, I d like to be one of a party of 
 Southern gentlemen to ride through Wisconsin right 
 now." My cold shoulder didn t please Mr. Captain 
 and he sneaked away. I mention this as an example 
 of how all these Northern merauders should be 
 treated by Southern gentlemen of real honour. 
 # * * 
 
 Glory to the Lord of hosts, as our old army Chap 
 lain used to say, our boys of the Weighs and Means 
 Committee are at work up in a coal hole in the Cap 
 itol knockin the stuffin out of the Yankee Robber 
 Baron tariff. As Moses said to Aaron, or somebody 
 said to somebody else, mine eyes have beheld the 
 glory of it, but your servant ain t goin to depart 
 until he sees a Committee of Southern gentlemen 
 settin in open daylight and auditin and payin our 
 just War Claims as boldly as they deal faro down at 
 Hot Springs, Arkansaw. And that day is comin Mr. 
 fat Grover Cleveland, settin there in the White 
 House enjoyin your wealth and your power, with 
 your hairy ears stuffed with cotton, while poor, foot 
 sore and weary Justice from the dejected South lays 
 sobbin on your back doorstep with nobody to give 
 her even a cold potato. (I m writin in a little 
 higher key to-day, havin just helped Lem Tolliver 
 to empty a quart of bourbon whiskey.) 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
ODIOUSNESS OF FEDERAL COURTS. 
 
 THE MAJOR S POKER ROOM A GREAT SUCCESS- 
 HOW THE SOUTHERN IMPRESS IS SEEN AND FELT 
 IN THE CAPITAL A DEGENERATE SON OF MARY 
 LAND NOW FOR THE FEDERAL ELECTION LAWS. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON CITY, Oct. 9. 
 
 I see in one of the Democratic newspapers up 
 North a suggestion that the powers of the Federal 
 courts be enlarged so as to give them jurisdiction to 
 punish train robbers. Doesn t this fool editor know 
 that he is advocatin somethin that is directly agin 
 the policy of the Democrat party ? Instead of en- 
 largin the scope of these Federal courts the whole 
 odious system should be wiped out slick and clean. 
 And I am in a position to tell this editorial ninny 
 that a sentiment is rapidly growing up in the South 
 which will do this in spite of all the power of the 
 stars. There has been no institution that has so re 
 tarded its growth and interfered with the comfort 
 and happiness of the South as has this outrageous 
 system of dispensin so-called justice. The people 
 of the South has come to recognize this fact and the 
 time is rapidly approachin when a United States 
 Judge or Marshal will have to walk as softly in the 
 South as a nigger. If I had my way I would sup 
 press and confiscate any cussed newspaper, be it 
 Democrat, Republican, Populist or Methodist, that 
 preaches sech hideous treason as this. Not only this, 
 but I would string up the imbecile editor by the 
 
 C 9) 
 
2O The Major in Washington City. 
 
 thumbs and give him the thirty-third degree with a 
 hoss whip. 
 
 x- # * 
 
 I am free to say that I am strongly in favor of any 
 thing that will increase the amount of currency per 
 capita and do it suddent. The latest figures issooed 
 by the Treasury Department place the amount of 
 money in circulation, per capita, at $25, though if the 
 state of my finances was disclosed occasionally to 
 Secretary Carlisle he would, I opine, strike a consid 
 erably lower average. But while this is important, it 
 is personal, and we will let it pass. At the same time 
 our poker parlor is doin a right smart business, and 
 I am really flyin higher here in Washington than I 
 have done since befo the wa. I doubt if the repeal 
 of the Silver bill will help us much and as a matter 
 of solemn fact I am not carin much which way that 
 cat jumps. It is a frequent sayin of Judge Carter 
 that there is a tide in the affairs of men what, if taken 
 at the flood, leads on to fortune, and it wouldn t sur 
 prise me if I was on the top wave pintin for the Isles 
 of Plenty. Tolliver and me has divided as much as 
 $80 as the result of one night s business, and I m a 
 coyote if I haven t seen the time in recent years 
 when I have failed to collar that much per month. 
 There is only one thing that casts a shadder over my 
 path. Some of the miserable curs that come into 
 our place and make a losin squeal like pigs and 
 threaten to make trouble for us. My social position 
 would be sadly injured if anything like this should 
 happen and I am livin in more or less constant dread. 
 I spoke to Lem about this last night and he laughed 
 my fears to scorn. He said that political influence 
 here in Washington would avert any kind of a catas 
 trophe, except an earthquake, and it was largely on 
 account of my friendly relations with the President 
 
Odiousness of Federal Courts. 21 
 
 and Southern Congressmen that he took me into 
 partnership. I didn t want Lem to know that my 
 relations with Grover was a trifle strained and so I 
 deftly changed the subject to the yot race a subject 
 that I know as much about as I do about the mys 
 terious science by means of which Daniel interpreted 
 the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, or made His Nebs 
 
 believe he did. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I hardly know what to make of the statement of 
 George Gould that he is in favor of an Income tax, 
 though I suppose my writings on this subject hasn t 
 been without their influence. I am strongly in favor 
 of an Income tax myseif,.but at the same time since 
 I have been able to keep a dollar bill in my posses 
 sion long enough to determine the color of money 
 once more, I find my views gradually softenin on 
 this subject. Still I have no doubt it will be some 
 little time, even if business keep up, before an In 
 come tax will cut seriously into my resources, and 
 so I will cling to my original opinion that such a tax 
 will be a good thing because it will fall largely on 
 the hated money lenders and Robber Barrens of the 
 North. I am glad to find Mr. Gould fallin into my 
 way of thinkin, and if he ever comes to Washington 
 I will be glad to have him look me up. I may be of 
 use to him some time in procurin some wise rail 
 road legislation. 
 
 # # -x- 
 
 I am proud to state in writin that one of the 
 things that sofens my old gizzard is the fact that 
 Southern influences are being felt in Sassiety here. 
 It would do you good to see how our Southern 
 beaus are received by the ladies in Washington. 
 Southern gentlemen was always chivalrick and 
 high-toned in the company of ladies and they have 
 
22 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 always been favorites. I notice now that lots of the 
 young men here are wearin soft felt Southern hats, 
 and I think it won t be long before tight boots with 
 high heels will be the fashion. Nearly every young 
 man I see around the hotels now, is tryin to 
 imitate the Southern dialeck. They tell me these 
 nincumpoops used to try to talk like Englishmen, 
 but sence Washington has become the great South- 
 ern soceal center they are adjustin theirselves to 
 the change. One of the most popular Southern 
 Society gentlemen is Speaker Crisp s beautiful son, 
 who is really the assistant Speaker of the House. I 
 think it safe to say that two-thirds of the belles of 
 Washington are smitten with Mr. Crisp. He is the 
 most charming type of Southern gentleman I have 
 seen sence the war. A lady of my acquaintance in 
 forms me that in a few weeks Sassiety will be red 
 hot here, and then the grace and beauty and wit of 
 the South will come to the surface. Our young 
 ladies are not only more beautiful than the Northern 
 women, but they have been reared with such delicacy 
 that it shows in all their manners. The Yankee 
 women are intellectooal, while ours are treated as 
 pets and doll babies : loved, praised and coddled. 
 It always made me sick to see a woman readin a 
 highfalutin book. I expect to cut a little dash in 
 Sassiety myself this season and am havin a new suit 
 of broadcloth clothes made for that purpose. I still 
 stick to the peg-top trowsers. 
 
 * # # 
 
 A gentleman informed me to-day that Mr. Cockey, 
 the young Maryland reprobate who brought a 
 Yankee card-sharper into our place the other night, 
 had sent word from Bladensburg, where he is hidin, 
 that he would like to submit his matter to a Court 
 of Honour. I ll be the Court of Honour in this here 
 
Odiousness of Federal Courts. 23 
 
 case myself, and if that blackguard knows what is 
 good for him he will not come nearer to Washington 
 City than his present lair. While I respect his family 
 and his State of Maryland I will certainly make an 
 example of him if he falls into my clutches. It isn t 
 that I care much about his cheating at cards, for I 
 do a little of that myself at times, but he has hurt 
 my business with the members of Congress, and 
 when my business is interfered with the ragean tiger 
 of the jungles is a mild pussy cat compared to me. 
 * * * 
 
 As I indict these lines preparations is bein made 
 up in the House to take a vote on the repeal of the 
 infemous Federal Elections law. When that event 
 takes place I ll take several drinks and a loo-gun 
 saloot will be fired at Briar Root on my order. Not 
 sence the Declaration of Independence was declared 
 at Macklinberg, North Caroleena, has so important 
 a event occurred as regards the South, I feel like 
 givin a wild whoop right now. I lived to see the 
 last dam cyarpet-bagger kicked out of the South and 
 I intend to see the last infernal Superviser and Mar 
 shal dumped into the byoo. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
THE NEGRO IN ALABAMA. 
 
 HOW HE .IS PERMITTED TO CELEBRATE WIPING 
 OUT THE FEDERAL ELECTION LAWS LITERA 
 TURE IN THE SOUTH PRESIDENT CLEVELAND 
 LOSING THE RESPECT OF SOUTHERN PEOPLE 
 A SLANDER ON LINCOLN REVIVED. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON CITY, Oct. 12. 
 
 My cousin, Boabdil Hampton, over in Panther, 
 Bullock County, Ala., has sent me a copy of a town 
 paper containin an interestin account of the recent 
 celebration of Emancipation by the niggers of that 
 section. This is one of the pleasin fictions our local 
 newspapers indulge in once a year when this glad 
 anniversary for the colored people rolls around. You 
 see, the editor doesn t describe what actually took 
 place, but what might take place allowin that the 
 nigs had everything their own way. For instence, it 
 is related in detail how the blacks came in for miles 
 around ; how the streets were handsomely decorated 
 for them by the whites, just to show that there was 
 no hard feelin s ; how they paraded and was every 
 where cheered by the noble, true-hearted Southern 
 ers ; how the white ladies waived handkerchifs and 
 showered bouquets upon them from windows and 
 piazers ; how the best elocutionist in the county 
 read the Emancipation Proclamation, the noble sen 
 timents of which was cheered to the echo in the 
 meantime, etc., etc. Then the outline of the speech 
 of General Somebody, late of the C. S. A., one of 
 (24) 
 
The Negro in Alabama. 25 
 
 the leadin white citizens, is given. In it he calls 
 attention to the prosperous condition of the colored 
 man ; the fine churches and schools which are pro 
 vided for him and his children ; how the black man 
 is protected by society and the courts ; how he can 
 sow and reap and come and go at his will and in 
 every way enjoy the most beautiful and perfect free 
 dom. The account closed with a lovin benediction 
 on the colored man and brother askin that he might 
 live long and prosper and his tribe increase. 
 
 I need hardly say that the above beautiful account 
 of the celebration of Emancipation is what is called 
 a journalistik " fake." The nigs did not celebrate 
 the day in Panther, or elsewhere, and had they at 
 tempted to do so there would have been more fun 
 than you could shake a stick at. I haven t been in 
 Panther, Dadesville, Sandy Ridge, Society Hill or 
 Raifs Branch for some time, but I m bettin large 
 amounts of money that there wasn t a nigger showed 
 his woolly head on the streets of any of those towns 
 on the occasion named. The nigs down our way 
 begun exercisin the grand prerogative of liberty some 
 years ago by celebratin Emancipation Day, but they 
 soon got over it. The grand prerogative of liberty 
 cost about twenty-five of em their woolly pelts in 
 Tuskegee one gladsome day and it hasn t been pop 
 ular there with them since. As a rule the niggers 
 know when Emancipation Day rolls round, and 
 that s the day they remain under the bed, for the 
 reason that their appearance on the streets has a 
 tendency to excite race prejudices, to the great 
 detriment of the colored population, particularly 
 since the burnin of niggers has become more or less 
 customary with us. I can t dwell on this painful 
 subject of the emancipation of our slaves with any 
 kind of patience. That high-handed piece of busi- 
 
26 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 ness was the crownin infamy of the century. In 
 the gradual unfoldin of the scheme of civilization 
 under the grand old Democratic party there will be 
 a tremendous reaction against this outrage on the 
 rights of property, and I expect to live to see every 
 Lincoln monument and statue in this country lev 
 eled to the ground. That I will participate person- 
 ally in the levelin of several of em myself goes, I 
 trust, thout sayin . Old Abe is on top just at the 
 present moment, but the clouds are lowerin" about 
 his head, and if he hasn t use purty soon for a mack 
 intosh I m no weather prophet. 
 
 * # * 
 
 There has been joyousness in Southern circles 
 here since the House so gallantly passed the bill 
 which is to restore to the Democrats of the country 
 the right to control elections without any interfer 
 ence from Federal authorities. Of course the thing 
 don t mean so much to us down South, for we ve 
 taken control of elections down there and we manage 
 them to suit ourselves. But in the big Democratic 
 cities of the North it will count. I m told that Tam 
 many of New York will be able to about double its 
 vote when we get this odeous law scraped off the 
 statutes and dumped into the hole along with other 
 Republican war legislation. That the Senate will 
 rip this repeal bill right through you can bet high. 
 The Democrats ain t divided on this issooe as they 
 are on silver and there ll be no tomfoolery. The re 
 peal will go through if we have to resort to revolu 
 tionary means, so one of our Congressmen tells me. 
 I am just whoopin happy over the way we are pro- 
 ceedin . The janitor of the secret room in the Cap 
 itol where our boys under Mr. Wilson are fixin up 
 the new tariff bill tells me that the work is goin on 
 nicely. There is a dread that it won t be quite radi- 
 
The Negro in Alabama. 1J 
 
 cal enough to suit us Free Traders of the South but 
 it will be a substanchial beginnin . It will be notice 
 served on the Robber Barins of what is to come. 
 
 Some of us were loungin about our poker room yes 
 terday afternoon when an argument come up about 
 literatoor in the South. A member of the old Aiken 
 family, of South Caroleena, said the people of our sec 
 tion were not keepin up in modern literatoor. He said 
 that a gentleman in the South considered it a dis 
 grace to have a book in his library fresher than 
 Walter Scott s stories. He said that the " Scottish 
 Chiefs " and " Thaddyas of Warsaw " was still popu 
 lar with our readin people and that nobody hardly 
 in the South knowed about " Ben Her " or Sir Edwin 
 Arnold s recent works. He said he d seen a state 
 ment somewhere that the Century Magazine sold 
 only thirty-six copies a month in New Orleans and 
 3,000 a month in Boston. A smart chap in the party 
 spoke up and said that as most of the literatoor in 
 this country was manufactured in the North he was 
 glad to know that it wasn t bein* much read in our 
 section. He said that the last novel he read was by 
 Augusta J. Evans and he never expected to read an 
 other until the South developed some ekally talented 
 writer. It s as much as I can do to read a few news 
 papers and I have no yearnin for Yankee trash. I 
 only mention this incident to show that we do have 
 people amongst us who can talk on litterary subjects. 
 * * # 
 
 I was called on last night to go down to a police 
 station and bail out a young chap from Virginia who 
 was arrested for lickin a Yankee who abused Presi 
 dent Cleveland in a bar room on F street. I put up 
 a little cash bail for him and commended his good 
 
28 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 work, but I cautioned him not to be too handy with 
 his fist when he heard people commentin unpleas 
 antly on Cleveland. I said that recently our South 
 ern folks were beginnin to speak very disrespeck- 
 fully of the President, and that if he didn t show a 
 little more disposition to cut loose from the Eastern 
 gold-bugs and carry out the demands of the Demo 
 cratic party he would be cursed by Democrats from 
 Dan to Bersheeby, and in no part of the country 
 more than the South. The young man promised to 
 keep his eyes open hereafter. The fact is, Mr. Cleve 
 land is growin more and more onpopular every day. 
 He is not in touch with the South as we had all 
 hoped. Why, a man bet Captain Huger five dollars 
 yesterday that if Congress passed a Tariff bill now 
 Cleveland wouldn t sign it. What do ye think of 
 
 that? 
 
 * * # 
 
 I was speakin about Abe Lincoln in the fore part 
 of this letter. I am glad to see that the facts are 
 comin out about him. Several of our Southern 
 papers are publishin the particulars about his bein 
 the illegitimate son of old Abraham Enloe, of Jack 
 son County, North Caroleena. It seems like Enloe 
 had a servant girl in his family named Nancy Hanks. 
 He sent her to Kentucky to get shet of her and she 
 gave birth to a boy child soon after arrivin there. 
 She afterward met and married a man named Lin 
 coln, but she called her son Abraham after his true 
 father, Abe Enloe. The Greenville News says that 
 all the pictures of Abraham Lincoln look like the 
 Enloes. I m glad to see that this sereus matter is 
 bein talked about in the interest of truth. The 
 North worshipped old Abe Lincoln for years and 
 now that the facts are out they won t feel so proud 
 of him. This is only one out of about a thousand 
 
The Negro in Alabama. 29 
 
 things in history that ll be straightened out before 
 we get through. Lincoln was one of the worst men 
 we ever had in this country, and it s the duty of the 
 South to see that his place in history is what it ought 
 to be. Old Grant is another man to be tended to in 
 due time. A lot of fools in the South think he was 
 a great and magnanimes man because he was mighty 
 glad to let us go at Appomattox. The South don t 
 owe him anything, and they ll execrate him when I 
 make publick all I know. 
 
 Jf * # 
 
 The funniest thing of the period is the perpetooal 
 session of the Senate. I was up to see the old 
 snoozers last night. I m bettin on the Silver boys 
 for the most of em are poker-players that can set up 
 thirty-six hours hand runnin when in a game. Its 
 more fun than a nigger cake walk to see these old 
 fellers tryin to wear each other out in a long distance 
 jawin match. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
HIS VIEWS ON FREE SPEECH. 
 
 THE GROWTH OF DRAW POKER AND SPORTING IN 
 THE CAPITAL A COCK FIGHT OVER IN VIRGINIA 
 THE HIDDEN HAND THERE IS NO SUCH THING 
 AS THE " LOST CAUSE." 
 
 THE COCK FIGHT. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, D. C, Oct. 14. 
 
 The failyer on the part of old Cleveland to coerse 
 his party into financial legislation to please Wall 
 street gold-bugs has turned out just as I predicted. 
 (30) . . , 
 
His Views on Free Speech. 31 
 
 I told him he had better join in with the majority of 
 his party the last time I seen him, but the truth is 
 he s under influences of an evil character. The 
 Eastern bankers have got him right around the neck 
 and onless he changes his company purty soon his 
 party s goin to go back on him. Sometimes I think 
 he s a biger fool than old Andy Johnson. The Dem 
 ocratic party is for free coinage of silver and every 
 body knows it. What the old party s in favor of 
 we re goin to have. At the " Hall " this mornin at 
 breakfast young Mr. Fender exprest the idee purty 
 well when he said that the Democratic party was for 
 Free coinage, Free Trade, Free speech, Free love, 
 Free lunch everything free. I took exception to free 
 speech. We have too much of that now, though it 
 turned out darned well in the Senate. We don t 
 believe much in free speech in the South, and that s 
 right. What business has a man goin around talkin 
 against the interests of the community? There s 
 nothin sacred about free speech. If a man don t 
 like the way that things is done in a certain locality 
 let him hold his jaw and get away as soon as he kin. 
 If he don t hold his jaw down with us he ll have to 
 get away right soon. But I m for free coinage of 
 silver, and we re goin to have it before we quit. 
 * * * 
 
 It is gratifyin in the extream to notice here the 
 growth of poker-playin sence the Southerners re 
 gained the Capital. Poker was the National game 
 in the Confederacy. It was invented in the South 
 and it is fast becomin the gentleman s game of the 
 whole country. Mr. Fender tells me that Sassiety 
 here has taken hold of it. At all the evenin recep 
 tions now there is a room set apart for the gentlemen 
 to enjoy a game of draw up stairs, and poker parties 
 in which ladies take hands are quite fashenable. 
 
32 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Thus do we see how the gentle, suttel influ 
 ences of the gentry of the South are stealin over 
 the land. Our games and our aristocratic pastimes 
 have always been popler in the North. There 
 was a time when nobody ever heard of a horse 
 race outside of the South. Now the great racin 
 centers are found in the North and under the 
 auspices of our great Democratic leaders, such 
 as Richard Croaker, the sport of kings has be 
 come the sport of the People. Of course the South 
 will always raise the racers. That there game of 
 base-ball which they have up North could never take 
 hold with us. Our climate does not admit of it and 
 it s too much like work anyhow. A few of our nig 
 gers try to play it. I expect to see the day when 
 cock-fitin, which is the noblest of all gentlemen s 
 amusements, will be popler all over the land. I have 
 never failed to keep a good strain of chickens on my 
 plantation. In the darkest hours of our hewmiliation 
 and poverty I could always pick up a few dollars with 
 my birds. I ve got four Spanish-bred fouls on my 
 place now that is, if my boys haven t fit em to a 
 stand-still that I ll pit against any chickens in this 
 country, bar none. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Speakin of cock-fightin I may mention that a 
 party of us went over one day in the early part of 
 the week to see a private main on the Virginia side, 
 near Leesburg. We was the guests of Colonel Pen- 
 dragon Penruthers, who has a fine place which he 
 calls " Takachaw," and where he devotes hisself to 
 chickens, horses and rasin mules. Judge Norval 
 Osborne, his neighbor, does considerable in the 
 game chicken line and the rivalry between em is so 
 very great that they fight a main about every two 
 weeks in the season. We had in our party Captain 
 
His Views on Free Speech. 33 
 
 Huger, Major Houston, a young Mr. Randell, of 
 Mississippi, and old General Jay Jackson, of Tennes 
 see, as fine an old sport as ever drawed a card. 
 After a few toddies and a luncheon we proceeded to 
 the barn where a pit was found with all conveniences. 
 The Osborne party to the number of ten or twelve 
 was on hand. One of his sons, a nice young fellow, 
 was called " Sag." I ast him what his name was and 
 he said it was Saggitarius. He explained that his 
 father had started out to name all his boys by the 
 signs of the Zodiack that they was born under. He 
 said he had one brother named Capricornus and an 
 other named Cancer. We fought six chickens a side 
 and Penruthers got four of the events. Considerable 
 money changed hands. I won about $20. Durin 
 the afternoon a young Mr. Tarleton dunned Capt. 
 Hector Hamilton for a balance of $2 due on some 
 previous wagers and there was quite a rumpus. The 
 Captain slapped his face and they both drawed, but 
 I put a stop to the performance. I was elected as 
 arbitrator and I settled the dispute by reprimandin 
 Tarleton for astin a gentleman in public to pay a 
 debt and directin Hamilton to pay $1.50 to square 
 the business. There s hot blood between these 
 young chaps and the ll be trouble yet. 
 * * # 
 
 After bein at the theayter the other evenin with 
 some friends we stopt in an eatin house to get some 
 oysters, and the boys got to talkin about old plays. 
 One of em told a story I thought was rayther good. 
 He said that a few years ago an actor named Ned 
 Thorne was advertised to play a piece in Memphis 
 called the " Black Flag." For some reason he 
 changed it to " The Hidden Hand," and he was 
 anxious to know how the people would take the 
 change. He was gettin his boots blacked in the 
 
34 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Gayoso House next mornin when he noticed that 
 the old nigger bootblack was very talkative. He 
 said to him: 
 
 " What s your name, Uncle ? " 
 
 " My name, sah, is Thomas Jephson." 
 
 " Lived here long?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, sah, was borned and raised right hyar." 
 
 11 You re purty well posted about things in town I 
 supose ? " 
 
 " Deed I is, sah ; knows everything been going on 
 hyar since I was ten yars ole. Golly, guess I knows 
 dis ole town ! " 
 
 " How long has it been, Uncle, since the Hidden 
 Hand was played here ? " 
 
 " Lemme see. It was eight yars ago dis fall. , I 
 remembers all about dat case. I waited on em an 
 it was right in dis hotel room 36." 
 
 " Tell us about it, Uncle." 
 
 "Well, dey was six ob em sot down. One ob dem 
 I know was a nashernal statesman from de Norf, but 
 I disremember his name. Dey dole de kyards an* I 
 seen ole Jenul Waxem, dat use ter be in our army, 
 a suspichnen dat Norvern gemmen right peart. Dey 
 hadn t been more n foh pots won befoh de gemmen 
 from de Norf was cotch a holdin out a jack. Purty 
 soon he done gone up agin Jenul Waxem for a big 
 pot an when he showed down and reach fer de 
 money, when he hab six kyards, de ole man reach 
 down under de table an he drawed outen his boot a 
 pistil about a foot long and he drapped a bead on 
 dat nashernal statesman from de Norf, an golly ! ye 
 ought to seen him scatter. Dat was de Hidden 
 Han an dat s de las time, sah, it was played in dis 
 town. Dat s what de gemmen all call ole Waxem s 
 pistil de hidden han ." 
 
His Views on Free Speech. 35 
 
 I made a social call on one of our Southern mem 
 bers last evenin and was presented to a young lady 
 who is visitin with them, who comes from Southern 
 Indiana. She told me her father was a Kaintuckian 
 and she begun to tell me how much she admired the 
 noble warriors who had fout for the Lost Cause. I 
 stopped her right there. I said : " Miss I had the proud 
 honor to struggle for four years for the sacred in 
 dependence of the South. We was baffled but our 
 cause was not lost. There is no Lost Cause. Our 
 cause was simply delayed. To-day we are marching 
 to triumph. We may not have established our sweet 
 independence but we have done better. We not 
 only have the control of our own affairs but we run 
 the whole country. Our principles, instead of bein 
 confined to the South, are bein fastened on the 
 whole Union. We have slavery in the South with 
 out bein responsible for the niggers, and what s more 
 we represent all our niggers in Congress now when 
 we used to only represent a fraction of em. As 
 soon as we are paid for the damages inflicted on us 
 by the onconstitootional war we ll be better off than 
 we would have been had we succeeded in establishin 
 an independent Confederacy. Nay, nay fair maiden 
 do not again speak of the Lost Cause for in this 
 halcyon period we call it the Cause Regained." She 
 held out her hand and I bowed and kist it with 
 chivalrick warmth. We was friends at oncet. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
AS TO OPEN LETTERS. 
 
 THE APPOINTMENT OF NEGROES TO OFFICE DIS 
 GUSTS THE MAJOR THE CODE DUELLO GOOD 
 JUDGE OF WHISKEY HE HEARS BAD NEWS 
 FROM HOME. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., Oct. 16. 
 
 Since I begun speakin my mind freely in my pub 
 lic letters about the "fat and greasy citizen," as 
 Shakespeare cleverly frazes it, who at present makes 
 a pretense of representin the Democratic party in 
 the White House, I observe that "open letters" to 
 His Excellency are becomin quite the vogue, as we 
 say here in Southern society. 
 
 New York newspapers has been runnin to open 
 letters almost daily but most of the twaddle in em 
 is about Van Alen. When these open letter writers 
 prod the President touchin the justness of the War 
 Claims of the South they will be gettin at the nerve 
 of things and I may give em moral and material sup 
 port by jinin in with a few open epistles to His Corpu 
 lency myself. And if I do, you bet there will be 
 some lively readin matter scattered broadcast. I ll 
 not waste any valuable time on the Van Alen fool 
 ishness, for that is a minor issoo. No one, exceptin 
 the Mugwump cherubims, ever believed that Grover 
 was any better than his party. A man who was 
 raised in a Buffalo saloon, or so close to one that 
 there was still sawdust on his heels when he reached 
 the White House, isn t goin to turn political re 
 former all to oncet. Did Grover know that Van 
 (36) 
 
As to Open Letters. 3; 
 
 Alert s leg Was pulled for $50,000 and that the Italian 
 mission wuz to be given to him therefor ? You can 
 gamble that he knowed it knowed it as well as Gro- 
 ver knows that dinner is ready when the bell rings. 
 So I would dismiss the Van Alen incident with a few 
 frank and forcible statements and proceed to the dis 
 cussion of the War Claims, which is my best holt. 
 Therefore you need not be surprised if you see me 
 break out any day in an open letter to the President 
 that will make the sweat of agony ooze out of his 
 bald spot and trickle around his ears. 
 
 I have been so busy lately lookin after business in 
 our poker emporium that I have missed a few national 
 affairs. For instance, I did not know until last night 
 that Mr, Cleveland had appinted a couple of buck 
 niggers to good foreign places. Judge Fairfax Car 
 ter happened to allude to this deplorable fact when 
 he and me wuz discussin the institootion of human 
 slavery, and if you ever seed a mad man I reckon it 
 wuz me. The Judge restrained me or I would have 
 gone right over to the White House and throwed 
 my glove slap in Mr. Cleveland s face. 
 
 * * * 
 
 My attention has been called to some Southern 
 newspaper articles commendin an editor down in 
 Richmond, Virginia, for refusin to accept a chal 
 lenge from a gentleman he had skandalously wronged. 
 This shows what we are comin to. Our newspapers 
 will tell you that there s no such thing as the " New 
 South ;" that it s the same old South ; that the peo 
 ple are still true to their beliefs and their institoo- 
 tions and yet they want the Code abolished. How 
 the devil can we have the old South without the 
 Code, I d like to know? How can gentlemen 
 
38 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 live together without it? So far as duellin and 
 fightin is concerned I don t care so much about it, 
 but when the Code is properly practised it simply 
 arranges the disputes of gentlemen and there s rarely 
 any need of fightin. Take these infernal editors 
 that s always assailin people s characters and pryin 
 into private affairs. What protection has a gentle 
 man got if he can t call em out ? When an editor 
 insults a gentleman and he receives a challenge after 
 refusin to retrack, he can call for a Court of Honour. 
 The jury will hear the facts and in most cases will 
 require the editor to print a nice apology. That set 
 tles matters and everybody appears to good advan 
 tage. What s the use of libel suits ? They re not 
 genteel. The trouble down with us is that very few 
 of our editors is real gentlemen. They re common 
 scrubs tryin to make money out of anything that 
 comes along. They print all sorts of stuff nowadays 
 and sassiety with us is sufferin. I know the time 
 when if they printed the kind of slanders they print 
 now with impoonity they d been run out of town and 
 their shop burnt. Not long ago two editors down 
 in Memphis quarreled and they pretended to get 
 ready for a duel. They went through all the forms 
 of challengin and acceptin. One of em hired a 
 special railroad train to go to the battle-field, and 
 had a brass band. I think he sold seats in his pri 
 vate car. The other fellow had himself arrested and 
 then after all their racket they called in some arbi 
 trators and the affair was settled with a great show 
 of chivelry. It turned out that the whole thing was 
 got up to advertise their one-hoss papers but it made 
 a good many people feel that there was life in the 
 old land. Even this sham was better than a street 
 fight or a law suit. I suppose it s these monkey 
 performances that has brought the honored Code 
 
As to Open Letters. 39 
 
 duello into disrepute. Now that the old South is 
 assertin herself I want to see the Code restored to 
 its old statis. These flim-flam editors are responsible 
 for its present low estate. Some of the white-livered 
 ones are writin against duels and refusin to accept 
 challenges and others make a farce of it by pretendin 
 to want to fight when you couldn t haul em to the 
 field with a log chain and a yoke of steers. 
 
 I have referred to the fact that Senator Joe Black 
 burn has good Bourbon whiskey. He s the best 
 judge of whiskey in the country, too, and for that 
 alone he ought to be kept in public life. I d like to 
 see him in the chair now ockupied by the buffalo 
 from Buffalo. I heard a little yarn about his bein 
 an expert judge of whiskey which I ll try to narate. 
 A man down in Lexington, Kaintucky, was buyin 
 some very old whiskey and he called on a expert and 
 Blackburn to give him an opinion on it. The expert 
 took a sip outen a glass fresh from the barl and said : 
 " That s old and excellent but I detect a slight flavor 
 of iron." Joe took a sip. " Fine goods," says he. 
 " Very fine and old, but in addition to the flavor of 
 iron I detect a slight flavor of lether." Well, they 
 drawed the whiskey off and opened the barl and by 
 jingo they found an old shoe tack at the bottom. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Lem Tolliver, who come here as I stated some 
 time ago to try to get a Internal Revenoo Collector- 
 ship in his state of Kaintucky, had his papers re 
 turned to him to-day. The jig s up with him but he 
 isn t worryin. We re makin an average of $50 a 
 week apiece with our poker parlor. Lord, how Lem 
 dispises old Cleveland, though ! When he got his 
 papers back to-day he said he was like the manager 
 
40 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 of a street car concern in Loo ville that he heard of. 
 He said one day a fellow was hired as conductor 
 durin the time of some labor trouble. He went out 
 and made a round trip and when he come in to report 
 the boss said: " How much did you bring in?" The 
 conductor said that he had nothin to turn in but his 
 bell punch. " I m obliged to ye," said the boss, " for 
 bringin the car back." Lem says he s satisfied to 
 get his papers back. 
 
 * * # 
 
 Things are just a shade dull here now and I think 
 I ll run over to New York in a few days. Never saw 
 the great Democrat city of the country and I m due 
 to visit it. I have several nice invitations from citi 
 zens I ve met here and it may be that I can do the 
 Tammany boys a little good in politics, though, of 
 course, all our Southern people in the metropolis are 
 supportin Tammany, which was one of the best 
 friends the South had durin its struggle for inde- 
 pendens. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. My son Plantagenet writes me that I ought 
 to come home for things are in a bad feenancial way. 
 He says he s out of money, out of bacon, out of meal 
 and out of flour. I hope they still have the family 
 bible left. I ve wrote him to hold on the best he can 
 till Congress gets down to legislatin for the South. 
 I thought I d be able to raise somethin on my War 
 Claims by this time but I can t get a cent on that. 
 I m doin too well here to go back to Alabama just 
 yet. I ll try and send him a little money from time 
 to time. The damd tariff is the cause of all this dis 
 tress in our sectipn. 
 
A COURT FOR SOUTHERN CLAIMS. 
 
 THE DECADENCE OF SOUTHERN CHARACTER 
 
 JUDGE CARTER ON THE INSTITUTION OF SLAV 
 ERY GROWING DISTRUST OF CLEVELAND A 
 VISIT TO NEW YORK CONTEMPLATED. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, D. C, Oct. 18. 
 
 I wish to remark that our old Alabama war-hoss, 
 Bill Oates, done a great service to the South the 
 other day when he got through the House his bill 
 to put the old Mexican war veterans of our secktion 
 on the pension rolls without proof of loyalty. Damn 
 loyalty, anyhow. The word is odeus to every sensi 
 ble man in the country. Now that we have give it 
 a black eye the road is opened a little wider to our 
 War Claims. A lot of old sneaks and scallywags in 
 the South pretended to be loyal and they swore 
 their claims through and got their money years ago. 
 The great bulk of the claims has been debarred be 
 cause of that infernal word " loyalty." I d like to 
 see it kicked out of the dicshenary. After the war 
 for our independence got well under way there never 
 was any " loyal " people in the South to speak of 
 except a few white trash in East Tennessea. Why, 
 if there d been any loyal" people amongst us 
 wouldn t we have stamped em out ? By the crooked 
 hind shank of the bald-faced grand Lamma you bet 
 we would ! Now Oates has made it so that a man 
 who fout in the Mexican War and then in our war 
 can walk right up and get his pension and no ques- 
 
 (40 
 
42 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 tions ast that is, when the Senate and the great 
 man from Buffalo consent, as I feel they will. I ve 
 just been workin with a Committee, assisted by 
 Judge Fairfax Carter, in drawin up a bill to create 
 a special Commission to hear and pass upon the un 
 adjusted war claims of the Southern States. It care 
 fully avoids any test of " loyalty." It is a nice piece 
 of work and I m proud of it. It will be offered in 
 the House in a few days. We have left the names 
 of the five Commissioners of the high court blank 
 and it may be that I ll be one of em. The salaries 
 is fixt at $8,000 a year. No man is more entitled to 
 a seat on this bench than myself, but some of my 
 friends think I m too biassed to act as a jewdicial 
 agent in these matters. Mebby I am. But the 
 conflict for Justice long delayed is about to begin. 
 The pickets are even now bein snap-shotted. 
 * * % 
 
 A little insident happened in our poker room on 
 Tuesday night which shows me that the war did 
 much to lower the tone of our people. Two young 
 men met by accident in our place. Their names 
 was Underhill and they was brought up in Fairfax 
 County, Virginia. One of em lives at home on the 
 old farm and the other is livin out in Nebraska. 
 They hadn t met for ten years. Of course they was 
 glad and it was interestin to hear them talkin about 
 old times and old friends. I heard the Nebraska 
 chap say to his younger brother : " Well, Percy, 
 whatever become of that fine two-year-old bay colt 
 on the place that you thought was goin to be so 
 speedy?" " Oh, he turned out to be not worth $10. 
 I was terrible disappointed about that animal for he 
 was well bred." " Well, what did you do with him ?" 
 "Oh, I sold him to mother for $125." That made 
 me kind o tired. I could have kicked that young 
 
A Court for Southern Claims. 43 
 
 whelp s ribs out. But, sez I to myself, that s more 
 of the results of the infemous war. No Virginia 
 gentleman would have bred such a blackguard son 
 as that forty year ago. I tell you we ll never get 
 over that war and the sickenin poverty that fol 
 lowed it and demoralized all of us. I feel the 
 effects of it myself. We are raisin all through the 
 South now a class of people that come of good old 
 stock too, that s as mean and close and as money- 
 grabin as the meanest meat-eyed Yankee in Ver 
 mont. 
 
 # * * 
 
 I had last evenin a most interestin talk on the 
 subject of human slavery with that elegant old 
 schollard, Judge Carter, and we went over the 
 ground very thoroughly and decided, as rational 
 beings only could decide, that it was a noble thing 
 and that the underpinnin was knocked from under 
 our social fabric when it was destroyed by that 
 ignerant and uncouth man, Abe Lincoln. As Judge 
 Carter rightly remarked, an institootion that existed 
 thirteen centuries befo Christ, an institootion that 
 was good enough for the Assyrians, Babylonians 
 and the cultured Persians and Greeks ought to have 
 been good enough for a low bred creature like 
 Lincoln. The Judge said it was a piteous spectacle 
 to see an institootion that society had been ages in 
 establishin obliterated, so far as this country is 
 concerned, by the stroke of a rail splitter s pen. 
 The venerable Judge almost wept as he uttered 
 these observations. I, too, was greatly moved and 
 found it necessary to take some stimulants, in which 
 the Judge joined, before we could proceed. We 
 dwelt upon that splendid era in the world s history 
 when Cicero sold 10,000 of the inhabitants of one 
 town to the highest bidders; when the sword of 
 
44 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Caesar yielded him half a million of slaves ; when 
 Augustus sold 36,000 bondmen and broke the mar 
 ket to a few drachmas per slave. I should like to 
 have lived in Rome when citizens punished for 
 crimes, whether guilty or not, were sold into slavery 
 and the money put into the Imperial treasury ; when 
 for small infractions of the laws, sech as refusing to 
 give full and correct returns to the census takers, 
 for speakin disrespectful of the police and for debt, 
 persons were held in slavery ever afterwards. I 
 have changed my views now and I should like to 
 live long enough to see this system restored in the 
 South. This, with the revival of the slave trade 
 direct with Africa and the immejiate payment of 
 our War Claims, would make the South bloom like 
 a rose of Sharon, Pa. 
 
 * -5f # 
 
 Speakin with Lem Tolliver, my pardner, the other 
 day, he gave me the shockin informashun that a 
 Miss Todd, a niece of old Abe Lincoln, has long 
 been in charge of the post office at Cythiana, Ky. I 
 asked Lem why in the name of the stars and bars 
 he had not told me about this befoh so that I could 
 have been takin steps to encompass her removal. 
 Lem is an easy goin sort of chap, like most Kain- 
 tuckians, and horrified me by sayin that she made a 
 very good postmistress and he didn t see why she 
 couldn t remain. 
 
 " Remain ?" I exclaimed, almost in a shriek, " of 
 course she can t remain ! It would be bad enough 
 to put a relative of this arch fiend in a post office or 
 other place of trust and emollument up in New 
 England, but to ram her down the throat of a South 
 ern community is too much. A niece of Abe Lin 
 coln in a post office with the South in control of the 
 Government ! Why by gad, sah, it would be an in- 
 
A Court for Southern Claims. 45 
 
 suit to every son and daughter of the Southland, 
 and I will communicate the facts to Bissell at oncet." 
 
 Lem was considerably surprised at my earnestness 
 and counselled calmness, but I kept a weavin away. 
 
 "Calmness?" I ejackerlated. "No true Southron 
 could be calm knowin that a wrong like this was 
 unrighted. As I say, I will communicate the facts 
 to Postmaster General Bissell. I will also see Hoke 
 Smith, that gallant son of Gawjah, and if this Miss 
 Todd doesn t toddle, your Uncle Randolph has not 
 read the stars aright. I wisht I was Postmaster 
 General for about an hour and a quarter and if I 
 wouldn t drive that young lady forth and brand her 
 as the enemy of the country, chargin her at the 
 same time with robbin the mails, then may I never 
 realize on my sacrid War Claim movement to the 
 extent of a pistoreen." 
 
 As a select steerin committee of one for our poker 
 parlor I hussel around purty lively and I may say 
 that I come in contack with more people than usual. 
 It is remarkable to know how the Southern people 
 have lost faith in old Cleveland. I hear him cust 
 and denounced every day by men that two months 
 ago thought the sun rose and set in his office chair. 
 The fact that he is not givin out offices very lively 
 has somethin to do with the horsetile expressions 
 here, but I know now that the South distrusts him. 
 He is not with us on the money question and he s 
 got to be edducated a good deal if he s with us on 
 the Claims issooe. However, if we ever get that 
 Claims bill through both Houses it will go through 
 the White House or a certain Mr. Cleveland wiH* re 
 gret that he was ever begot. 
 
46 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 I am goin over to New York on Satterday. I 
 want to see the great city that was a Southern strong 
 hold durin the war and I want to pay my respecks 
 to Tammany Hall and its able statesmen. I am de 
 lighted to know that my esteemed friend Col. John 
 Fellows has been renominated for District Attorney 
 again. He was a brave Confederate soldier. To 
 hear him tell about his experiences at the siege of 
 Port Hudson makes my old warlike blood sirculate 
 like water on a hot stove. John is a geneal, noble- 
 hearted gentleman. I wish he was in the District 
 Attorney s office now. I d feel safer durin my visit. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
THE MAJOR IN NEW YORK. 
 
 WHAT HE SAW ON HIS TRAVELS COMMENTS ON 
 THE BATTLE OF TRENTON HE MEETS A BUNCO 
 STEERER HIS IMPRESSION OF THE METROPOLIS. 
 
 
 "THE SOUTHERN TROOPS HAD TO FIGHT LIKE 
 
 DEVILS TO KEEP WARM." 
 
 ASTOR HOUSE, 
 
 NEW YORK, Oct. 21. 
 
 Well, here I am in the great Democrat metropolis 
 of the country and writin these lines in the famous 
 hotel in which Dannel Webster, Henry Clay, John C. 
 
 (47) 
 
48 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Calhoun and all the great men of a generation ago 
 always stopt. I am occupying the Webster room. I 
 never cared for Dannel much he was inclined to 
 blather too much about the Union and he was a 
 Yankee abolitioner from the ground up but he was 
 a statesman of brains, not ekal to Calhoun, but never 
 theless a man of great ability. Down with us, folks 
 think I resemble Dannel Webster in some respects. 
 I drink and I m very ceerless about money matters 
 and I can make a fairly elokent speech when I m 
 crowded. I do as I please and make no bones of 
 lettin my opinions loose on the community whether 
 they re with me or not. I can t help thinkin, as I 
 set here in a chair that Webster once occupied so 
 the nigger boy told me when he showed me in that 
 this country is goin to seed, so far as brains is con 
 cerned. We ve had no men of the Clay and Calhoun 
 and Webster style of late years, and since General 
 Lee died I haven t pinned my faith much to anybody. 
 I had hopes of Cleveland but he turned out to be 
 good deal of a yaller dog and a sore disappointment. 
 But this is a sad subjeck and I will not persue it. 
 & * # 
 
 I am pleased with the little I ve seen of New York 
 and proud to be in its midst. I left Washington this 
 mornin and my trip was not only pleasant but in- 
 strucktive. I had never been in the North but once 
 before and that was when I accompanied General 
 Lee to Gettysburg. The little of the country that I 
 seen then looked very much like upper Virginia and, 
 to tell you the truth, I didn t have much of a chance 
 to contemplate the landskape. But to-day as I rode 
 along I could not help noticin the effect of class leg 
 islation and secktional favoritism. After leavin Bal 
 timore the country begun to show improvement and 
 prosperity. I didn t get but a glimpse of Baltimore 
 
The Major in New York. 49 
 
 though I wanted very much to see that stanch Con 
 federate city. I may stop on my return. We passed 
 through in a tunnel and a man in the car said he 
 liked that, for Baltimore was the meanest town in 
 the country, and he was glad that he could pass it 
 under ground. I suppose he come from Massychu- 
 sets, as I hear they re still kickin up there yet about 
 the way the Southern boys walloped their old blue- 
 bellied soldiers in Baltimore in 61. But as I was 
 savin, as we proceeded swifly northward I could see 
 what the Yankee tariff had done. I saw shops and 
 facktories in Wilmington, though a gentleman on 
 the train told me that the recent hard times had 
 plaid havock with their industries. I told him that 
 was the trouble always with a people that tore their- 
 selves loose from aggryculture and falsely stimulated 
 manufacktories. I showed him how lightly the re 
 cent financial troubles had touched the South, because 
 we had few pay rolls to meet and few banks lendin 
 money to keep up the manufackturers. We had 
 quite a heated argyment but I had the best of it, and 
 I told him that when we got the people of the North 
 down to a Free Trade basis they would bless us. 
 * * * 
 
 All along the Delaware river I seen shops and boat 
 buildin places all created bytheinfemous tariff which 
 so cruelly wrongs the South. The houses and the 
 towns all looked thrifty but I missed our old-fash 
 ioned Southern plantation baroneal mansions with 
 wide porticoes and nigger quarters. Every thing 
 looked mean and close and pinched. I was asleep 
 when we past Philadelphia and I was glad of it. 
 That town is accursed for its brutal war against the 
 South. It was too loyal to sleep well of nights durin 
 the war. Lord, how we boys would have looted it 
 if we had got over there from Gettysburg in 63 ! 
 
 4 
 
5<D The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Ever since that old Ben Franklin lived in that town 
 and preached that there was nothin worth livin for 
 but shillins and pents I have despised it. The 
 preachin of that old pot-gutted skin flint helped to 
 make the people of the North sorded money-grab 
 bers. His idee was that people was to do nothin but 
 toil and save. That s why you find the Robber Bar 
 ren in the North and never in the South. We wanted 
 to live like gentlemen down there with little or no 
 work and lots of play, and the damd Yankees never 
 rested till they broke up our system, and I m sorry 
 to say that we have some people amongst us now as 
 keen for money and as devoted to business as you ll 
 find in Boston. It would have been a good thing 
 for this country if old Franklin had never lived, 
 though they do say he was helpful in the revolution 
 war times. His example was bad for he made peo 
 ple believe that there was nothin at all worth havin 
 but money and two thirds of the meanness and nar 
 row-mindedness of Philadelphia is due now to that 
 old hog s teachins. I remember when I was a boy 
 a book peddler stopt at our plantation and when he 
 showed up a " Poor Richard s Almanack " my old 
 man sicked the dogs on him and chast him off the 
 
 place. 
 
 # # * 
 
 I was much interested in Trenton. That s where our 
 gallant Southerners under our great Southern Gen 
 eral George Washington licked the sour krout out of 
 the Hessians. There was an old liar settin in the seat 
 with me when we crost the Delaware and when I 
 spoke in the above strain he undertook to say that 
 there was only a few Southern troops in the battel of 
 Trenton. I told him that an old historean down 
 with us had stated to me that General Washington 
 always said that his success at Trenton was due to 
 
The Major in New York. 51 
 
 the fact that the weather was intensely cold and that 
 his Southern troops had to fight like devils to keep 
 warm. They didn t like the climate, you see, but 
 when there was hard fitin to be done they done it 
 lively. The nice old man said that he had never 
 heard of this fact but he would look into it. I told 
 him furthermore that my mother s greatgrandfather, 
 Hannibal Hamilcar Gore, of South Carolina, had a 
 contract to build and collect the boats that Washing 
 ton and his army crost the Delaware in, and that the 
 family still had a claim against the Government for 
 balance due and interest. I told him that I d let my 
 share of that moldy claim go if I could only collect 
 what was due me for damages from the late war. 
 This brought on a heated discussion, for the old man 
 was red hot against the South, but I noticed that 
 every time I took a pull at my bottle of whiskey he 
 declared in with me without special invitation. That s 
 one reason why I despise a Yankee. 
 
 * -x- # 
 
 My trip was beguiled by much conversation, for 
 my striking appearance and orackular conversation 
 attacted much attention. I preached some purty 
 lively doctrine about Free Trade and finances and 
 the late war, and the Democrats in the car was de 
 lighted. The view of New York impressed me 
 amazingly, and as I stood on the ferry boat and 
 viewed the great city and the harbor full of crafts I 
 could not help exclaiming : " Behold what the Demo 
 crats have done and can do ! " I landed at Court- 
 land street and after inquirin my road to the hotel 
 concluded to walk, having no baggage but my hand 
 portmantoe. I hadn t gone five hundred yards be 
 fore a man stept up an*d said: " How d ye due, 
 Mr. Thompson ?" I told him that I was Randolph 
 Gore Hampton, of Tuskeegee, Alabama, late Major 
 
52 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 in the C. S. A. He apologized and said he had mis 
 took me for Mr. Hezekiah Thompson, of Newark. I 
 had not gone much farther before a well-appearin 
 man accosted me with " My dear Major Hampton, 
 how are you ?" At first I was delighted to know 
 that there was a man in this big town that knowed 
 me. But all of a suddent I recollected my expe 
 rience in Washington. I dropt my aged satchel and 
 grabbed Mr. Stranger by the coat collar, at the same 
 time reachin towards my right hip, I said. "You 
 dirty thief, I was buncoed not long ago, and you bet 
 that thing cant be did again ; I ve a big mind to put 
 a hole right square through you." Well, I never 
 see a man skairt as that chap was. He jerked away 
 and flew around the corner like a mule that had 
 been doin business with a yeller jacket s nes. A 
 policeman came along about that time and showed 
 me the road to the Aster House and he laffed con 
 siderable when I told him about my adventure. I 
 learnt from him that Tammany had a strong ticket 
 and that it expected to sweep the city by at least 
 
 00,000 majority. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I am very comfortable here but I m right tired. 
 I ve got a letter of introduction to the proprietor of 
 the hotel from Judge Tim Campbell. I also have 
 letters from Amos Cummins and John Chamberlain 
 to the Honorable Richard Croker and Mayor Gil- 
 hooley and others ; also letters from Southern Con 
 gressmen to members of the Southern Society. 
 Sorry to hear that Mr. Croker is in Chicago. I an 
 ticipate a merry time for the next week. And that s 
 what I m here for. Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
The Major in New York. 53 
 
 P. S. Just before I left Washington a few of us 
 Southern gentlemen drawed up and sent to our 
 brave Senator Morgan, of Alabama, a letter thankin 
 him for his decleration on the floor of the Senate 
 that he was personally responsible and that Wash- 
 burn, the wart-hog Senator from Minnesota, could 
 hold him " for every word said in the chamber or 
 outside." That s the talk we ve all been waitin to 
 hear. As a man recognizin the Code and not afraid 
 to stand up for it we all feel proud of the General. 
 Now I hear that a judge down at Evergreen, Ala 
 bama, has just sentenced Wright Mills, a leading 
 farmer of Conecuh County, to the penitentiary for 
 two years for sendin a neighbor a challenge to fight 
 a duel. As John Rogers remarked when bein 
 burned at the steak, this is tuff. I ll write Senator 
 Morgan to-morrow to get after that idiot Judge. 
 I ll bet a bail of cotton against a chinkepin that he 
 ain t a true blue Alabamian. He is a low, dirty dis 
 grace to our State, anyhow. 
 
A LOOK THROUGH THE CITY. 
 
 THE MAJOR VISITS THE SCENE OF THE FAMOUS 
 DRAFT RIOT HE MAKES A STUDY OF TAMMANY 
 METHODS A COMPARISON WITH THE ALABAMA 
 STYLE OF CONDUCTING ELECTIONS. 
 
 ASTOR HOUSE, 
 
 NEW YORK, October 23. 
 
 Sunday was a quiet and peaseful day to me. I 
 rose early and santered out to look at the town. I 
 went down to the Battery and was much interested 
 in Cassell Garden. A policeman told me that 
 millions of foreigners comin to this country had 
 passed through there. I was pleased to inform him 
 that we had no such institootion as that in the South 
 and I was glad of it. I had to laff at that fort on 
 Governor s Island. It looked to me as though I 
 could knock it down with a double-barrell shot-gun. 
 But I suppose the Tammany government is so good 
 here that there s no need of forts. I was much 
 pleased with the bridge across the river to Brooklyn. 
 What astonished me in goin about was the closed 
 drinkin saloons. I found that I could get into any 
 of them that I tackeled through a side door or a 
 back door. I hate sneakin. It seems to me that in 
 a Democrat city like this there ought to be no trouble 
 about keepin saloons wide open. They are all kept 
 by Democrats and why does Mr. Croker permit his 
 ablest workers to be imposed on and hairassed. I 
 was told in one place that a State law was the cause 
 of the trouble but I told them that as this was a 
 (54) 
 
A Look Through the City. 55 
 
 strong Democrat State and Mr. Croker controlled 
 the Legislature I still couldn t understand why the 
 liquor traffick wasn t as free in New York City as the 
 newspaper traffick. I got all I wanted to drink, of 
 course, and I am not complainin, but I think it hew- 
 miliatin to compel a barkeeper on a Sunday to do 
 business like a nigger chicken thief. 
 * * * 
 
 As Mr. Croker and Mayor Gilfoyle and other dis 
 tinguished gentlemen that I have letters to was out 
 of town I made no calls. I visited one spot that was 
 of great interest to me and that was the scene of 
 the great draft battle of 1863. People visitin our 
 country are always goin round and lookin at battle 
 fields. I wanted to see the field where the noble 
 Democrats of New York City, true friends of the 
 South, struck a blow at the tyranny of old Lincoln. 
 That uprisin of Tammany brought more encourage 
 ment to the South than anybody knows of. It as 
 sured us .that the Democrat party of the North was 
 with us. This rally of Northern Democrat patriots 
 occurred just after our foolish neglect to crush the 
 army of the Potomac at Gettysburg and it lifted our 
 spirits right up. I read an account of the anti-draft 
 battle which said it begun at the corner of Third 
 Avenue and Thirty-sixth street with the burnin of a 
 Provose Marshal s office where the draftin was done. 
 I got on a street car Sunday afternoon and rode up 
 there. I couldn t find a car conductor or driver who 
 knowed anything about it. I lit at the place named 
 but I couldn t find anybody who could tell me where 
 the buildin stood that was burned. In a cigar store 
 I enquired of a young man who said " Vat I know 
 about dat fite ; I heef only been in de coundry seeks 
 months." I walked all around the neighborhood of 
 the sacred battle-field where a noble band of people 
 
56 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 even though they was all foreigners refused to be 
 driven away from home to fight us Southern people 
 engaged in a noble struggle for independens. I 
 wondered whether any of the lamp-posts standin 
 there was the ones they hung the niggers on, but 
 they all looked too new for that. I talked to a police 
 man who couldn t tell me where Col. O Brien was 
 beat to death. He didn t know where the Nigger 
 Orphant Asylum that was burned stood. I suppose 
 he s only been in the country six months. This 
 noble battle of the true New York Democrats in aid 
 of the Southern Cause, was a failure, but it learnt 
 old Lincoln s government a lesson and it deserves to 
 be celebrated with a monument. If Richard Croker 
 wants to be enshrined in the hearts of the Southern 
 people and he s a fool if he don t, because they are 
 goin to run this country he will have the spot 
 where the second great Confederate battle in the 
 North was fout marked with a stately monument. 
 There are 20,000 Southerners in this city, and I m 
 sure they d all contribute. The 1,200 noble Demo 
 crats that was slain in this struggle in behalf of our 
 cause deserve a monument. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I read in one of the papers yesterday a lot of stuff 
 about the colonization of voters in Senator Sullivan s 
 district. I was surprised to know that the Tam 
 many boys took so much trouble to roll up a big 
 vote. That sort of thing is very expensive and 
 foolish. Havin the power to do as they please in 
 the strong Democrat districts why don t the Tam 
 many managers fix the returns to suit theirselves ? 
 Down with us we let people vote just as they please 
 now, much or little, and when the poles close we do 
 the business with a little lead pencil. The plan 
 works all right there and it would work all right 
 
A Look Through the City. 57 
 
 here if the Honorable Mr. Sullivan and General 
 Croker would only take hold boldly. The idea of 
 registeriri and colonizin a lot of old stiffs in a dis 
 trict controlled entirely by Democrats is so stoopid 
 that I have to grin. Fore God I can t understand 
 such cowardise for Democrats never accomplish any 
 thing except where they are brave. Mr. Sullivan 
 must be a great man and he deserves well of his 
 party, just as Judge Maynard does. A man who 
 is willin to go out of his way a little, in spite of the 
 law, to do his party a good turn deserves to be 
 recognized and honored. Ever since I kicked a bal 
 lot box out of the polin place in Briar Root in 1868 
 and made everybody come up and vote in my hat 
 while I held a self-cocker in my hand, I ve had some- 
 thin to say about politicks in Geehaw township, and 
 in Makin County too for that matter. I hope that 
 man Maynard will get 50,000 majority and I think 
 he will for the boys seem to be standin right up to 
 him. I regard such men as Martyrs of the Demo 
 crat church. 
 
 The rain to-day kept me somewhat under cover. 
 I made the acquaintance of Judge Divver and a num 
 ber of other wideawake Tammany leaders. I gath 
 ered a good deal of information from them, and I 
 find that the Tammany system of carrying on local 
 government does not differ materially from that de 
 vized by Colonel Tweed. In fact, it is a continuation 
 of business at the old stand, only widened, of course, 
 in its scope to meet the requirements of a broader 
 and higher civilization, so to speak. And I take 
 pleasure in statin right here, without fear of any suc 
 cessful contradiction, that the late Mr. Tweed was a 
 much abused man. It is evident that he was a broad 
 minded statesman, a gentleman and a schollard and 
 
58 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 was doin a great and unselfish work for New York. 
 I have gone over his career thoroughly and am satis 
 fied that he was hounded to his death by a lot of 
 snivellin, skinflint reformers who wanted him to pinch 
 every five-cent piece of public money until it spread 
 out like a half dollar. Them kind of people makes 
 me billy us and I am sorry to see that there is another 
 generation of em springin up here, as was manifest 
 at the Cooper Union meetin the other night. I wish 
 to the Lord of Hosts that I had arrived in town in 
 time to have made a speech at that getherin. You 
 can bet I would have made some of them owly old 
 hippercrits hunt their holes with more hair yanked 
 offen their ornery hides than could be restored in a 
 lifetime with all the balm in Gilead. Boss Tweed 
 was all right, and I am surprised and amazed that 
 their was not enough moral sentiment in this com 
 munity to rise up and crush his defamers like so 
 many snakes. I hear that this Mugwump Times that 
 is now snivellin and snortin for Cleveland had some- 
 thin to do with poisonin the public mind agin this 
 good old man. If Major Randolph Gore Hampton, 
 late of the C. S. A., had been on the campus at that 
 time, he would have led a phalanx agin their buildin 
 and ripped it from sanctum to cellar, from turret to 
 foundation stone. As for the fool editors and re 
 porters of the mangy sheet I would have hung em 
 up so thick along Park Row that they would have 
 looked like dried apples on a string. And as I would 
 have been for Mr. Tweed, so am I for Mr. Croker 
 and his system, and base is the slave that would be 
 otherwise, say I. 
 
 * * # 
 
 I have met up with a great many pleasant people in 
 Room No. I of this hotel where the lunch is. It is a 
 great plais for distinguished politicians. A number of 
 
A Look Through the City. $9 
 
 cards have been left for me, too, by people who have 
 heard of my bein in town. One man writes and says, 
 " Welcome to the great citadel of Democracy, thou 
 noble old Southern warrier." Another card says : 
 "We re with you old man." Another says: " Come 
 up and shake the Tiger s friendly paw." Oh, I m at 
 home in this town. To-morrow I mgoin to take the 
 bridel off and run wild. There s lots of elephant to 
 see in this town as well as tiger. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTO^T. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
A CALL AT TAMMANY HALL. 
 
 THE MAJOR IS RECEIVED WITH WARMTH BY THE 
 TAMMANY BOYS A HERO OF THE HOUR HE 
 MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF STATESMAN SUL 
 LIVANMEETS AN OLD SPORTING ACQUAINTANCE. 
 
 ASTOR HOUSE, 
 
 NEW YORK, October 24. 
 
 I philandered into what they call the Tammany 
 Wigwarm in Fourteenth street yesterday mornin. 
 I wanted to know whether General Croker had re 
 turned from Chicago. There was quite a crowd of 
 people in the plaisand when I introdooced myself as 
 a gentleman from the South and an ex-Confederate 
 soldier they received me with demonstrations of joy. 
 I felt at home in a minnit. I was introdooced to a 
 Mr. Hoolihan, Mr. Dumphy, Mr. O Connor, Mr. 
 O Flagherty, M Carthy, Gilhooly, O Donnell, Han- 
 rahan, O Haggerty, Doolan, Harrigan, Ohmadon, 
 Houlihan, Finnerty, Phelan, Callihan, Fogarty, 
 McManus, Sheehan, Munkittrick, Magahan, O Dowd, 
 Mack, Killilee, Cavanaugh, Cassidy and Shaun the 
 Bladder. I was so much struck with these names 
 that I ast a young clerk there to write them down 
 for me. " You haven t got such a thing as a dutch- 
 man around here?" said I. At that there wa^ a 
 loud hee-haw and I could see that the boys had cot 
 onto my humor. I was sorry to learn that Mr. 
 Croker had not yet returned from Checago but was 
 told he would be on hand in the mornin. Findin 
 (60) 
 
A Call at Tammany Hall. 61 
 
 that the boys was in good kelter I ast them if they 
 would like to hear a few remarks from an old South 
 ern Democrat and you bet they yelled. 
 * * * 
 
 Foldin my hat under my left arm, after the style 
 of Commodore Decatur, as I have him in a picture at 
 home, I said : " Gentlemen It fills the heart of this 
 representative of the oncet down-trodden and abused 
 South with glowin proud to meet with the represen 
 tatives of the sterlin Democracy of the North, here in 
 the classic precincts of Tammany Haul. I was against 
 you at Chicago last year but we are altogether now. 
 As a Southerner I honor you. In the darkest days 
 of our noble struggle for liberty and independens we 
 of the South always turned with hopefulness to the 
 noble Democrats of New York city. You were not 
 only our friends but you fout for us. Some 
 idiotic people abuse Tammany but I regard it as the 
 greatest organization that Thomas Jefferson ever 
 formed. What you have done and are doin for 
 your great city can be done in every State in the 
 Union. You have now a leader who is the peer of 
 any man in this land. [Loud cheers.] He is fit to 
 occupy the White House. [Prolonged applause.] 
 To his sagacity, integrety and noble zeal we of the 
 South owe more than we can ever repay, for it was 
 the State of New York and her devotion to the 
 principles of Democracy that helped us on our feet. 
 Your true representatives in Congress helped us to 
 organize the House on the Southern basis. Stan by 
 us, good gentlemen, and we ll stan by you. I have 
 come here to see and shake hands with your grand 
 leader and to speak to him about a thoroughbred 
 two-year-old colt down in our State that he ought 
 to have. I propose three cheers for General Richard 
 Croker," You bet I made a hit* The boys all 
 
62 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 shook my hand warmly, and all had somethin to say 
 about the South and its splendid fight for its good 
 cause. I said : " Boys, thers one thing I want to 
 ast about. We uset to hear about a Tammany 
 ridgement in the Army of the Potomac which they 
 said was made up of Irishmen, and good fighters too. 
 Is it possible that you sent a ridgement down to 
 make war on your Southern brethren?" A gentle 
 man spoke up and said : " Major, we have here, you 
 know, the Tammany Society which a lot of Repub 
 licans belong to. It owns this buildin. It was kind 
 o loyal durin the war and it got up the Tammany 
 Ridgement. The Tammany Organization has 
 claimed credit for that ridgement since it got popu 
 lar to talk about the war, but the fact is the claim is 
 a fraud. " I was delighted to hear that and I had him 
 further explain the difference between the Tammany 
 Society and the Tammany Hall political organiza 
 tion. On invitation we all adjourned to a nearby 
 saloon and I never saw so much treatin done in a 
 half an hour in my life. Every man of em had 
 a wad of money as big as a stovepipe. I couldn t 
 spend a cent. They all had champain, but I stuck 
 to whiskey the wine of the country. I tell you I 
 had a hylarious reception. When I got a chance I 
 ast one of the boys, I think it was Mr. Callahan, to 
 go with me to see Senator Tim Sullivan, and we 
 
 slipt away. * 
 
 # * * 
 
 After some huntin around we found Mr. Sullivan 
 in a.saloon in the Bowery. My friend presented me, 
 and I must say that I found Mr. Sullivan a hand 
 some, noble-looking young man. I said : " Senator, 
 I have come here to pay my respects to you, for I 
 know you are a grand Democrat. You are doin 
 splendid work for the party. The infernal enemy is 
 
A Call at Tammany Hall. 63 
 
 abusin you, and that s enough to make me your friend 
 for life." The Senator shook my hand warmly and 
 said that his friend Congressman Tim Campbell had 
 spoken about me. I ast him how the election was 
 goin and he laffed and said it was too much of a pud- 
 din. " Why, Major," said he, " the poor Repubs aint 
 able to give us a fight in this town now. You see 
 they aint got any boodle and we just have money to 
 burn. Besides we ve got a half dozen of their mana 
 gers in our pay and we run their masheen as well as 
 ourn. Some of the Republicans this year wanted to 
 get up a combination ticket and try to elect some 
 Tammany soreheads to office. We just knocked that 
 on the head in every district. You see how that 
 Myers game fizzled out. I tell you, Major, nobody 
 can stand agin Tammany in this town." I ast him 
 if it was really true that he was doin a little funny 
 business in his district and he winked and said : " You 
 see, Major, a large number of Democrats in my part 
 of town are tourists in the summer time. Some of 
 them live in the parks. They don t need houses 
 when the weather s warm, but in the fall, along about 
 election time, I have to find homes for em. Well, 
 you know rent is purty high in this town and so we 
 set up cots in the tops of some of our buildings and 
 crowd the poor devils in. It s a pure work of charity 
 and Mr. Croker, who is a very kind hearted man, ap 
 proves of it. Of course these poor citizens, who are 
 very much interested in our municipal government, 
 are always expected to register and vote. And this 
 is what the Republican squawkers call colonizin ." I 
 assured the Senator that he was doin grand work and 
 I give him some points about how we run elections 
 now down in Alabama. This Mr. Sullivan, I can see, 
 is a risin man. He looks like business and I can see 
 that General Croker r like General Lee, knows how to 
 
64 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 pick his leftenants. Mr. Sullivan promist to be on 
 hand to-morrow when I call on the Boss. 
 * & * 
 
 I was up in what they call the Tenderloin district 
 last night and I met up with an old sport named 
 George Devol. He used to run the Mississippi river 
 as a gambler. I was much tickled by the stories he 
 told me and I bought a copy of a book which he writ 
 on his experiences. He showed me around a little. 
 The games are all under cover now and it ain t every 
 body that can find play. Tammany, they told me, 
 was actin a little mean toords the gamblers since 
 Croker made up his mind to have all the gamblin 
 done on the race-tracks. But we found a faro game 
 and I quit a right sharp loser. I telegraphed Lem 
 Tolliver for money this mornin. This is what I got : 
 " Sent a hundred to-day. When that s gone walk 
 home, you old sucker." That wasn t polite but so 
 long as the money comes, I don t care a hooter. 
 Devol says that if I ll make a speech for Tammany 
 I can borrow all the money I want from the gang. 
 The hospitality of this town has about done me up. 
 Every Democrat I meet sets up the drinks. I never 
 was in such tall fragrant clover. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
HE MEETS BOSS CROKER. 
 
 FINDS THE TAMMANY LEADER A PLEASANT GENTLE 
 MAN THEY CORDIALLY AGREE ON ALL LEADING 
 QUESTIONS IS REQUESTED NOT TO MAKE A 
 SPEECH THE MAJOR TALKS HOSS A VISIT TO 
 WALL STREET. 
 
 " MR. CROKER, SEZ I." 
 
 ASTOR HOUSE, 
 
 NEW YORK, Oct. 25. 
 
 What I like about this hotel is that I can get jole 
 and greens for dinner and corn-bread for breakfast. 
 I don t wonder that the great statesmen of the 
 (65) 
 
66 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 country stop here. I was up early this mornin and 
 after two stiff jorums of whiskey I throwed in a 
 breakfast that would have become one of old Jeb 
 Stuart s cavalrymen. After bein brushed up and 
 put in shape by Baron Minaldi I proceeded up town 
 to the Southern Society. I was warmly welcomed 
 by a few sons of the South congregaited there but 
 was surprised to learn that the bar of the establish 
 ment was closed. I was presented to Captain Ran 
 dolph, Major Calhoun, Colonel Dinwoodie and Col 
 onel Hawkins and it was decided to give me a re 
 ception durin my stay in the city. Such hospetality 
 as I received touched me deeply. It seems that the 
 further the noble sons of the South get from their 
 native and beloved soil the more they yearn toards 
 each other. After an hour pleasantly spent with the 
 Southern boys I went over to Tammany Hall to 
 pay my respecks to General Croaker, 
 x- # * 
 
 I found the great Tammany leader surrounded by 
 a big crowd of admirin followers. When I got a 
 chance I introdooced myself in a somewhat florid 
 style, and I thought at first that the distinguished 
 leader was rather cold and distant. He looked at 
 me as though he thought I was goin to borrow, but 
 when I spoke about his stock farm down in our seck- 
 tion and complemented him on goin into business in 
 Tennessee he thawed out considerable. I liked his 
 appearance at oncet. Like General Lee he is a good 
 listner, and for awhile he let me do all the talkin. I 
 ast him how the campain was proceedin. Hesitatin 
 for a brief minnit, he said : 
 
 " Why, Major, it seems theres nobody against us. 
 We are just havin a canter. It looks now as though 
 the other horses wouldn t start." 
 
 " That s very gratifyin," I said, " but I suppose 
 
He Meets Boss Croker. 67 
 
 you feel like we do down South sometimes that it 
 would be plesanter if we had more oppersition." 
 
 The great chief smiled at this sally and said : 
 " Well, it keeps me busy holdin our own people in 
 shape. Our party is large and unwieldy, but its all 
 due to the splendid and economical government we 
 give the city. The people are so delighted with us 
 that we can t hardly keep em from votin our ticket. 
 The scarcity of offices is the worst trouble we have. 
 There s complaint that we don t divide em up so 
 as to give more people a chance, but the honor of 
 belongin to Tammany Hall is so great that it keeps 
 down dissention. There s also a little dissatisfaction 
 about the prominence given Irish-Americans in af 
 fairs, but that doesn t amount to anything. This, 
 Major, is an Irish city. The Germans and the Ital 
 ians don t care much about politicks and they don t 
 interfere much with us. The American Know Noth 
 ings do a little kickin, but we ve got them where 
 they can t do much." 
 
 " How are you off for campain funds?" I inquired. 
 
 At that the General laffed softly. " Why," said 
 he, " Major, we are just stuffed with money. After 
 buyin up all the troublesome Republicans that can 
 be got at we still have money to burn. With our 
 resources now we could raize a campain fund of 
 $250,000 just as easy as you could raize a man in a 
 fifty cent limit game of poker. We are sendin 
 money over to the State Committee to help elect 
 Maynard. We can t actually find use for it in town." 
 
 The talk about Maynard started me up and I 
 sailed in. The General was delighted with my 
 declaration that no man was fit to be honored by 
 the Democrat party till he had showed his willing 
 ness to deserve its confidence by fitin in the Con 
 federate army, stuffin a ballot-box, sluggin a Re- 
 
68 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 publican heeler or changin election returns. Such 
 men, I said, showed their ability to lead and it was 
 to them that we looked for guidance. I ast Mr. 
 Croaker if he would like to have me make a speech 
 or two in town for him. He said : 
 
 " Major, I know our people would be pleased to 
 hear from a gallant old Southern soldier, but the 
 fact is I don t want our majority to be too big this 
 time. It will create suspicion. I m really tryin to 
 hold it down to somethin like 100,000. I don t 
 want it to go over that and that s why we ve stopped 
 Tim Sullivan from registerin tramps down in his 
 part of town. Now if you let yourself loose here it 
 stirs things up so that we couldn t keep the majority 
 down to a decent figure." I bowed and thanked 
 the great leader deeply for his complement, 
 x- # * 
 
 It was hard to get a chance to talk to the Boss, so 
 many people wanted his year. I got in a few words 
 on hoss racin and that seemed to spruce him up. I 
 told him that we had a wonderful two-year-old colt 
 down in Alabama, a genuine descendant of the celer- 
 brated jumper and steeple-chaser of Roscommon, the 
 Irish Birdcatcher, this woke the old man up and he 
 was all aglow in a minnit. I give him all the points 
 and I wouldn t be surprised to see that animal in 
 General Croaker s stable next season. He told me 
 that one thing that drawed him toards the South, 
 outside of politicks, was its noble sportin blood. He 
 said to me that he never seen a Southerner that 
 warnt game, from backin a handful of cyards to 
 bettin on the length of straws in a straw-rick. As 
 for fitin he said there was nothin on earth that 
 could beat em, not even exceptin old Ireland. I tell 
 you the South has a noble ally in Richard Croaker 
 and his Tammany Hall army for that matter, At 
 
He Meets Boss Croker. 69 
 
 my request the General give me a ticket for a seat on 
 the platform for tomorrow nites meetin, when Sena 
 tor Hill and Colonel Fellows will speak. I think 
 that Fellows is the most eloquent man I ever heard 
 talk. He lived for years in the South and he s got 
 our swing. When he gets warmed up talkin I feel 
 like jumpin on a hoss and gallopin about ten miles 
 across country. He jingles every nerve in my old 
 frame. I tell you Democrat politicks is in great 
 shape in this village. The talk in the Republican 
 newspapers about misgovernment, corruption, skull 
 duggery and all that sort of thing is the merest gar 
 bage. 
 
 # # * 
 
 This afternoon I strolled down to Wall street 
 where all the money of the country is congested. I 
 never could understand how New York could be so 
 Democratic and yet have so many capitalists and 
 skinflint money-lenders. The houses in Wall street 
 is large and commodeus, but I didn t see any great 
 signs of surplus money there. Nearly everybody I 
 saw looked more like borrowers than lenders. My 
 ruffled shirt of the old school and my general ap 
 pearance attracted a right smart bit of attention and 
 I was accosted several times in a flippant way. I 
 kept cool, though. I can understand why Cleveland 
 likes New York and specially the money end of the 
 town, but I wouldn t give a cuss to live here ; too 
 much noise and not enough soceability,! think. 
 
 * -x- * 
 
 When I got back to the Astor House I found a 
 young lady journalist from the World there. She 
 said she had been sent by Mr. Pulitzer s personal 
 representative to interview me and invite me to visit 
 the top of the sweet-potato-hill dome of his buildin. 
 I excused myself on the ground that I never allowed 
 
/o The Major in Washington City. 
 
 myself to be interviewed and I couldn t bear to go 
 up very high without gettin dizzy. I bowed her 
 out in my most courtly manner and then went up 
 with a new acquaintance that I met at Tammany 
 Hall, a Mr. Dennis Hoolihan, and called on Steven 
 Brody. That young man is a wonder to me. He 
 told me a raft of things about New York politicks 
 and I can see he is a risin man though he s quit 
 jumpin. If I was General Croaker I d give Mr. 
 Brody a nice office. He told me that I was the 
 only genuine Southern gentleman that he had ever 
 met though he had attended three prize fights in 
 New Orleans. I spent $2 in his plais. In the 
 evenin I occupied a box in Toney Pastors and I tell 
 you I was greatly delighted. If that young Mr. 
 Pastor ever comes down our way I ll see that he is 
 well treated, for he knows how to give an enter- 
 tainin show and he knows how to treat a Southern 
 gentleman when he meets him. I tell you, I m in 
 love with New York. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
A CALL ON EDITOR DANA. 
 
 THE TWO DISTINGUISHED DEMOCRATS EXCHANGE 
 VIEWS A REFERENCE TO THE BUTLER CAMPAIGN 
 THE EDITOR S OPINION OF PRESIDENT CLEVE 
 LAND THE MAJOR CRITICISES THE SECRETARY 
 
 OF THE NAVY. 
 
 ASTOR HOUSE, 
 NEW YORK, Oct. 26. 
 
 I called this mornin to see that Nester of Ameri 
 can journalism, Mr. Chas. A. Dana. I had read more 
 or less of Mr. Dana s writin s and promised myself 
 that I would make a fraternal call on him the first 
 time I was in town. I find it isnt easy to see the 
 great editors of the metropolis. They are shy on 
 somethin which I attribute to the large numbers of 
 indignant persons that must hunt them up daily to 
 make a row about somethin that was printed in their 
 newspaper. I dont, therefore, censure em for desirin 
 to keep shady. When you go into their respective 
 offices and ast for Mr. Bennett, Mr. Reid, Mr. Dana 
 et al they look at you askant and refer you to some 
 underling. They seem to think that you are some 
 feller who has come to town to lick the editor and so 
 undertake to ward you off. I have licked several 
 poltroon editors myself in my time and expect to 
 lick a few more, but my mission to New York is 
 peaceful. 
 
 " Take my kyard right in to Mr. Dana, and none of 
 your funny business with me," I said quite serverely 
 to the stripplin who undertook to sidetrack me onto 
 some fifteen dollar man. I didn t have to cool my 
 
 (70 
 
72 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 heels long at the great editor s door, the instinct he 
 clapped eyes on my kyard he sent for me to come 
 right in, grabbed me by the hand and reiterated again 
 and again that he was heartily glad to meet me. I 
 could almost pronounce my welcome in Mr. Dana s 
 sanctum sanctimonious as effusive. After I was com 
 fortably enskonsed in one of the great editor s easy 
 chairs he informed me that he was a daily and de 
 lighted reader of my political and social letters and 
 was charmed no less by their fine literary style than 
 by their attitood on the living issues of the day. 
 
 The latter was jest the pint on which I wisht to 
 draw out Mr. Dana. I wanted to ascertain by findin 
 out just where he stood with reference to Mr. Cleve 
 land, the odious Federal Election Laws and our sa 
 cred War Claims. On all these subjects Mr. Dana 
 talked freely, as one public character would talk to 
 another. I was glad to find that he is down on 
 Grover, though he is not sayin much on that point 
 in his newspaper. Durin our conversation Mr. 
 Dana lent toward me and speakin in a semi-confi 
 dential tone, said : 
 
 " The old stuff is all that I have painted him in 
 my columns. I have called him a good many hard 
 names, settin up nights to con the dicshenary and 
 invent epithets to hurl in defiance in his rubicond 
 face, and my word for it, Major, he deserved every 
 one of em. If you remember, I referred to him as 
 Grover the Gob and heaped other equally opprobi- 
 ous names upon him, all calculated to bring him 
 into ridicule. I wanted to show my disrepect for 
 the low bred Buffalonian, and I fancy that I suc 
 ceeded." 
 
A Call on Editor Dana. 73 
 
 I told the great editor that I thought he had suc 
 ceeded in his undertakin and I was only greatly sur 
 prised and shagreened that it had not showed up bet 
 ter in the ballot boxes on Election Day. The great 
 editor thought deeply for a while and then said that 
 he guessed the public did not take the Sun as seri 
 ously as it oncet did. He referred to the Ben Butler 
 incident at this point, and said he was afraid it had 
 hurt the influence of the paper considerable. I told 
 him that I thought the Butler business had hurt the 
 prestage of his paper in the South and I also had 
 heard of some of my neighbors who had stopt takin 
 it. Ben Butler wasn t exactly the man to be revered 
 in the South and besides there was no more reason 
 for runnin him for President at that time than there 
 was for runnin him for King of Ireland. I saw at 
 oncet this was a tender subject with Mr. Dana and 
 so I deftly changed the theme back to Mr. Cleveland. 
 
 " I have conceived a deep-seated hatred for the 
 languorous leviathen in the White House," con 
 tinued Mr. Dana, his erstwhile vigor of expression 
 suddenly returnin to him, "and I ll put burrs in his 
 bed and a roach in his coffee or will know the reason. 
 A great many people wonder why I advocate the 
 rippin up of the tariff, the Sun bein a high Protec 
 tion newspaper. To the astute the reason is obvious. 
 I know that Free Trade will ruin the country, and a 
 ruined country will put Cleveland in a hole. He s 
 the son-of-a-gun I am after." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Mr. Dana was highly elated over the encouragin 
 progress made by the Tucker bill to repeal the op 
 pressive Federal election laws. Mr. Dana assured 
 me that the repeal of these odious laws would help 
 Tammany greatly. " With Davenport and his mis 
 erable minions out of the way," said he, " we can 
 
74 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 roll up an even hundred thousand majority in this 
 town for a yaller dog. We could even elect Mr. 
 Croker Mayor, and it wouldn t surprise me if it came 
 to that before long. Mr. Croker will want to be 
 vindicated, and this is the shape in which his vindi 
 cation will eventoollay come." 
 
 * * -5f 
 
 I ast Mr. Dana if it was true that Tammany is an 
 oppressive, tyrannical and thievin organization. 
 
 " Emphatically it is not true," said he, with con 
 siderable feelin. " Tammany is a pure and noble or 
 ganization. It has been lied about and vilified and 
 Cleveland is responsible for a great deal of it. He 
 has always assumed when he wasn t after votes 
 that Tammany wasn t up to his social and political 
 level, and that has hurt us. The people had to infer 
 that Tammany must be damned low. Dr. Park- 
 hurst is another monster who has libelled Tammany. 
 He has preached, prayed and prevaricated against us 
 until the public mind is warped and twisted. I have 
 done what I could in my newspaper to break the 
 force of this pestiferous preacher s influence, and I 
 flatter myself that I have in a measure succeeded. 
 When we restore Mr. Fellows to the District Attor 
 ney s office it wouldn t surprise me a particle if Mr. 
 Croker instructs him to indict Parkhurst for some 
 hideous crime." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Speakin of Mr. Fellows reminded me of an inci 
 dent, which I related to Mr. Dana, to-wit: While 
 walkin along Centre street yesterday with Delancy 
 Nicoll we passed a second-hand furniture store where 
 they made a specialty of sellin pigeon holes for of 
 fices. There was a sign in the window : " TEN 
 THOUSAND PIGEON-HOLES FOR SALE," and when 
 Delancy caught sight of it, he said : 
 
A Call on Editor Dana. 75 
 
 " Tammany ought to buy all them pigeon holes 
 for Col. Fellows to stuff indictments in." 
 
 Mr. Dana laffed moderately at this and said it 
 wasn t bad as a witticism. " But, at the same time," 
 he continued, " if Mr. Nicoll had stuffed a few more 
 indictments into pigeon-holes or ash barrels he would 
 not have incurred Mr. Croker s displeasure, which is 
 a serious thing for any man to do who wants to rise 
 in this community. Mr. Nicoll has been foolish and 
 unpolitick. He tried cases right and left without re 
 gard to circumstances and naturally he hurt a great 
 many good Tammany men. I suppose he sent as 
 many as one hundred Democratic voters to jaildurin 
 his administration hence hencely," and Mr. Dana 
 winked with the other eye. " No wonder," con 
 cluded the great editor, " that Mr. Croker got out of 
 patience and turned down the fresh young man with 
 
 a dull thud." 
 
 * * * 
 
 Before leaving Mr. Dana I ast him frankly where 
 he stood with reference to our Southern War Claims. 
 
 " Where does old puddin head stand ? " ast he, 
 meanin Mr. Cleveland. 
 
 " I m afraid he s lukewarm," I replied. 
 
 " Then put me down as red hot for em," exclaimed 
 Mr. Dana, and you bet he meant it, too. In respect 
 to his opposition to Cleveland Mr. Dana reminds me 
 of the Irishman who was shipwrecked and cast up on 
 a foreign shore. He ast the natives who pulled him 
 off the rocks what kind of government they had. 
 They tried to tell him, but, on second thought, he 
 shut them off by exclaiming : 
 
 " Dom the odds what kind av government ye ve 
 got. I m agin it anyhow." 
 
76 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 I have been too busy for the past week to observe the 
 nature of the bankruptcy bill now bein discust in the 
 House, but this is a subject that comes home close 
 to my people. We have been in need of a favorable 
 bankrupt law in the South for years. I know I have 
 personally, and if our War Claims are not paid purty 
 soon, or we are not permitted to start our own State 
 banks of issue, dam me, if I know what ll become of 
 us, with cotton less than ten cents a pound. We can 
 get on, of course, just as we got on for years after 
 the war had robbed and impoverished us, but such 
 gettin along as that I care nothin for. I want a 
 glimmer or two of prosperity before I close my old 
 
 eyes. 
 
 * -x- * 
 
 I really had to snicker this mornin when I read 
 that Hil Herbert, at the head of the Navy, wasrearin 
 around because an Admiral of ours down in Brazil 
 had saluted a " rebel" fleet. As an old rebel who 
 served in Herbert s rebel ridgement and who is proud 
 of it, I feel like takin off my hat to a rebel wherever 
 he is found. Theres nothin more sacred to me than 
 the right of rebellion, and I ll maintain it with the 
 little strength I ve got. When people get tired of a 
 thing, let em rise and kick the quiltin right out of 
 it. This row in Brazil dont concern me, and I dont 
 know what its about, but I m with the rebs and so 
 would Herbert be, if he want drawin a big salary from 
 the government. 
 
 I m off for the big meetin at Tammany Hall, and 
 you can bet I ll cut a rigger there. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
AT A TAMMANY RATIFICATION. 
 
 HE SEES GOVERNOR FLOWER AND OTHER DISTIN 
 GUISHED DEMOCRATS THE SPEECH OF COL. 
 FELLOWS DELIGHTS HIM IS AMAZED BY THE 
 WEALTH OF THE TAMMANY OFFICE-HOLDERS- 
 HE HAS HIS POCKET PICKED HIS OPINION OF 
 DOUGHFACED DEMOCRATS. 
 
 ASTOR HOUSE, 
 
 NEW YORK, Oct. 28. 
 
 I enjoyed myself powerfully at the Tammany Rat- 
 eyefication meetin on Thursday night. My spirits 
 havent been so boyant since the day our old Eighth 
 Alabama ridgement left Mobile for the front end of 
 Richmond. Bigad, I felt youth and fire in my vains 
 when I looked around there upon the earnest mass 
 of people and felt that I was in the sanctuary head 
 quarters of the greatest Democrat power in this 
 country to-day. I got a good seat on the platform 
 near Judge P. Dyvver and Judge Steiner. These 
 gentlemen pointed out all the distinguished gentle 
 men on the stage and in the vast awdience. Mr. 
 Croaker nodded and smiled at me and the sweet 
 band played Dixie, which I regarded as a special 
 complement till Judge Dyvver told me that it was 
 the rule at all Tammany gatherins to have the band 
 play that tune. I stopt bowin then. When Gover 
 nor Flower came in leanin gracefully on the arm of 
 Henry Clay s nephew, Mr. Selzer, I arose with the 
 crowd and cheered. The Governor, I take it, is a 
 powerful great man. He looks exactly like a Com- 
 
 (77) 
 
78 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 misary Sargent we used to have in our ridgement 
 named Bill Pinkston, from Talladega. Bill was a 
 big, fat chap and he didn t have much more sense 
 than a gray goose, but he was a good hearted man. 
 He was kicked in the pitt of the stummack at Wil- 
 liamsport as we was returnin from the Pennsylvania 
 pic-nic in 1863, and he died then and there. Other 
 wise I would have swore that he was Bill Pinkston 
 when he walked on the stage. When he begun to 
 talk I seen the difference. The Governor s got 
 horse sense and I wouldn t be surprised if he was a 
 candidate for President. If he is the greatest pre 
 judice he ll have to encounter will be his fat. I don t 
 believe, after our two experiences, that the Demo 
 crats will ever elect another fat man President. 
 
 I was disapinted in not hearin Senator Hill, but 
 that Leftenent Governor Sheehan is hot rags, I tell 
 you. The way he went for that Bar Association 
 made me feel good. When I first got to town I 
 thought that the bar-keepers had somehow got 
 twisted out of line but knowin all the liquor dealers 
 to be Democrats I couldn t understand it. But it 
 was all explained. My experience is that of all the 
 low-lived scoundrels on earth the lawyers are the 
 meanest. They ve bothered me a good deal and 
 they bother everybody, dam em. After hearin Col 
 onel Sheehan s eloquent and argumentative defense 
 of Judge Maynard I realized what injustice these 
 legal brutes is doin that high minded, honorable 
 gentleman. He is actooally bein presecuted for 
 doin what down in our country would send him to 
 Congress. Great god, he only saw that the Repub 
 licans would steal the Legislature and he simply 
 stole a few papers to head em off. Why down at 
 
At a Tammany Ratification. 79 
 
 our election last year we had some trouble with 
 Populists there and just before the votin begun I 
 said to the election officers : " Boys, I have reason 
 to know that the Pops have arranged to do some 
 cheatin here to-day. There ll be lots of it on their 
 side. Now I propose to start first in this business 
 so that we ll have nothin to complain of when we 
 get through. I say put fifty straight out Democrat 
 tickets in that box before we start and that ll cover 
 any possible cheatin on their part. I never like to 
 complain of the enemy gettin the best of me." The 
 boys took my hint and the thing was done. There 
 was a little chatter about fraud after the vote was 
 counted but I m glad to report that it didn t come 
 from our side. Now suppose they had tried to make 
 trouble for me for what I done ? Dont you sup 
 pose our side would have stood by me? Well, if 
 you dont think so just come an live in Alabama a 
 few weeks. There s where Democrats do stand by 
 one another, in jail and out. 
 
 The speech that I liked most of the evenin was 
 Colonel Fellows. I suppose the fact that we both 
 fout for the independence of the South makes me feel 
 nicer toards him, but layin Confederate matters 
 aside he is a wonderful gifted man. How the beau 
 tiful language did flow from John ! But I notised 
 here that the oratory was different from ours. It 
 wasn t so hot. I expected to hear the real old 
 Southern music from John, but I suppose he con 
 forms to custom. Down with us a political speaker 
 not only uses all the invecktive known to the dick- 
 shenary, but he is allowed to cuss. Profanity is our 
 very best holt, and I tell you now it embellishes 
 political speakin most powerfully. It s all very well 
 
8o The Major in Washington City. 
 
 to call a man an unmittigated, double-died villain, but 
 when you stick a big oath in front of that it helps it 
 over the fence amazingly. Fellows, I could see, had 
 the sympathy of the audience. He received the 
 best reception of the evenin. I was told that more 
 than two-thirds of the people in the hall felt a deeper 
 interest in the Prosecutin Attorney than they did in 
 all the other offices on the ticket. Most of them 
 are liable at any moment to have business with the 
 District Attorney s office. " Give us the District 
 Attorney of our kind," said one of the boys to me, 
 " and a Governor with the pardonin power and we ll 
 come purty near holdin this town agin all comers." 
 I could see the force of this. John Fellows is a 
 mighty poplar man. After the big meetin was over 
 I saw more people crowdin up to shake hands with 
 him than I ever saw at a gatherin before. Of 
 course, General Croaker is more poplar, but he is 
 not so geneal and approachable as John. I predict 
 that Fellows will run ahead of his ticket this time 
 at least 15,000 votes, for I could see that there was 
 men in that meetin that wouldn t be satisfied with 
 only votin oncet for him. I liked Amos Cummin s 
 talk, although he was in the Union army. I m told 
 that Amos and Speaker Selzer is General Croaker s 
 special favorites now. He is pushin them right to 
 the front. I expect to see Selzer Governor of the 
 State and Amos in the U. S. Senate ear long. 
 
 One of the pleasantest features of this meetin was 
 settin there and havin my near neaghbors point out 
 the men who had recently rose to wealth. " There s 
 a man that four years ago was drivin a truck," one 
 of em would say, "and now he s worth $100,000." 
 " That chap over there with the donnygal whiskers 
 
At a Tammany Ratification. 8 1 
 
 made $250,000 out of city contracts in three years." 
 " There s Gilroy s son-in-law, he was a poor man five 
 years ago and now he s rollin in wealth." " Do you 
 see old Pat Flaherty, there ? He used to be a host 
 ler in a livery stable and now he s got a big bank up 
 town." So it went on until my head was actooally 
 dizzy. I never heard anything like it never heard 
 so much talk about money. Great Jewpeter, why 
 didn t I land in here after the war, like Judge Prior, 
 and go into Tammany politicks, instead of stickin 
 to that mezely plantation down there in Alabama. 
 If I d been in with em here I never would have felt 
 the cruel hand of the accursed tariff. 
 
 A decided gloom was cast over me as I was leavin 
 the hall after the meetin was over. In the crowd 
 my pocket was pickt and my watch and ten dollars 
 was scooped. The watch was worth $150. I took 
 it from a chap who was playin poker in our parlor 
 a few nights before I left Washington. He got 
 broke and I let him have $25 of Tolliver s money on 
 it. I was right mad about this transaction but I 
 went with Dry Dollar Sullivan to see Superintend 
 ent Burns about it Friday mornin and he got the 
 watch back for me in about two hours. It seems 
 like I was mistaken in the vast crowd for Johnny 
 Davenport though I m told I don t look a bit like 
 him and a young Tammany district leader named 
 Patsey Hoolihan took my watch. It was explained 
 to me that the Tammany people never rob each 
 other if they know it. Mr. Burns is a nice gentle 
 man and he assured me that I would have perfect 
 protection durin the remainder of my stay in town. 
 
82 The Major in Washington City, 
 
 I read in a paper yesterday a article from a Gen 
 eral McMahon, who, I believe, is a Tammany candi 
 date for Senator here in town and who was very 
 active as a Union soldier in killin off our good people, 
 in which he says that the most of the men who died 
 durin the war to " save the Union " was Democrats. 
 That s news to me, and bad news at that. I don t 
 believe, as McMahon says, that there .was more 
 Democrats than Republicans in the infemous horde 
 that invaded the fair South and pillaged and slew us 
 for exercisin our Constitootional rights. If I thought 
 so I d despise the doughface Northern Democrats 
 mor n I do, for outside of Tammany they are poor 
 skunks anyhow. If the Federal army was made up 
 of Democrats, Mr. McMahon, they took dam good 
 care to vote the Republican ticket whilst the war 
 was going on, sah. I don t believe there was three 
 ridgements of Yankees that voted a majority for the 
 Democratic ticket, even when that noble friend of 
 the South, General McClellan, was running for Presi 
 dent. And they must have kept votin the Republi 
 can ticket for it was twenty years after the war 
 before the Democrats could get a smell in the North 
 outside of New Jersey and New York. General Mc 
 Mahon, as I heard one of the boys sayin last night, 
 is offin his trolley. I suppose he s one of those de 
 spicable political morphydites they call a " War 
 
 Democrat." 
 
 # * * 
 
 I was requested several times to-day to register 
 but as I ll have to return to Washington in a few days 
 I didn t take the trouble. Besides, I can see from 
 the way things are movin that the Tammany boys 
 dont need my vote. I m enjoyin myself like a goat 
 on a fresh hillside. I went up agin a faro bank last 
 night and bested it to the tune of $125, and I regret 
 
At a Tammany Ratification. 83 
 
 to say that I got drunk and had to be hauled home 
 in a coopay. The scoundrel driver wanted to charge 
 me $8 but when I drawed out my tarantula he accepted 
 $2 and tried to look pleasant as near as I remember. 
 I find that this is no cheap town to monkey in. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
SEEING THE CITY SIGHTS. 
 
 THE MAJOR HAS TROUBLE WITH A HACKMAN HE 
 VISITS THE RACE TRACK IN NEW JERSEY HE 
 LOSES MONEY AND ENTERS A WILD PROTEST HIS 
 BOYS AT HOME HAVE A SERIOUS ROW CALLED TO 
 WASHINGTON BY BUSINESS. 
 
 "THAT DIRTY NIGGER JOCKEY PULLED UP." 
 
 ASTOR HOUSE, 
 
 NEW YORK, Oct. 31. 
 
 Talkin with Register John Riley yesterday he 
 told me that I could say to the dear brethren in the 
 (84) 
 
Seeing the City Sights. 8$ 
 
 South that Tammany was never in better shape for 
 victory than this year. He said that every man of 
 the Organization had been registered this year ex 
 cept 480 and they was too sick to be carried to the 
 registerin places even on stretchers. He said it was 
 obligertory on every Tammany man to register and 
 vote unless sick, disabled or in jail. Owin to the 
 moderate character of the judiciary he said thare 
 was fewer good Tammany men in jail and on the 
 Island this year than any year in the past. I under 
 stood from another man that a failure on the part of 
 a Tammany man to register subjected him to a fine 
 of one-fifth of his property and that if a saloon 
 keeper his license was at once taken away from him 
 and given to a Republican, if one could be found, 
 who would agree to support Tammany Hall. My 
 informant said that only three of these licenses had 
 been transferred in three years. With nobody to 
 interfere it will be very strange, General Croaker 
 says, if Tammany doesn t pole 100,000 votes next 
 Tuesday. I am authorized to send this glorious 
 news to the South. Judge Maynard will, of course, 
 run 25,000 votes ahead of his ticket. This will be 
 well reseived in the South for many of our public 
 men are accused of crimes of one kind and another 
 politikal, social and immoral. When the Democrat 
 in New York does a little stealin for his party he is 
 vindicated same as with us. 
 
 Last night I had another disturbance with a hack- 
 man who wanted to charge me two dollars for haulin 
 me around a couple of blocks in what they call the 
 Tender lion districk. He grabbed aholt of me, but 
 I unslung my gun and a policeman coming up we 
 was both taken to the police office. When I ex- 
 
86 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 plained matters the officer I think they called him 
 Sargent Macaffery said that I was a guest of the 
 city and dropt the case, The dirty dog hackman 
 wanted me held for carryin a weepin, but the officer 
 said that a Southern gentleman a travellin was 
 allowed to carry a gun, wear spurs, play kyards and 
 drink as much whisky as he wanted because these 
 things was necessary to his comfort, bein the custom 
 of his country. Later in the evenin I met with a 
 young Tammany fellow and when I told him about 
 my annoyin experience he said that whenever I got 
 into trouble with the police or Police Judge in this 
 town to just lean over and whisper in their ear: 
 "What Are You Coin to Do About It?" He said 
 that was the Tammany password and that it would 
 go every time. I mention this for the benefit of the 
 boys in our secktion who may be visitin the Tam 
 many metropolis. 
 
 I went over to the races at Elizabeth, New Jersey, 
 yesterday with a couple of acquaintances. I hadn t 
 saw a good hoss race in fifteen year. Of course we 
 have some scrub matches down our way, and there s 
 more or less fun, but a shure enough hoss race had 
 long been denied me. The weather was rather cool 
 for my tropical Southern blood, but I managed to 
 keep steam up in the old, old way. They have a 
 nice track at Elizabeth, and though the crowd was 
 small I could see that it was composed of excellent 
 Democrats. I was induced to back General Croker s 
 Prince George for a small amount and come out 
 ahead about $50. Then, on the advice of one of my 
 party, I went strong on old Raceland. I thought it 
 was a dead shure cinch, but curse me if that dirty 
 nigger jockey didn t pull up at the last minnit and 
 
Seeing the City Sights. 87 
 
 let an old stuff called Roach win the race. Great 
 Santa Anna, wasn t I mad. They done me for over 
 a hundred. I got right down in front of the Judges 
 stand and howled fraud. I curst that nigger Sims, 
 ridin, standin, asleep and awake. I curst the horse, 
 the owner, the trainer, the man that made the sad 
 dle, the race track, the chop feed that the old horse 
 et and the man that wayed the jockeys in. I curst 
 everybody but the Judges. As Makin McCormick 
 remarked, I curst em in every shape, form and man 
 ner from Athol to Barbary Allen. When some 
 body remonstraited with me I told em that it was 
 our rule in the Southern country when we got done 
 out of money on a race track to do a little open air 
 talkin. That miserable nigger Sims ought to be 
 sent to the penitensiary and he ll get there too, if 
 the race track Democrats get full possession of the 
 State this year. I never seen an honest nigger in 
 my life, let alone a nigger jockey. At the same 
 time I must say that Sims rode Prince George well 
 and likewise Addie, on which I made a few dollars, 
 and also Poor Jonathan. I was told to back Jona 
 than, but I wouldn t do it on account of his infernal 
 Yankee name and so I dropt a few pence on Mr. 
 Chiswick. I was onto Bolero and came out on the 
 day about $75 behind and drunk. But I met a lot 
 of good chaps and people on the track was delighted 
 to see an old school Southern horseman and turffite 
 in their midst. Old Major Bill Gladden, from Amer- 
 icus, Georgia, who happened to be there, told em 
 how I rode a race when I was a young fellow down 
 at Mobile on a hoss called Billy Bowlegs, and won 
 though I carried six pounds overweight. The hoss 
 belonged to Colonel Kossyusko Calhoun and his 
 jockey got drunk and so at the last minnit they 
 throwed me on and I won the event in great shape. 
 
88 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 I was sorry I didn t find General Croker on the track 
 for I wanted to present him to my friends. 
 
 A letter from my son Ogle, which followed me 
 here, brings bad news from home. My son Planta- 
 genet went over to old Smoot s place the other day 
 where they was killin a couple of hogs. He wanted 
 to get some cracklins to use in corn bread and he 
 met there a malishous dog named Zed Grooms, who 
 ast him about me. He said he heard I was in jail 
 up North some place. At that Plan struck him in 
 the jaw and they clinched and fell and in the hustle 
 Plan got out a knife and cut the yahoo severely. 
 That night Grooms dirty brother Abe come over to 
 set fire to our barn and Ogle, who was on the look 
 out, dumped a load of bird shot into his midriff and 
 so there s the devil to pay and more work for the 
 Grand Jury unless I can head the thing off. I m 
 sorry my boy didn t kill that ornery Grooms for re- 
 flectin on me, but I spose its just as well. I wouldn t 
 mind these things if I was only on the ground to 
 take a hand, but they trouble me mitely as it is. 
 
 This evenin I got a note from one of the gentlemen 
 up at the Southern Society sayin that it wouldn t 
 be convenient to give me a reception there, but 
 that on my next visit to the city I would be honored, 
 etc. I understand that since the bar was closed the 
 Southern Society is not able to get out a crowd. 
 They had to close up the bar because the boys 
 worked the slate so lively that the thing was in dan 
 ger of breaking up the noble Society. This was ex 
 plained to me privately, but if I had knowed of the 
 trouble in time I could have raised a keg of whisky 
 myself. But I hope to be in New York again, as 
 
Seeing the City Sights. 89 
 
 soon as Congress adjourns and I suppose the scoun 
 drels will adjourn, now that they have repealed the 
 Silver law and left the South without a dollar to 
 bless itself with. 
 
 * -x- * 
 
 I got a note from a friend in Washington this 
 mornin tellin me that I d better get back at oncet. 
 My pardner Tolliver has been drunk for three or four 
 days and our poker business is goin to shatters. 
 That s just the way I get it in the neck from soda to 
 hock. Can t turn my back to have a little fun with 
 out somebody layin down on me. I don t mind 
 Tolliver goin on a spree, but why couldn t the jack 
 ass do it while I was there to look after business ? 
 That s what stirs me up and it aint no sure thing 
 that I wont kick him out of the concern when I get 
 back. I ve had a whoopin good time in New York 
 and I m solid with Tammany. I bought a ticket on 
 the Pennsylvania road yesterday from Samuel Car 
 penter, so as to be sure of gettin away, and I m 
 going back to the Capital in the mornin. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.). 
 
HE RETURNS TO WASHINGTON. 
 
 TOO MUCH " STEP LIVELY FOR HIM IN NEW YORK 
 HE MEETS A FIGHTING MAN ON THE TRAIN- 
 SAD STATE OF AFFAIRS IN HOMINY HALL- 
 VEXED BY THE CONGRESSIONAL RECESS ONE 
 OF BOB TOOMBS OLD EXPRESSIONS CALLED TO 
 ALABAMA. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Nov. 4. 
 
 I got back to Washington safe but not altogether 
 sound. The travel there was a leetle too swift for 
 me and at the same time some dirty dog was 
 hollerin at me all the time " Step lively." That 
 gallded me more than anything I encountered. I 
 got it in the depoe as I was leavin Jersey City. 
 " Step lively," said a big red-nosed galoot in a blue 
 youniform. I said : " See here, my very noble 
 Judge in Isreel, I come from a secktion of this here 
 country where white people dont stan bossin. I 
 step as I dam please. If you was to holler at me 
 that way down in Alabama I d fix you so that you 
 wouldn t step very lively for a month or two. Now, 
 as I m leavin these diggins I m going to give you a 
 strip of my mind. You ll Just then the train 
 
 started to move and I grabbed my Colonial port- 
 mantoe and made a dead run for it. I grabbed the 
 hind platform of the train when she was about half 
 way out of the depoe and for an hour I thought I d 
 die of heart disease. I had a pint of corn drops in 
 my pocket and that s what saved me. The next 
 (90) 
 
He Returns to Washington. 91 
 
 time I lectur a railroad hog it ll be when I m goin 
 into town and not when I m comin out. 
 * * * 
 
 On the weigh over I fell in with a man who drawed 
 me out in conversation and when I advanced some 
 radikal views about War Claims and so forth, he said : 
 " You people down South don t seem to understand 
 that you can never have things in this country ad 
 justed to your views because you have grown up 
 under a false sivilization or, rather barbarism and 
 you hain t got intelligence enough to direct affairs. 
 Your public men have no character, your newspapers 
 are edited by ignorant ruffians, you have no respect 
 for law, you have no industry and very little sobriety. 
 And yet because you used to wallop and domineer a 
 lot of nigger slaves you think you re the bosses of 
 the land. Your blind war of Secession didn t teach 
 you anything because you made a good fight and 
 you re so proud of your display of bull-dog bravery 
 that the lesson was lost to you. As Ed. Wolcott 
 says it s a waste of lather to shave a jackass and 
 that s about what the war amounted to so far as the 
 South is concerned." Well, well, how I did start 
 back at him. I was about to yell and cuss so that 
 everybody in the cyar could hear me when he leaned 
 over and quietly said : " My heroic friend, I had a 
 four years hack at the South durin the war and bluf- 
 fin dont go with me. You ve had your turn and 
 what I said to you was in reply to your unrecon 
 structed blather. This is a sweet era of peace and 
 reconciliation but if you open your mouth to me I ll 
 throw you out of this car so quick that you ll think 
 you ve been fired out of a Coehorn." As I was not 
 up to fistic pitch an he was big enough to lick two 
 of me I accepted his insult, but I handed him my 
 card. He lookt at it, smiled and then tore it up. 
 
92 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 He said: " You re no doubt as nice a man as 
 would be met in a day s balloon travel, but you 
 aint in Alabama now and you aint in New York. 
 My advice to you is that when you re movin 
 about up in this country you d do well to imitate 
 that Columbus bag of yours and keep closed." At 
 that he got up and walked to another seat. I give 
 this as a specimen of Northern blackguard. There 
 aint one gentleman in fifty of em in the Northern 
 
 country. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I found things in distressful condition in Hominy 
 Hall. Everybody was behind on board and the 
 Widow Toombs was in despair. I read the riot act 
 at breakfast table the mornin after my arrival. 
 Young Mr. Fender got insulted at my remarks and I 
 kicked him outen the house along with his four weeks 
 bill and that settles that. I paid up two weeks and 
 Huger and Timrod and Castleman promised to pro 
 duce Saturday and so confidence is parshally restored. 
 My pardner Tolliver is straitened up and business at 
 our poker parlor is about the same. His excuse for 
 gettin drunk was that I was in New York on a big 
 spree and he thought he was about as much entitled 
 to a frolick as me. Nice business excuse, that. 
 When I parted with General Croaker in New York 
 the last thing he said to me was, " Major, look up all 
 the New York Democratic boys in Washington and 
 send em home to vote." I ve been hustlin like a 
 lamplighter since I got back. Most of the boys say 
 that they didn t go home to register, but I tell em 
 that makes no difference, for arrangements has been 
 made in Dry Dollar Sullivan s districk to vote all 
 comers next Tuesday. If I had the price of trans 
 portation I could send over five hundred, but they 
 wouldn t all be New Yorkers perhaps. We have that 
 
He Returns to Washington. 93 
 
 many Southern lads here huntin for places and dead 
 broke that would be tickled to visit New York if they 
 had the fare. I ll telegraft to General Croaker to 
 that effect this evenin. It ll be worth a great deal to 
 our elections in the South to have Judge Maynard 
 well vindicated. In case I run for Congress next 
 year it ll help me, for I spose I ve done more politi 
 cal rascality than any man in our part of Alabama 
 from Ku-kluxin niggers to stuffin ballot boxes, kickin 
 them to pieces and countin out obnoxeous can 
 didates. 
 
 K- & * 
 
 This here suddent adjournment of Congress has 
 kind er split my calkelations. I supposed that when 
 the financeal legislation was settled we d be able to 
 get our boys down to the War Claims business. The 
 feeling toward old Cleveland is such that our South 
 ern members don t care much whether he s pleased 
 or not. His standin in with the Robber Barens of 
 the East, leavin the South without money, as you 
 may say, has created a bitter feelin against him. I 
 despise the old rynoserass, but I feel like lovin him 
 for the enemies he s makin down South. When our 
 folks get good and hot they ll not ask his advice 
 about what kind of legislation is good for the coun 
 try. The goin home of a good many Congressmen 
 will hurt our poker game, of course, but quite a squad 
 of our Southern members will remain here durin the 
 month s vacation and draw their mileage. We ll get 
 our share of that and maybe we ll do better than 
 when Congress is in session, for with nothin to do 
 the boys will have more time for draw. 
 
 * vf vf 
 
 Talkin to our member, old Jim Cobb, this mornin, 
 I told him that so far we Democrats hadn t helped 
 things much. I showed him that the silver business was 
 
94 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 a mistake for the South, that we hadn t repealed the 
 Election laws, hadn t busted the tariff, hadn t stopt 
 expenses, hadn t paid a Confederate claim, hadn t 
 done anything to help the stricken and impoverished 
 South, and yet we d been runnin the whole govern 
 ment for eight months. I cust old Cleveland purty 
 sharply, and told Jim that we was all fools in the 
 South to trust that old Buffalo lunk-head who never 
 showed any appreciation of the South, except that 
 he sent a hired man to fight us, instead of takin the 
 chances of gettin his stummack shot off hisself. Old 
 Jim listened to what I had to say, and then he 
 throwed out his chaw of tobacker and said : " Maje, 
 the trouble with you is that you want everything 
 done in a week. You re not politick. I m on the 
 inside of things here more n you are, and I can say 
 to you that everything is commin our way, commin 
 slowly, but commin. Its like a story I used to hear 
 about old General Bob Toombs. One of Bob s par- 
 tickular avershions was the town of Chicago, which 
 sent a Board of Trade battery down to do business 
 with us durin the war. Bob never got over that. 
 When the news reached Bob s neighborhood that 
 Chicago was on fire in 1871, Bob got onto his old 
 gray hoss and rode down to town. When he got 
 back in the afternoon he was purty well loaded. 
 Some of the neighbors had gathered at the planta 
 tion. What s the news about Chicago, General Bob ? 
 shouted one of the citizens, as Bob reined up. Well, 
 boys/ he said with great dignity, she s burnin like 
 hell an the wind s in our favor. Now, Maje, let me 
 say that the country s jest blazin, so to speak, and 
 the wind s in our favor. As soon as Cleveland sees 
 that the elections in the Northern States is all right, 
 he ll take off his coat and go to work with us like a 
 good feller." I told Jim that I had been patient for 
 
He Returns to Washington. 95 
 
 a quarter of a century and I d try it awhile longer, 
 but I informed him right there that if he didn t start 
 to do a little whoopin up for the South, in December 
 he d find me a candidate for Congress agin him in 
 the Fifth Alabama Districk. 
 
 * * * 
 
 If I can arrange matters I ll slide down home durin 
 the vacation and straiten matters up a little. I ve 
 got to head off the Grand Jury from suin my oldest 
 boy for stabbin Grooms. Then I ve got to arrange 
 for some pork and corn-meal for the winter, fix up 
 some interest on the mortgages, stave off a judgment 
 or two, get trusted by somebody for a new mule, 
 have the roof of the old house patched, lay in some 
 whiskey and clothes for the boys, raise a new saddle 
 for Plantagenet, and probably break the back of that 
 Tuskeegee editor that has been abusin me in his dirty 
 paper. That s all. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
DISAPPOINTED IN THE ELECTION. 
 
 HE INDULGES IN SOME MELANCHOLY REFLEC 
 TIONSTHE CAUSES OF THE DEMOCRATIC RE 
 VERSES BLAMING IT ALL ON CLEVELAND WAR 
 DECLARED ON THE WHITE HOUSE POTENTATE 
 THE CASE OF J. HAMPTON HOGE. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Nov. 10. 
 
 If I was to say that the result of that there elec 
 tion last Tuesday had satisfied the cravins of my 
 soul it would be as solem a lie as has been told sence 
 Annanyas struck his gait and set the record. I wont 
 say that I was surprised for as a military man I cant 
 afford to admit that I can be took by surprise, but if 
 I wan t astonished dam me. I had brought back 
 such favorable reports from New York that the 
 Southern delegates here was all pitched in the high 
 key of G. We had made arrangements in the Col 
 ony for a gigantick blowout at which the old rebel 
 yell was to have a front place on the program. I 
 had wrote to my son Plantagenet to gather all the 
 people of our section in front of the post office in 
 Briar Root on the night of the election and when I 
 telegraft him of Judge Maynard s election he was to 
 fire a salute of sixteen guns representin the sixteen 
 States of the Solid South. I wanted to impress the 
 fact on my people that the brandin of a Democrat 
 and callin him a thief because he happened to do 
 his party a little extra service didn t go in the North 
 any more n in the South, The Briar Rooters have a, 
 (96) 
 
Disappointed in the Election. 97 
 
 very good cannon that Gen. Wilson s cavalry thieves 
 left behind when they raided Tuskeegee in the spring 
 of 65. Well, I didnt send that message and I sup 
 pose some of the diggers that stood waitin all night 
 around Mirabeau Clay s post office got right hungry, 
 for next mornin, when I wasn t in no very gay state 
 of mind, I got this message from Plan : 
 
 B. R. Nov. 8th 93. 
 
 Sorry the wagon run over the Judge. Send me 
 one of his largest ribs. Want to make soup for the 
 boys. P. H. 
 
 That was neither faceeteous nor respectful but it 
 shows the spirit of the age. I was too sad even to 
 smile at this sally at my expense. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The first thought that struck me when the news 
 begun to come in was that Mr. Croaker probably re 
 gretted not lettin me mount the stump durin my 
 visit to his city. He told me that he thought that 
 he had the menavlins gently fixed, so that he could 
 toss up about 100,000 majority for the ticket and he 
 didnt want it to go over that for it might create talk. 
 He said that if an earnest, eloquent Southern gentle 
 man like myself went to speakin it would create en 
 thusiasm and a lot of outsiders would be induced to 
 vote and the majority might exceed his registration. 
 I think thats the way he put it. I reckon like he is 
 sorry now that he didn t let the Voice from the 
 South be heard. But these politickal accidents will 
 happen. Its our business now to see that this 
 particular kind don t happen again. 
 
 * * -x- 
 
 I want to say right here that I done some blue sul 
 phur cussin when the news from New York, Ohio, 
 
 7 
 
98 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Massachusetts and Iowa come joltin in. I remember 
 one night durin the war when we made a winter move 
 on the Rappyhannock. We d marched all day in 
 the mud and rain without anything to eat and when 
 we stopt at night it begun snowin. I laid down 
 on the side of the road and about the time I shut 
 my eyes a fool on a mule rode up on me. I recall 
 that incident because I did some cussin there and 
 then, besides hittin the fool on the head with my 
 sword. The conditions was favorable for profanity 
 and I was always better n hired help at that sort of 
 thing. Well, that cussin was like a maiden s prayer 
 compared with what I was delivered of on Tuesday 
 night. Finally I concluded that, like old Joe 
 Thomas when the end-gate come out of his cart 
 when he was two-thirds up a big hill with a load of 
 potaters, this was a subject that I couldn t do jus 
 tice to. Of course we ve done nothing but discuss 
 ever since the cause of the reverse for that s as 
 mild a name as any of us can give it, and that dis 
 guises the truth. A few of us was settin in our poker 
 parlor Wednesday night a talkin it over. There was 
 no play that night for we all felt about as sad as 
 Bonypart did when he rode back from Russia in his 
 sockfeet. One man blamed it on the Silver debate, 
 another said it was because we hadn t pushed the 
 tariff overboard and hadn t started the State banks. 
 Another fool swore that it was all due to Senator 
 Dave Hill and his monkey Maynard. There was as 
 many opinions as there was different sized drinks on 
 the table. Finally I cleared my throat and I said : 
 " Gentlemen, this here rebuke is all due to the big 
 Stuff in the White House Mr. Buffalo from Cleve 
 land or Cleveland from Buffalo. If he had as much 
 decency as a tapir or a wart-hog he d get up like 
 General Lee did at Gettysburg and say Get to- 
 
Disappointed in the Election. 99 
 
 gether, boys ; it s all my fault. But there s differ 
 ences in men same as in mules and horses. Of course 
 the hard times and a little scare about tariff may 
 have cut a figger in the elections. Down South 
 we re all born Free Traders. We started right. The 
 poor Yanks are a little tender on it yet. But the 
 way I interpret our momentary check is like this. 
 The people last year voted all over the country that 
 it was time to restore the South to power and render 
 it full justice for all the years of pillage and persecu 
 tion. That was the verdick. It meant pay the 
 Southern War Claims, right the wrong that the 
 Nation has done and go back to the true principles 
 of government. Well, sah, what happened ? Mister 
 Cleveland sold us out to them Robber Barens in Wall 
 street and then turned his back on the South and 
 ignoared its Claims. That talk between him and me 
 in which he said that we of the South would have to 
 wait and be patient has cost us dearly. I don t say 
 that if some financial arrangement had been made to 
 give the country more money, either free coined silver 
 or a new is sooe of greenbacks, the thing mightent been 
 smoothed over, but the refusal of Cleveland to pay 
 our War Claims and thus impart prosperity to all 
 the country disgusted everybody and bigad I m 
 glad I had somethin to do with callin attention to 
 his terpitood. You ll notice that Kaintucky, Mary- 
 land and Virginia stood by the Administration but 
 that s because we have no Republican party in the 
 South, and in these States folks voted the same old 
 ticket. But we ve got to go to work now and fight 
 old Cleveland tooth and nail. I ve already wrote 
 home to my people to burn him in effegy right away. 
 That s what we want to do in every county in the 
 South. Burn him in effegy, denounce him as a 
 traitor to the people that made him all he is and 
 
ioo The Major in Washington City. 
 
 cow-itch him from Dan to Bersheby. They say he has 
 no more feelin than a rhinocerass but he ll know 
 what that means. Put an income tax on his salary 
 and let the Senate stop confirmin the rich dudes he s 
 sellin offices too. By Jewpeter that ll fetch him to 
 his feed. I ve got no use for an enemy of the South 
 and that s what the old pot belly in the White 
 House is and be darned to him." 
 
 It is needless to add that my remarks hit the bull s 
 eye. After some lively discussion they all got 
 around to my side. The facts hadn t occurred to 
 em before and they realized how generous the vot 
 ers of the North had been in rebukin the old slouch 
 that had turned up a deef year to us. It was agreed 
 to open on him at once and keep it up. Tolliver 
 said when he come to think that old Cleveland had 
 caused all this trouble he felt like a Captain in our 
 artillery service whose battery was captured and 
 ripped to pieces by a nigger Kansas ridgement in 
 the Steel campaign. The Captain s men was nearly 
 all killed and he was badly wounded. When some 
 white Union officers pict him up he said he didn t 
 mind the loss of his battery nor the loss of his men 
 nor the loss of his horses and his arm, but what did 
 disgust him was that he d been run over and tramped 
 on by a pack of dam niggers and that nothin worse n 
 that could happen to a Southern gentleman. Lem 
 said that s the way the South would feel when it 
 come to understand that the old buffalo in the White 
 House had been stampin on em. 
 
 Lem sedgested that in addition to burnin and 
 hangin the foresworn President in effegy we -go to 
 work and revive that old scandal about his conduct 
 
Disappointed itt- tiM , Ejection. 101 
 
 in Buffalo that woman .^cfiapfef* .J* \s%id>:, /X&oys, 
 there was a fellow a runhin for Congress down in 
 our district some years ago and a man come to me 
 and said that the candidate s brother livin up the 
 State had ten years before that courted and betrayed 
 the daughter of old Colonel Jackson, and he thought 
 it would be well to have the facts out in the cam- 
 pain. I ast him what become of the matter and he 
 said that as soon as old Jackson heard of the thing 
 he took a shotgun and blowed the young man s 
 head off. I said that under the circumstances I 
 thought it wouldn t be worth while to reopen that 
 case. And that s the way I feel about this here 
 Buffalo matter. I don t believe in such cross-eyed 
 politicks anyhow." 
 
 * * * 
 
 I see that they re tryin to make trouble up in New 
 York for Colonel McKane, the Mayor of Gravesend, 
 for tryin to whoop up a few extra votes for the 
 Democrats. Mack, it seems, has got the Southern 
 idee about elections. If everybody had done as well 
 as he d done you bet there wouldn t be crape on the 
 New York Democratic door knob to-day. If them 
 jelly fish up there permit harm to come to Mack, I ll 
 swear I ll never speak to another Northern Democrat. 
 I don t know Mack but I ve wrote to him to come 
 down South and wait for the thing to blow over. 
 I ve sedgested Old Point in Virginia. The stuff 
 that s in that man is what would be appreciated with 
 us. I hope he ll be indooced to settle amongst us 
 somewhere and go into Congress where Democrats 
 with real backbones is scarce as pork sassidge in Jeru 
 salem. 
 
 * # * 
 
 Its no use talkin these elections has lowered the 
 spirits of Washington. Our boardin-house seems 
 
IO2 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 like a country graveyard, m a damp neighborhood. 
 Huger s gone home disgusted and Timrod has gone 
 over to get a few weeks free board with an old uncle in 
 Goochland, Virginia. A young Georgian that come 
 to board two weeks ago skipped owin two week s 
 and stole six silver tablespoons and a goblet besides. 
 I m goin down home for a couple of weeks to put 
 things in shape and start the anti-Cleveland crew- 
 sade. When I get back I think I ll take charge of 
 old Hominy Hall and run it on business principles. 
 * * * 
 
 A young friend from Arkansas who wants me to 
 help him out of a little gamblin scrape was in just 
 now and he said that as he was passin the White 
 House he saw old Baggsgettin ready to take a drive. 
 He said he looked as pleasant as though somebody 
 had just give him a red apple. You bet he s not 
 worryin about the elections. His grief over good 
 men throwed down and knockt out is about the 
 same as was the sorrer of my old dun hoss when he 
 heard that old Smoot s cow was dead. But the 
 Southern Nemmysis is onto him and the War 
 Claimers is gettin ready to camp on his greasy trail. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. I am utterly disgusted with the treatment 
 which my Virginia relative, Mr. J. Hampton Hoge, 
 has received at the hands of this blue-nosed Admin 
 istration. It makes my account against Grover a 
 little bit larger than it would have been. Col. Hoge 
 was appointed Counsel to China because of his dis 
 tinguished family connection. He has suffered like 
 the rest of us from the impoverishment superin- 
 
Disappointed in the Election. 103 
 
 dooced by the war for our independens, and also 
 from alcoholism. After much tribbylation he got 
 started *f or China and because he had a little stum- 
 mack trouble on the way to San Francisco and drunk 
 a little more whiskey than was good for his head old 
 Cleveland has disgraced him by cuttin him off in 
 his prime and callin him back. I suppose the old ex- 
 Bum will be appointin no body but Prohibitionists 
 and Presbyterian preachers to office purty soon. 
 
STILL LAMENTING THE ELECTION. 
 
 SYMPATHY FOR BOSS M KANE MR. CLEVELAND S 
 HAWAIIAN POLICY PLEASES HIM WHY THE SOUTH 
 APPROVES SEVERE CRITICISM OF SENATOR VOOR- 
 HEES THE POPULIST CAUSE LOOKING UP IN THE 
 SOUTH. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Nov. 16. 
 
 After Judge Carter had scun his newspaper over 
 this mornin he passed it to me with the remark that 
 the election aftermath from New York was highly 
 interestin. I suppose the Judge knows what he 
 means by "election aftermath," but I m cussed if it 
 isn t too many forme. But that s neither here nor 
 there. My visit to Mr. Croaker s town prior to the 
 election gives the news from there a special interest 
 to me and I watch it with considerable care. I feel 
 keenly for that sterlin Democrat, John Y. McKane, 
 and I sincerely hope and pray that he will weather 
 the storm all right. In any event I shall watch his 
 case with deep solicitood. I had the sweet pleasure 
 of meetin Mr. McKane endurin my recent sojourn in 
 New York and he struck me as bein a high toned 
 and honorable gentleman. Was a little surprised 
 when he declined to drink, and the fact that he 
 seemed instinctively to shrink from me when I hap 
 pened to use a little strong language was also some- 
 thin of a puzzle to me. I wanted him to join me in 
 a little whirl around town, but he begged to be ex 
 cused even from that. I knowed Mr. McKane to be one 
 (104) 
 
Still Lamenting the Election. 1 05 
 
 of our most efficient Democrat workers and I couldn t 
 exactly understand his attitood in these matters. 
 Fancy my feelins when General Croaker informed me 
 afterward that Mr. McKane is a shinin light in the 
 Methody Church and the Superintendent of a Sun 
 day school. The next day I sent Brother McKane 
 an old pair of trousers for the heathen, and I guess 
 they went to the right spot, for I afterward saw a 
 Coney Island Justice of the Peace wearin em. 
 
 # # * 
 
 As soon as I heard of Mr. McKane s trouble I wrote 
 to Gen. Croaker to intercede in his behalf and I think 
 he ll do it. It is an outrageous shame the way these 
 good and pious Democrats is bein hounded over the 
 face of the earth and I put a good deal of feelin into 
 my letter. General Croaker had my permission to 
 give out my letter to the press, but as yet I haven t 
 seen it. In the letter I took a firm stand for Colonel 
 McKane and flung defiance in the face of popular 
 opinion. The General may think it a trifle strong in 
 view of the condition of the public mind and for this 
 reason withold it from the reporters. It s my opin 
 ion, however, that our mutual friend and fellow- 
 worker needs moral support at this unhappy juncture 
 and I think it behooves the prominent men in the 
 party to give it to him. Still, General Croaker proba 
 bly knows the temper of the New York people better 
 than I do. I certainly do not wish him to do aught 
 that might weaken his power on the city he governs 
 
 so wisely and well. 
 
 * * % 
 
 It pains me to think of the state of mind of that 
 grand old Democrat, General Hugh McLaughlin of 
 Brooklyn. He was full of forebodins when I visited 
 him a few days before the election. I attributed 
 this to the hard work and loss of sleep insedent to 
 
Io6 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 the campain, but a glance at the returns convinced 
 me that the old General knows just the proper time 
 to forebode. I intended to write him a letter in my 
 usual cheerful stile for the purpose of bracin him up 
 but I have been so busy bracin myself up since the 
 election that I haven t devoted myself very largely 
 to anybody else. The need of bracin too has been 
 so urgent that it seemed to me to be a time for every 
 man to look out for himself in this particular. The 
 howl that is goin up in Brooklyn anent the alleged 
 election irregularities gives me wrinkles. Brooklyn 
 has heretofore been one of the most liberal of cities in 
 the matter of elections and I can hardly understand 
 the meanin* of this suddent reversal. A people who 
 formerly scrupled at nothin have all of a suddent 
 got to be scrupulous. It must be highly encouragin 
 to the Christian Endeavor Society, but I m damd if 
 I can fathom it. 
 
 x- * # 
 
 I no sooner get my dander up about the way old 
 Cleveland is runnin things than he does something 
 to take the edge off my despiseness. His action in 
 this Sandwitch Island business tickels me right sharp 
 an I can say that the South is right behind him in 
 this thing. This guff about the old flag has been 
 sickenin from the start. What are the facks ? A lot 
 of Yankee thieves out in Honeylulu get up a scheme 
 to upset the country and take charge of it. A fresh 
 Yankee minister from Maine goes into the job of 
 plunder and when the time comes he takes the fool 
 sailors off the American ships, upsets the Govern 
 ment and hists the old flag. Ben Harrison approves. 
 When Cleveland comes in he sends that gallant Con 
 federate soldier, Jim Blount, out to pull down the 
 old flag and set things right. Havin done the 
 Sandwitchers wrong what was to do but to put the 
 
Still Lamenting the Election. 107 
 
 Queen back where she belongs. Short story, ain t 
 it ? One of our Congressmen who finds it cheaper 
 to stay here in Washington durin the vacation than 
 to go home said to me yesterday that he thought we 
 ought to have Hawaye because it would be a good 
 place eventooally to send our niggers and colonize 
 em. I told the fool that the place was too far away 
 and besides who wanted to send the niggers off to 
 live by themselves except a lot of old nigger preacher 
 cranks? Why, we couldn t no more get along in 
 the South without niggers than we could without 
 mules and whiskey. Who d do the work? Every 
 body knows that a white man can t work in a cotton 
 field, a rice field, or a cane-brake. And what s more, 
 everybody knows that a white man, if he s any part 
 of a gentleman, won t work in the South anyhow. 
 As for annexin territory we ve got more now than 
 we can take care of. I m in favor of lettin England 
 have them islands, and it s my plantation against a 
 railroad sandwitch that she ll have em soon, too. 
 England was a good friend of the South when we 
 needed a friend, and we uns of the South don t 
 forget it. When I was talkin in this strain yester 
 day a feller reminded me that the South and the 
 Democrats used to be both in favor of annexin 
 Cuba. I explained that it wasn t Democratic policy 
 to annex outlyin country except where we could use 
 our niggers. Before the war Cuba would have been 
 valuable to us because we could have utilyzed our 
 niggers there. We don t want any more free terri 
 tory. I may say that the South is solid on this 
 issooe and I m afraid that Cleveland is goin to pop- 
 lerize hisself with our people, 
 
 * * * 
 
 I pickt up a paper here the other mornin and saw 
 to my disgust I wasn t surprised that old Dan 
 
io8 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Voorheeswas goin to come out soon in opposition to 
 our Southern policy toards the dirty old dead beats 
 of Union pensioners. Old Dan, who was always, as 
 I have before remarked, a trimmer and a sneak, 
 thinks that we re hurtin the Democrats in the North 
 by tryin to stop the awful pension steal. You cant 
 depend on Voorhees a bit more than you can on a 
 mule in a yaller jacket s nest. Durin the late war 
 he was a first class " Copperhead," as the Yankees 
 used to call a true friend of the South livin in the 
 infernal North, and he has advocated both sides of 
 everything sence first a Free Trader, then a mild 
 Protectionist, then a greenbacker and then a gold 
 bug, and now he proposes to take up the cause of 
 the old scoundrels that robbed and pillaged and dis 
 graced us and have since been makin us pay for doin 
 it. If Voorhees does this thing I hope every man 
 in the South will rise up and denounce him. I ll 
 make it my personal business to either horsewhip 
 him or challenge him as sure as the lord made little 
 apples. I m bilin hot about this trecherous old 
 coward and all his works. In the old days when the 
 South had charge here in Washington we warn t 
 afraid to do a little fightin. When an old Aberlition- 
 ist got too fuzzy we just called him down or run him 
 up agin somethin that he wasn t used to. The club- 
 bin that Brooks give that old skunk Sumner was one 
 of the best things that ever happened. We want 
 more of that spirrit. The men that go against our 
 interests, no matter what their politics is, have got 
 to be looked after and I m ready to do my sheer. 
 
 * -K # 
 
 Mirabeau Clay, our P. M. at Briar Root, writes 
 me that the Populists is stirrin around lively in our 
 State. That s old Cleveland s work, don t you see. 
 Not satisfied with ignorin our War Claims the old 
 
Still Lamenting the Election. 109 
 
 duffer has gone back on us on the tariff and also on 
 silver. Of course the Pops are up and a comin. 
 They ll elect a lot of Congressmen, too, next year, 
 mind ye, but that don t hurt much, for they are all 
 true Southern men when it comes to Claims and 
 Free Trade and more money. The trouble is that 
 it makes the South look broke up and if it goes on 
 it will hurt us in the next Presidential election unless 
 we nominate a good Southern soldier like Gordon, 
 or Wade Hampton, or Wheeler, of our State. We ve 
 got to keep the South solid for that is all there is to 
 the Democratic party or ever was. The old badgers 
 that s afraid to stand up for the interests of the 
 South because they think the North will be scairt 
 off seem to forget that we used to carry New York 
 and New Jersey right while the war was goin on. 
 Its because justice isn t bein done to the South that 
 Northern Democrats should get mad and vote the 
 Republican ticket. I pointed that out the other 
 day and the more I study the results of the late 
 elections the more I feel that our friends in the 
 North are resentin the ill treatment of their old 
 friends and allies in the South. If Cleveland and 
 Dan Lament had as much sense between them as a 
 guinny pig has they d see it. But they ll learn a 
 thing or two as time jolts along. 
 
 * * & 
 
 I ve got my arrangements made to leave here to 
 morrow for home. Must go down and look after 
 things. Sence Congress adjourned the Congressmen 
 who are here have made business right good in our 
 poker parlor. They have time to play now and if 
 they only had more money we d be in sweet red 
 clover. Tolliver is a big-hearted rooster and he lets 
 these fellers stick their ringers up for chips and bor- 
 rered money till our slate is about full. Still we re 
 
no The Major in Washington City. 
 
 doin well. I owe considerable around town but I 
 have some ready cash by me for this trip. A South 
 ern gentleman of the old school doesnt bother his- 
 self about what he owes. Its the currency for the 
 current day that he looks after and thats me. One 
 of the Arkansaw members got me to cash a $10 
 check some weeks ago and it turned out to be green 
 goods. About half-past three yesterday he come in 
 again and tried to hurrah me for $25 on another 
 check. His bank was closed and he must have the 
 money, he said. I looked at the check and as I 
 handed it back I said in my sweetest vain : " I guess 
 any bank that you can get into in the daytime you 
 can get into at night." Well, he appeared to be 
 purty thoroughly insulted but he sneakt off and I 
 supose he ll want to fight me next time he s drunk, 
 x- & # 
 
 I ve arranged with Mose Hampton, in case Tolliver 
 gets drunk while I m away, to look after our poker 
 game. I wish he d go on a toot as soon as my back 
 is turned, for Mose has got business sense into him 
 and I know he ll get all there is in our line while I m 
 away. Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
AT HOME IN ALABAMA. 
 
 POINTS PICKED UP EN ROUTE HE GATHERS UP 
 SOME NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS ENTHUSIASTIC RE- 
 CEPTION IN BRIAR ROOT HIS NEIGHBORS CALL 
 AT "THE JULEPS" AND HE IS SERENADED A 
 BRIEF SPEECH AND A TREAT. 
 
 "THE JULEPS," 
 
 BRIAR ROOT, Ala., Nov. 22. 
 
 Once more my foot is on my native heath, as 
 Colonel Megrigger says. I reached home some four 
 days ago and I ve been as busy as a camp-meetin 
 preacher ever sence. On the way down I thought I 
 had never saw the South lookin so poorly sence the 
 war. All the people that I talked to blamed the con 
 dition on the infernal tariff and skarcity of money. 
 At Danville, Virginia, a one legged-veteran got on 
 the train and scraped up an acquaintance with me 
 his name was Colonel Quintius Curtis Dabney, of the 
 Twelfth Virginia and he told me his people was 
 gettin much weary of Grover Cleveland and his mon 
 key business and they thought in view of the fact 
 that the Democrats had the handlin of the country 
 it was a dam long while between pie. I got quite an 
 insite into Virginia sentiment from the Colonel and 
 when we was about to part I felt well enough ac 
 quainted (he had four nips out of my flask) to indulge 
 a little plesantry. I said : " Colonel you ought to be 
 right glad these hard times that you ve only got one 
 leg for the boys to pull." I had pict this up in 
 Washinton but the Colonel wasnt onto it and I had 
 
112 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 to explain to him what pullin a man s leg meant. I 
 had quite a tackel with a nigger porter of the sleeper 
 en root. There was an old hog in the birth next to 
 me that snored so loud that you couldn t hear the 
 noise of the train. I ordered the porter to wake him 
 up and make him go into the forrerd car and most of 
 the passengers was with me but the nigger said there 
 was no rules about snorin and that if he begun to 
 put people out of his car for that he wouldn t aver 
 age two lodgers a night. I made a pass for the im 
 pudent scoundrel when he hit me at the butt of the 
 the left year and for a minnit I thought the train 
 had gone off a trussel. I finally got my gun from 
 under my piller but as usual the fool passengers in 
 terfered and the nigger apologised. The snoring 
 hog woke up while the racket was goin on and he 
 was so skairt that he didn t sleep any more that 
 night and so I accomplished my purpose as I nearly 
 
 always do. 
 
 * # * 
 
 At Tuskeegee I was met in the early morning by 
 my son Plantagenet with a borrowed buggy. I tried to 
 keep a buggy myself oncet but in spite of all I could 
 do the chickens on the place would roost in it and it 
 was never fit for use, so I traded it off for a Mexi 
 can saddle and a double-barrel shot-gun. I prefer 
 horseback ridin myself. On the way to the Root 
 my son told me all the neighborhood news. He 
 said we had three new dogs on the plantation and a 
 bran new Durham bull caff that he was waitin for 
 me to name. In mentionin its pints he said it was 
 stubborn as a mule and carried its tail very high. 
 I didn t hesitate a minnit in namin that animal 
 Grover. Plan informed me that a story was circu- 
 latin around that I was runnin a gamblin house in 
 Washington, but that it didn t do any harm, for the 
 
At Home in Alabama. 113 
 
 folks thought it would be a good thing if I could 
 get holt of a little money. I said : " I ll bet that old 
 Jim Cobb has set that story a goin for he s been 
 sore ever sence I threatened to run against him for 
 Congress in this district. If I find out that he s 
 been in this business I ll cut loose and tell some little 
 stories about his carryins on in Washington." Plan 
 said : " Why, what s the use botherin about that ? 
 Folks here know you ve been goin up against faro 
 bank and lottery and poker all your life, and what 
 difference does it make whether you gamble here 
 or in Washington, so you ain t the sucker? I sup 
 pose old Cobb thinks it ll hurt you to have it known 
 that a gentleman like you has gone into business, 
 that s all." My son informed me that the Sheriff 
 had been around talkin about some of them old 
 judgments against me but he had got him to let up 
 agin on the ground that I was in Washington tryin 
 to get our War Claims allowed, which was a service 
 much appreciated by our people. The Sheriff said 
 that if I succeeded it would make good times in our 
 county and that as long as I kept at the work he d 
 see that no executions went out against me. I felt 
 that I was among my own beloved people once 
 more when I heard this. 
 
 * * 
 
 As we drove into Briar Root I could see that there 
 was considerable commotion, Everybody hailed me 
 as we went along and when we stopped in front of 
 Mirabeau Clay s Post-office there was quite a crowd 
 gathered to welcome me. I stood up in the buggy 
 and told the boys of the good work that I had been 
 doin and that I would speak in the Odd Fellows Hall 
 on the followin evenin and give an account of my 
 stooardship. I was loudly cheered. I told em that 
 I had found much to encourage our Cause in Wash- 
 
 8 
 
ii4 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 ington and that I had sowed seed in good soil. Old 
 Luke Langdon, who was drunker than usual, hollered 
 out and wanted to know if them there Yankees had 
 got done votin yet, and there was quite a guffaw. 
 I explained that this was an off year in politicks and 
 that local causes had much to do with the apparent 
 Republican gain and when I told them that the re 
 sult was largely due to the fact that the Northern 
 people was disgusted because the South hadnt been 
 better treated by Cleveland in the matter of its War 
 Claims I thought -the yell they give would disturb 
 people in the cemetery. I m the only person that 
 has this theory about the late elections and I find it 
 takes well with our secktion. The boys give me 
 three cheers and I lit and had a drink or two with 
 the leadin men. I invited a dozen of em over to my 
 mansion that evenin and they come. 
 * * # 
 
 About the first man to arrive was Postmaster Clay. 
 He said he d been makin some trouble for hisself by 
 startin a little grocery in connection with his post- 
 office. He said a nigger named Jim Newton had 
 called at the office about a week before and ast for 
 his mail. Clay said : " I says to him where do you 
 buy your groceries and do your tradin, Mr. Newton ? 
 Says he: I deals down with Mr. Driscoll. Then 
 said I go and git yer letters where you buy your 
 groceries, Mr. Nigger. That onery cuss," continued 
 Clay, " went and told old Sim Driscoll what I said 
 and begad he s threatenin to report me to Washing 
 ton." I said I d square the matter up. I told him 
 that if I was in his official place I wouldn t be bothered 
 with niggers coming around the post office. I told 
 him to get a store-box and put it right outside the 
 door and pitch all letters and papers for niggers into 
 it and just let em come and git their mail themselves. 
 
At Home in Alabama. 
 
 While we was talkin old Sim Driscoll rode up and 
 after we d all had a drink or two I had him and the 
 post master a shakin hands. It does me good to see 
 that my inflooence in this community is a waxin in 
 stead of a wanin. They all look to me I find and 
 I ll be purty busy for a week or two settlin up old 
 quarrels and fueds. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The evenin was a genuine ovation to me, not less 
 than twenty leadin people droppin in in the course 
 of it. Plantagenet had laid in a couple of gallons of 
 whiskey against just such an event and it came in 
 right handy. I reported the state of affairs in Wash 
 ington and told em how that old, fat porpus Cleve 
 land had stood between us and our Claims and how 
 he d throwed hisself over to the Wall street gold- 
 bugs and how he d probably oppose the wipin out of 
 the iniquetous Yankee tariff and our State banks 
 in fact how he d probably go back on the whole Dem 
 ocratic platform. Squire Hazelwood, whose Vir 
 ginia nephew was killed inside the Federal lines at 
 Gettysburg same time Gen. Armistead was killed, 
 said that he was infernal hot about Cleveland s course 
 in this Hiwayan affair. He said that the Southern 
 people was makin a mistake in upholdin Cleveland 
 simply to get a hack at Ben Harrison. / " Of course," 
 said he, " we don t want any territory now and no 
 body down this way cares a jay bird s twitter about 
 the old flag, but this here puttin up a greasy, old nig 
 ger wench to rule over white people can t be main 
 tained in this secktion. We had a nice bigad time 
 down here when the coons had us under their 
 thumbs and you can say to Cleveland when you see 
 the old drumedary again that I don t want any more 
 of it in mine. The people of the South must con 
 sist, sah, and no nigger either in this country or any- 
 
Ii6 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 where else has any right to rule white people, even 
 if they are blue-bellied Yankees. The Democrat 
 party can t afford to establish such a precedent. If 
 Mr. Cleveland helps this old nigger to a throne I tell 
 you he ll lose at least three Southern States to his 
 party, besides demoralizin the whole party in this 
 secktion." The squire s speech seemed to meet 
 with considerable favor and it set me a thinkin too. 
 
 While I was answerin a thousand questions about 
 Washington City and the great men at the head of 
 the Government, and while I was dispensin hospi 
 tality in the old time courtly Southern style, the fife 
 and drum core from Briar Root come into the spa 
 cious lawn and serenaded me with marshall music 
 that made my soul swell. Bein called for I stept 
 out onto the front verandy and after the cheerin 
 had subsided I said : 
 
 My Fellow Citizens : I thank you most heartily for 
 this expression of your admiration and confidence. 
 I have been absent from you for some weeks, engaged 
 in a service which interests you all. I return tempo- 
 farily from this public service to find that you are 
 the same noble-hearted chivalrick people in whose 
 vains the only truly American blood circulates. It 
 is a pleasure to look into your noble, intelligent faces 
 after bein in contact with the mongrel tribes that 
 you can see even yet in the Democratic capital of 
 this Democratic country. I rejoice to find that you 
 still regard me with favor and that you recognize me 
 as your representative. The tongue of slander has 
 not been idel but you who know me best respect me 
 most. Sons of Alabama I greet you and welcome 
 you to the "Juleps." 
 
 Some feller in the crowd hollered out that plain 
 whiskey would do him and so I invited em all in and 
 
At Home in Alabama. 117 
 
 treated and the way they absorbed that two gallons 
 of whiskey made me think that maybe they hadn t 
 had a drink sence I left. The whole country was 
 stirred up by my arrival. We didn t get the last of 
 the gang away from the place till after midnight, and 
 it was agreed before partin that my meetin the fol- 
 lowin night should be attended by everybody and 
 that arrangements should be made to hang old Cleve 
 land in effegy at the conclusion of my address. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I was much pained durin the evenin to see the dis 
 tress of mind of my old neighbor, Major Hartridge. 
 He informed me that his youngest daughter had just 
 formed a matrimonial alliance clandestinly with a 
 young merchant in Tuskeegee whose father had come 
 driftin down from Massachusetts just after the war 
 and settled there. He said he would rather have 
 buried his daughter than to see her fall a victim to 
 this scoundrel. He said that it was plain to his mind 
 that if this sort of thing wa snt stopt the old families 
 of the South would be desimated and ruined and 
 that we would lose our chief distinction as the aris 
 tocracy of the country. My youngest son havin mar 
 ried a common sort of girl far beneath him in social 
 rank I could sympathize deeply with the Major but 
 I counselled him not to take vengeance in his own 
 hands unless some scoundrel Yankee made love to 
 his other daughter, He said that Mirandy, who is 
 now thirty-two, was the only one that he feared for 
 she had now arrived at the age when she didn t care 
 much about race, religion or tribe but if ever another 
 Northern man sot foot on " Chestnuthurst" while he 
 lived he d administer on him with a load of buckshot. 
 
 * * * 
 
 In talkin about the desperate financial situation 
 durin the evenin I sedgested that if Congress didn t 
 
Ii8 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 give us our State banks purty soon we could go to 
 usin Confederate money in our own neighborhood. 
 We all have more or less of it laid away and by puttin 
 it into circulation we could relieve the stringency of 
 the times. Of course we may have to use a little 
 shot-gun persuasion to start the thing but I see my 
 idea took root at oncet. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
THE MAJOR S PUBLIC ADDRESS. 
 
 PRESIDENT CLEVELAND DENOUNCED AND HUNG IN 
 EFFIGY GREAT ENTHUSIASM THE WHITE CAPS 
 ADMINISTER A LITTLE MEDICINE TO THE NEGROES 
 OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD THE MAJOR IS AT HOME. 
 
 THE JULEPS, 
 BRIAR ROOT, Ala., Nov. 25. 
 
 We have spoken ! Briar Root township is on the 
 record and a merry time we ve had. No such excite 
 ment has taken place here since the Yanks ripped 
 the folks up in the spring of 65, Our meetin last 
 Tuesday night was a grand success, as were, also, the 
 subsekent proceedins. But I must not anticipate. 
 I rode into the Root about noon, along with my two 
 sons. Already there was a stir and the three saloons 
 in the place was doin a rushin trade. The first thing 
 I tended to was to get up a stuffed paddy of old 
 Cleveland to be used in the effegy performance. 
 There wanr t a man in the whole place fat enough to 
 furnish a suit of old clothes and we were about to call 
 on the ladies to get some old material and knock 
 some sort of a bag together when Plantagenet, my 
 son, happened to remember that there was an old 
 nigger named Jeff. Grimes a livin about two mile 
 up Coon Creek who was so fat that he hadn t been 
 out of his cabin for four years. It s a scarce thing 
 to see a fat white man in our country, for we re all 
 pure Southern strain and blue-blooded people are 
 wiry and slim. They don t make fat like a hog, 
 and that s one thing that shows Cleveland s low 
 
 (119) 
 
I2O The Major in Washington City. 
 
 breedin. Well, Plan and two of Pickel Gifford s rake 
 helly boys rode off to Grimes to get his clothes 
 whilst I hunted up our Post-master, Mirabeau Clay, 
 and told him he must keep out of this affair for 
 Cleveland would chop his head off if he heerd that he 
 was mixin in. Clay s the best stump orator we have 
 in the county and I was sorry to count him out but 
 I don t want to lose the Post-office. I told him that 
 about the time we got ready to string old Cleveland 
 up in effegy it might be wel l for him to rush into the 
 crowd and protest. He said : " I ll do it, Maje, but 
 you must have the boys well posted, for they ll be 
 good and drunk by that time and one of em might 
 put a bullet through my cocoa-nut. I know what 
 chances a man takes a pertestin in this part of the 
 country." I satisfied him that I d take care of that 
 part of the performance. 
 
 * * # 
 
 I noticed as soon as I got into town that the niggers 
 was all lookin very happy, and snickerin and grinnin. 
 One of em said to me at the stable where I left my 
 horse : " Done look mighty queer, Marse Maje, to 
 see dese Dimmycrats a hangin ole Cleveland, suh." 
 I learned from Driscoll that since the election up 
 North the niggers in the town and vicinity had been 
 actin very fresh and ugly. He told me that a black 
 rascal named Bill Hawkins, livin about a mile out 
 on the Hogwaller road, had said in his store, when 
 some folks was talkin about me a few days afore I 
 got home, that he heard I was in jail up north for 
 stealin a horse. I told Sim that I guessed we d have 
 to have a nigger-shakin right away and bring the 
 coons down a limb or two. Nigger-shakin is the 
 name we call it when we start out and lick about 
 half the black scoundrels in the neighborhood. 
 While I was notifyin a few of the boys to get ready 
 
The Major s Public Address. 12 1 
 
 for a little raid after the meeting closed Plan and 
 the Gifford boys come back with old Grimes butter 
 nut coat and breeches. You never see a raggeder 
 patched up suit of clothes, I reckon. There was 
 twelve different pieces of goods in the breeches and 
 the seat was patched with a piece of flour bag with 
 the letterin on it : " Lee s Mills Superfine XX Flour." 
 Plan said they had quite a scuffle to get the old 
 man s harness and when they left him he was layin 
 in the corner of his cabin naked but he had stopt at 
 home on the way up and sent Jimson over with a 
 horse blanket that he thought the old man could 
 have some coverin made out of. We finally got 
 hay and straw enough to pad out old Grimes clothes 
 and when we fixed on a head and an old plug hat it 
 looked a mighty sight like Cleveland across the beem. 
 We left the effegy in Carter s stable and proceeded 
 to stretch a wire from the I. O. O. F. Hall across to 
 
 Driscoll s store. 
 
 * # * 
 
 Our meetin was well attended. Every represen 
 tative man within a circuit of five miles was there 
 and some that wasn t. The O. F. Hall holds two 
 hundred and it was packed, and there was as many 
 more people in the saloons and around the hall. We 
 made Simon Kenton Driscoll chairman and Luke 
 Tillman secretary. To my surprise, old Lycurgus 
 Smoot come up at this juncture, shook hands with 
 me as though nothin had ever happened atween us 
 two, and I give him a nice seat on the stage. After 
 the usual regler preliminaries, and after old uncle 
 Simon Didwell, the moon shiner, who was drunk 
 and making a noise like a hog, had been put out of 
 the hall I arose and was greeted with deefenin cheers. 
 It was a muggy sort of evening and after I had 
 quieted the boys down a little I said " Gentlemen, 
 
122 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 will some of you be kind enough to raise a few of 
 the winders ; the atmosphere in this hall is not 
 wholesome." At that old Ike Bascom, who was set- 
 tin on a front seat with his goat chin restin on a 
 stick, looked up at me and said : "Yes, Maje. I think 
 some gentleman have drew a boot." After the 
 lafter had subsided I proceeded to my address. 
 I said : 
 
 " Fellow citizens : I return to you after nearly 
 three months stooardship in the National Capital to 
 report to you that the Cause which we all hold so dear, 
 has been betrayed by a man whom we have twicet 
 made President of the United States. (Groans.) Yes, 
 gentlemen, Grover Cleveland has turned his back 
 upon the South. I pleeded the Cause of our War 
 Claims to him and he turned a deef year. He is 
 afeerd to do justice and like all the other hang-jawed, 
 fish-blooded, pink-livered sneaks in the country, 
 thinks the time hasn t come. He begs us to wait, 
 and this while the Democratic party is in control of 
 both branches of the Government and is movin on 
 the Supream Court with both feet. One little word 
 from this man and Congress would have been adjoo- 
 dicatin our claims in twenty-four hours. We have 
 bills before Congress for millions of dollars of losses, 
 and we have a bill to refund the cotton tax which 
 gives our State $10,000,000, but no man dares to 
 push em for fear he ll displeese the President and 
 lose his favor. This Northern puddin head, gentle 
 men, has made himself the Democratic party. He 
 pays no more attention to Congress than a hog does 
 to religion. And what s he done ? He held Congress 
 by the throat for two months till he forced a bill 
 outen it to repeal Silver because the Robber Barens 
 of the East demanded it, and I ll bet there ain t two 
 men in Alabama that have been benifitted two dol- 
 
The Major s Public Address. 123 
 
 lars worth by that piece of legislation. We wanted 
 free coinage and he give us a Wall street law ; we 
 want State banks and more money and he has give 
 us hard times and less money ; we want the damd 
 Tariff riped up by the roots and he is shilly-shallying 
 with old McKinley s law and he ain t even in favor 
 of slappin a tax on the incomes of the rich thieves 
 up North. The fact is he s worse than Benedick 
 Arnold. He knowed what the people of the South 
 wanted when he accepted the last nomination on the 
 platform we made for him. We have nothin to 
 expect from him and we may as well fight him. He s 
 dead against us but when he hears that a great mass 
 meeting of the most influential and intelligent De 
 mocracy of Makin County, Alabama, has denounced 
 and condemned him he may stop and scratch his 
 hairy ears. This work to-night may start a move 
 ment which will sweep threw the country and call 
 the recreant President back to his duty. We arrain 
 him because he has been false to the South and 
 false to his party pledges. Why he aint even 
 cleaned out the Republican officeholders in the South, 
 let alone faverin the demands for our just dues. 
 Why, a man told me in Washington that this old fat 
 walrus said not long ago that he was sorry that he 
 sent a substitute to fight against the South for he 
 really ought to have gone to the war hisself." I 
 made this yarn up, but I knowed it would fetch the 
 boys. You never heered sich yellin and howlin. 
 After makin this hit I just sailed in to the old Joss. 
 I denounced him from Barnegat to the Belize and 
 damnd him up hill, down dale and across country 
 and back again. I had about a quart of whiskey in 
 me and when steam got up to the right point you 
 could hear me sizzle. I spoke for a solid hour and 
 closed with something like this: "And I now 
 
124 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 impeach this reecreant, in the name of a deceived 
 South, as one false to his pledges and false to the 
 great party which has honored and trusted him ; I 
 impeach him as an apostate, as a coward and as a 
 traitor." (Tremendous cheering and cries of to L 
 with him). At this point our secretary arose and 
 read the red hot resolutions which me and a few 
 gentlemen had prepared, the language being that 
 of lawyer Ben Trotter. They was full of cyann 
 pepper. They recited the cause of our grievance 
 against Cleveland and wound up with a demand that 
 the Platform of the Democratic National party of 
 1892 be carried out to the letter. Then come the 
 resolution declarin that "as an expression of our 
 contempt for President Cleveland and as a manifes 
 tation of our hostility to his craven policy, be it fur 
 ther resolved that we do now proceed to hang the 
 aforesaid Cleveland in effegy." The resolution was 
 unanimously adopted amid howls of delight and the 
 crowd rolled out into the road. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The boys had everything ready and in a jiffy the 
 old Cleveland paddy went sailin into the air. Bru 
 tus Mulhall superintended the job, and as Brute had 
 helped to hang at least a dozen niggers in his day it 
 was well done. While we was givin the " rebel yell " 
 to Mr. Buffalo up rushed Mirabeau Clay, as agreed. 
 " Gentlemen," he hollered, " I protest against this 
 outrage upon the Chief Executive of this govern 
 ment. Are we barbarians to " he got just that fur 
 when somebody who didn t understand the thing 
 give him a swat in the eye that ll lay him up for a 
 week. I got to him just in time to save his life and 
 by this act he saved the post office. After the boys, 
 by way of practice, had emptied their guns in Mr. 
 Cleveland s stummack one of em got a pole, with a 
 
The Major s Public Address. 125 
 
 piece of paper on the end and set the old skeer crow 
 afire. The excitement at this point was great. The 
 deed was done. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Callin a few good fellews together I said : " Boys, 
 the niggers around here have been gittin impudent 
 and ornery of late and the recent election in the 
 North has made it necessary for us to shake em up. 
 Join me in a little white cappin." To the number 
 of about thirty they got their horses and rallied 
 around me. Every man of em had a quart of 
 whiskey in his pocket and a pint or so in his insides. 
 They was all armed and we gathered up about a 
 dozen black-snake whips and started. A young 
 newspaper chap that come up from Tuskeegee to 
 write an account of our meetin concluded to go 
 along and I told him to be sure and state in his 
 paper that the niggers in this secktion was all pro 
 vided with Winchester rifles and was liable to rise at 
 any time. This is a lie but it always reads well and 
 if the story happens to get into the Northern papers 
 it has a good effect. I don t suppose there s three 
 niggers in Makin County that own a repeatin rifle. 
 They re right lucky to have a shotgun or a sawed 
 off musket. We called on Bill Hawkins first. Bill 
 was in bed but we soon got him out and after tyin 
 him hand and foot I larruped him with a hosswhip 
 till he bellered like a bull. While I was a doin of it 
 one of the boys shot his mule and set fire to his old 
 shack of a stable. I told William that I had heard 
 of his slanderin me and I says to him " You can 
 now tell your nigger friends that the old Major is at 
 home." We rode off to one of Bill s neighbors and 
 give him a dose. Purty soon it got norated that we 
 was comin and it was soon hard work to find any 
 buck niggers at home, but we left our cards and 
 
126 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 licked the women and children. There was more or 
 less shootin, but I didn t hear of anybody bein hit. 
 It was daylight before we finished our visitin, and I 
 must confess that I was drunk right through and 
 through. As for the boys, you can imagine what 
 they was. I ve been in bed for four days, and the 
 doctor says he thinks my liver is effected. I never 
 sent off the Secretary s report of our meeting to old 
 Cleveland till yesterday. They tell me that there 
 ain t been a country nigger in Briar Root since we 
 shook em up. Every thing is quiet and there is a 
 realizin sense in the community that " the Major is 
 at home." 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. I d give a dollar to have a photograph of 
 old Cleveland when he reads our resolution and hears 
 what we done at our meetin. 
 
THE MAJOR REGULATES THINGS. 
 
 HIS PROTEST AGAINST THE OBSERVANCE OF THANKS 
 GIVING DAY HE ATTEMPTS TO CHASTISE AN EDI 
 TOR AND IS BADLY USED GENERAL GORDON 
 REBUKED DISAPPOINTED IN THE TARIFF BILL. 
 
 "YOU WANT THE EDITOR S YEARS, DO YOU ! " HE WOULD 
 EXCLAIM BETWEEN HIS FIENDISH ASSAULTS. 
 
 "THE JULEPS," 
 BRIAR ROOT, ALA., Dec. i. 
 
 Yesterday was what the Yankees call Thanksgiving 
 Day. I havn t seen many days when I felt like bein 
 
 (127) 
 
128 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 thankful since the lickin we give the blue-bellies at 
 Chancellorsville, but sick as I am I got right up and 
 howled when one of my boys told me on Wednesday 
 that old Gen. Henry Clay Carter, livin about three 
 miles east of here, was goin to have a Thanksgivin 
 dinner. I got on my horse and rode over. The old 
 man reseived me with genuine Alabama hospitality 
 and set out his bottle. I said to him : " General, 
 what s the meanin of this here blow-out you re goin 
 to give? Dont you know that Thanksgivin is a 
 damd Yankee and Puritan celebration with which the 
 South, sah, has no sympathy? It s a New England 
 holiday and all our traditions is against it." The old 
 gentleman said that he had seen the proclamation of 
 President Cleveland and several Southern Governors 
 and he thought that he would call all his family to 
 gether and have a turkey. He said : " I haint got 
 nothin to be particularly thankful for, but I ve got 
 the turkey and I m goin to have the dinner." I said : 
 " General, this makes me sad. It s the sort of thing 
 that s underminin and tearin down the South. Why 
 should we adopt Yankee customs, sah? We was 
 robbed and overpowered and humiliated durin the 
 war but let s stand up for Southern institutions and 
 customs. The infernal old Puritans, the enemies of 
 the South, sah, are the originators of this Thanksgiv 
 in business and I would be a recreant son of Ala 
 bama if I didn t protest against the introduction of 
 this thing in our community. As for Cleveland, he 
 is an old Yankee Presbyterian and he has no real 
 sympathy with us. He thinks it smart to do what 
 old Abe Lincoln done and that s what I m kickin 
 against. That old skunk is no friend of the South 
 and we mustn t let him force new customs on us." 
 The General studied over the matter for a while 
 and finally said that he d invited all his sons and sons- 
 
The Major Regulates Things. 129 
 
 in-law to dinner and had got his turkey ready and 
 he d have to go through with it, but he promised me 
 as an old Confederate soldier to never do it again. 
 I took two more drinks with him and rode, home 
 
 satisfied. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Now I have a somewhat painful and distressin af 
 fair to relate. The gentle reader will remember that 
 in one of my Washington letters I called attention to 
 an item of disrespectful tenor which appeared in my 
 home paper, the Tuskeegee Broadsword, about the 
 undersigned. The item in question went on to dam 
 my social, political and military record with faint 
 praise, the whole leadin up to the base insinuation 
 that I was makin a mule of myself in Washington 
 with my War Claims campaign. It wound up with 
 the statement that the community had rather see me 
 at home dispensin hospitality at " The Juleps " than 
 " button-holin Congressmen and vexin our worthy 
 President." To cap the climax this injunction was 
 appended, "Come home, Major, come home! " Of 
 course I understood the animuss of this dastardly 
 fling and stab in the back. I had cowhided old 
 Doswell, the lawyer who had got a judgment by 
 default against me in the County Court and although 
 the affair was two years old his son-in-law, a young 
 whipper-snapper (with whose name I will not sully 
 my pen) who edits this putrid sheet, still has it in for 
 me with the above result. Well, people that know 
 Major Randolph Gore Hampton don t need to be 
 told that I owed that low-lived sneakin editor a lickin 
 from that minute. Neither need they be told that I 
 chafed and fretted for the opportunity to arrive when 
 I could administer it to him after my own decorative 
 and highly approved style. I think this matter 
 brought me home about a month sooner than I 
 t 
 
130 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 otherwise would have come, so anxious was I to 
 teach this miserable skunk that it ain t safe to bandy 
 my name lightly about in his defamatory newspaper. 
 I have had considerable odds and ends to attend to 
 since my arrival back home, and didn t call immedi 
 ately on the varlet. Besides I wanted to keep him 
 on ice for awKile till he got good and ripe. Havin 
 nothin in particular to do on Yankee " Thanksgiving 
 Day " I rode into Tuskeegee and sauntered down to 
 the Broadsword office and mounted the rickerty 
 stairs which led to the editors foul-smellin den. As 
 I passed along the stinkin hall I heard him singin, 
 " Lead Kindly Light," and I thought to myself, my 
 sanctimonious young sucker, I ll make you sing 
 outen the other side of your mouth in about two 
 strokes of a sheep s tail. 
 
 * * * 
 
 But I will pass on rapidly to my narrative and get 
 through with it. 
 
 " Is the editor in?" I demanded, as I thrust open 
 the door and stepped defiantly across the threshold. 
 
 " I am the editor," said the young jackanapes, " and 
 I am in." 
 
 " Will you call up the scoundrel who penned the 
 insultin item about me while I was in Washington 
 laborin night and day in the sacred cause of our 
 Southern War Claims ? I want to slit his years till 
 he can t tell em from fish bait" fer by this time I 
 was frothin mad, 
 
 " Behold in me the dastard sought ! " said the 
 youngster as he folded his arms acrost his breast and 
 looked me square in the eye. His chist protruded 
 more than I thought it would, and his defiant atti 
 tude was not pleasin. 
 
 " Have you any apologies to make ? " I demanded, 
 Still keepin up my haughty demeanor. 
 
The Major Regulates Things. 13! 
 
 " Not an apology ! " he exclaimed, and pitchin his 
 voice on an angry key he continued : "And if you 
 don t get outen this office in two minutes and a half 
 by the stop-watch I ll pitch you out heels over stum- 
 mack!" I had made up my mind to wait till the 
 limit was about up an then turn scornfully on my 
 heel and leave the editor with his conscience, but 
 may I never see another sun rise if he didn t come 
 for me and land such a savage blowacrost the bridge 
 of my nose that I thought the lever of his old Wash 
 ington hand press had fetched loose and basted me. 
 I fell stunned and bleedin outside the sanctum and 
 clean across on the other side of the hall. Before I 
 could recover from this brutal attack the editor was 
 out in the hall like a wild man and was puttin the 
 boots to me in the most outrageous manner. It 
 pains me to describe the insuing few minutes. The 
 editor, who a short time before was singing a sooth- 
 in hymn, seemed to be transformed into a fiend in 
 carnate, and from the point of attack, "A," to the top 
 of the stairs, "Z," toward which I rolled and scram 
 bled, I pledge you my word of honor that he struck 
 and kicked me no less than seven hundred and fifty 
 times. Why didn t I pull my gun ? Land of eternal 
 fire ! he kicked the weepin clean outen of my hip 
 pocket before a quarter of a minute had elapsed. 
 " You want the editor s years, do you!" he would 
 exclaim between his fiendish assaults; " you ll slit 
 them till he can t tell them from fish bait, will 
 you?" and swearing the while like a pirate on the 
 high seas, he never once let up on me till I landed 
 at the foot of the stairs in one red burial blent, as 
 the poet says. Need I say that the day that broke 
 so fair turned out a most sorrerful Thanksgiving 
 for me ? I wot not. 
 
132 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 I only refer to this distressin affair to show to the 
 world that the man who goes ahead and blazes the 
 way to the payment of our just and holy War Claims 
 isn t havin a picnic of it, by a long site but it is some 
 satisfaction to know that this editor is of a splendid 
 Southern family the old stock. His mother was a 
 Childers and her brother shot two men in a duel and 
 he was killed at Malvern Hill. Her father was in 
 the Seminole war and his brother was shot at Che- 
 pultepeck in Mexico. They re all fighters and there 
 aint a drop of Yankee blood in five generations of 
 em, dam em. 
 
 I see by one of our papers here that Gen. John B. 
 Gordon has been lecturin in New York and wavin the 
 Stars and Stripes. Gordon was a good Confederate 
 soldier but it makes me sick to see him goin round in 
 the North tellin how he loves the Union and the old 
 flag. What do we owe the old flag? Wasn t we 
 robbed and humiliated and subjugated for simply de- 
 clarin that we had no further interest in the old 
 Abolition fag? When we have complete control of 
 the Government and the just claims of a wronged 
 and sacrificed people are recognized it ll be time 
 enough to tell how much we love the flag. I like 
 Gordon but he s no more credit to the South than 
 old Jim Longstreet, who ought never to have been 
 born. It may please the General to have a lot of 
 sour-faced, blue-nosed Yankees applaudin him and 
 pattin him on the back but no true Southron looks 
 for praise or glory in that direction. The Cavaliers 
 of England never had to crawl in the dust before the 
 thievin old Roundheads and as God reigns the South 
 will never lick the hand of the North. 
 
The Major Regulates Things. 133 
 
 I ve just seen in a newspaper a synopses of the 
 new tariff bill. It s a fraud and a failure. It s not 
 what we had a right to expect but the old Protection 
 dog s tail has got to be chopt off, I suppose, a inch at 
 a time. Free Trade and prosperity will come in due 
 time. This is old Cleveland s influence. Our boys 
 are afraid to lay a genuine bill before the old hulkin 
 fraud. We ve got to take what we can get and be 
 thankful, I suppose. I ll be in Washington in about 
 ten days and mebby I won t have somethin to say. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. Mose Hampton writes me from Washing 
 ton inclosin a check for $50 which is right handy, 
 He says Tolliver has been drinkin hard since I left, 
 but he is lookin after our poker business, which has 
 been right good. I think I ll take Mose in as a 
 pardner and squeeze Tolliver out. Mose has busi 
 ness sense besides he s got capital and he aint 
 afeared to work and tend to things. 
 
THE FIGHTING EDITOR TAMED. 
 
 THE MAJOR S SONS RETALIATE IN TRUE SOUTHERN 
 STYLE PAINFUL NEGLECT OF SOUTHERN WAR 
 CLAIMS THREATENS ANOTHER WAR THE PRO- 
 POSED TAX ON PLAYING CARDS DENOUNCED 
 HOSTILITY TO FOREIGNERS. 
 
 "THE JULEPS," 
 BRIAR ROOT, ALA., Dec. 6. 
 
 In order to show to the world that obstacles as 
 large as sawlogs lie in the pathway of the man who 
 undertakes to secure justice from this Government in 
 the matter of the payment of our Southern War 
 Claims I told howl had been assaulted by the editor 
 of the Tuskeegee Broadsword through his measley 
 columns my home paper at that. I also related 
 with some particularity how I set out the other day, 
 bouyed with pleasurable expectations, to lick this in- 
 femous editor, and how the editor actually slugged 
 and kicked me until I thot that the heavens were 
 rollin together as a scroll and chaos had arrived agin. 
 It ought not to be necessary for me to explain to my 
 readers that I was on a toot that day, or its editor 
 would not have lambasted me and kicked me down 
 stairs as easy as he did. I had been drinkin quite 
 heavy all that mornin and was really in no condition 
 to meet a foeman worthy of my steel, or anything like 
 it. My two boys knowed this and when I come 
 home lookin like the half-back broke in two after a 
 hard-fought football game they said at oncet that 
 
The Fighting Editor Tamed. 1 3 5 
 
 they would take up my case where I had left off. I 
 told the boys to do nothin rash that is, nothin very 
 rash, and like dutiful sons they said they wouldn t. 
 Last evenin they said they guessed they would take 
 a run into town. I ast what business was takin 
 them to town and Plantagenet answered sort of keer- 
 less like that they were goin in to get some horse 
 bills printed at the Broadsword office. It happens 
 that I haven t been able for the past seventeen years 
 to keep a horse that needed any literatoor, so I softly 
 remarked to myself : " Mischief, thou art afoot." 
 * * * 
 
 It is a grand thing to have sons who act as a staff 
 to your declinin years and help you gently down the 
 hillside of life. Well, Plan and Ogle went into Tus- 
 keegee, pickin up a few young friends en root and, as 
 I learned the next day, rondevood in front of the 
 Broadsword office and fired a pistol salute through 
 the winders as a sort of notification to the editor 
 that supper was ready. Then they repeated the 
 dose as an intimation to our esteemed contemporary 
 that a number of friends had come to town expressly 
 to renew their subscription to his valuable paper and 
 lay a fenominally large egg on his table, so to speak. 
 Without goin into all the details I can say in a gen 
 eral way that the boys made it exceedingly lively for 
 the able journalist. He had a boy and one printer 
 helpin him to run off the edition of his miserable 
 paper, but my sons and their courageous followers 
 relieved them of that important duty by spikin the 
 old cheese press, smashin the type, upsetten the ink 
 keg and runnin the editor outen the buildin and 
 through the alleys to his wretched home. This means 
 some trouble and expense forme but I don t care if it 
 costs me the price of a horse, seein it was all done in 
 the way of mamtainin the family honor. I suppose 
 
136 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 that Lawyer Doswell, the editor s father-in-law, the 
 old snoop I oncet cowhided, will try to have my boys 
 indicted by the Grand Jury, but I can block his game 
 there. I happen to know that the District Attorney 
 is astin some favors in Washington jest now, and I 
 can handle him as slick as grease. By promisin to 
 help Doswell in his hopeless undertakin to get the 
 United States Marshalship and payin the editor $15 
 for the edition of his paper which my boys edited 
 with an axe, I think I can straighten out this little 
 affair to the entire satisfaction of all concerned, and 
 come out with the family escutcheon without spot or 
 blemish, as we say in horse circles. As I remarked 
 before, it is a grand thing to have sons to act as a 
 staff to your declinin years and help you gently 
 down the hillside of life. 
 
 * * 
 
 I am keepin a clost watch on Congress and can t 
 help noticin that the business of payin our Southern 
 War Claims languishes when I am not on hand to 
 keep the boys keyed up. It is this spirit of indiffer 
 ence in our people that makes me aweary, O, so 
 weary, as the poet sez. There s not a member of 
 the House or Senate from the South that wouldn t 
 a almost give his immortal soul to see a blanket bill 
 passed to pay all these claims, but they allow them 
 selves to be overawed by Old Mr. Stuff in the White 
 House until they don t know whether they are a-foot 
 or a hossback. It is wonderful the power a little 
 stinkin patronage exerts over some of our noblest 
 and most elerquent members. They will allow a 
 miserable cross-roads post office to come betwixt 
 them and their sacred and solemn duty in the mat 
 ter of these holy claims until I sometimes wonder if 
 the whole caboodle of these Southern Congressmen 
 couldn t be driven into a pen and bought body and 
 
The Fighting Editor Tamed. 137 
 
 breeches for about six hundred dollars. I am speakin 
 my mind tolerable freely on this business and that 
 ain t all. When I get back to the Capital if some of 
 these recalcitrants don t get a move onto em there s 
 goin to be music in the frosty air. I fit clearn 
 through our second war for independens (which we 
 didn t get) from Sumter to Appomattox. I lost 
 heavy by the invasion of our fair land by the North 
 ern mercenaries, and now that we are in control of 
 the Government, I propose to have my just recom 
 pense or know the reason why. I may be snubbed 
 and booted clean offen the White House premises, 
 but thanks to high and pityin heaven, it will be in a 
 good cause. And if that miserable Michigander and 
 sneak, Thurber, is set to do the job it wouldn t sur 
 prise me a hooter if I broke him clean in two. He 
 has given me the back of the hand on two or three 
 occasions and nothin would please me better than to 
 git tangled up in a personal altercation with the 
 Home Secretary of our shinin Sovereign. If I do, 
 there s going to be blud on the grass, or there s no 
 
 grass. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I don t propose to be mealy mouthed about this 
 business, and right here I want to go on record as 
 sayin that unless the South gits relief in the matter 
 of the payment of these claims, or a fair percentage 
 of them, there s goin to be another so-called Rebel 
 lion. And your Uncle will be in it right up to the 
 pistol pocket. Now, there s no guff about this. I 
 have been feelin the pulse of our Southern people 
 sence my return home and it is no exaggerashun to 
 say that they are rot up to the fightin pint. 
 
 Only yesterday Captain Clayton Barbour, who fout 
 with me in the Eighth Alabama, hearin that I was 
 home, walked all the way up from Bullock County 
 
138 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 to confer with me about the possibilities of gettin a 
 little money outen the Government on account of 
 fence rails. He said as how his place had been en 
 tirely stripped of rails by Sherman s thievin cut 
 throats and in the twenty-seven years that had 
 elapsed sence the war he had never been able to get 
 enough rails together to fence in a ten acre lot. I 
 ast the Captain how he managed to do any plantin 
 in the meantime. 
 
 " Thanks be to an ever watchful and merciful provi 
 dence, who sees the sparrer when it falls," answered 
 the old Captain in a religious tone of voice, " I 
 haven t had any plantin to do. You see, Maje, im- 
 mejiately after I kem outen the army I found a bee 
 tree on my place and I ve been livin on that ever 
 sence." Now there s a pitiful pictur of a high- 
 minded, chivalrous Southern gentleman strugglin 
 agin poverty that I intend to carry back with me to 
 Washington, and if it doesn t stir " the minds and 
 hearts" (as old Grover sez) of our representatives in 
 Congress why, then, it s about time for the howlin 
 
 to begin. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I am eccessively indignant over the news from 
 Washington that the Weighs and Miens Committee 
 is proposin to lay a tax of ten cents on every deck 
 of playin cards. This comes home to me now, for 
 we use a good many packs in our Washington house. 
 I telegrafed Tolliver as soon as I heard of it to jump 
 in and give our Southern members a gost dance. 
 This tax will fall mostly on Democrats, and it wont 
 bring any money to the Government to speak of. 
 Instead of callin. for a fresh deck every hour poker 
 players will be compelled to use a deck a hole night, 
 and there will be a fallin off in producktion which will 
 be felt by the gentleman that makes the cards. We ll 
 
The Fighting Editor Tamed. 139 
 
 have less comfort playin with greasy, dirty old cards, 
 that s all. As to the tax on whiskey, that s ail right 
 if it aint heavy enough to drive the retail price up 
 to fifteen cents a drink. As long as Democrats can 
 get their licker at ten cents a glass on the average 
 there ll be no complaint. This increase of tax on 
 whiskey will help the moonshine distillers in our 
 secktion and I may take an interest in old Sim Did- 
 well s business on the sly. Talkin about taxes why 
 don t our Democrat statesmen put a tax of about 
 $100 a head on all forreiners coming to this country? 
 There s sense in that. We don t want the dirty skum 
 of the earth here anyhow, and if they do come let 
 em pay liberally for the privilege. Some of our 
 fools in the South are talkin about encouragin emi 
 grants to come to this quarter. Not much. The 
 South is the only blueblooded, true American part 
 of this country, and we mean to keep it so. It s the 
 dirty forreiners that has forced the North to put up 
 shops and factories to keep em employed. It was 
 these infamous hirelins that helpt to whip us for $13 
 a month. When we get red of Protection there 
 wont be so many comin over, but I say keep em out 
 now. If we had started in to exclood this European 
 trash years ago, the Yankee Protection system 
 wouldn t have amounted to a black bean. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON, 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.). 
 
 P. S. Iv e laid in some provisions for the family, 
 have raised about $150 to help the Cause, and I 
 start for Washington day after to-morrow. I killed 
 a hog Tuesday and hung it up over night to cool. 
 Next mornin it was gone. I ll try and settle with 
 the nigger that done that before I leave for the front. 
 
IN THE NATIONAL CAPITAL AGAIN. 
 
 HOMINY HALL IN A BAD WAY PUTTING CONFED 
 ERATE MONEY IN CIRCULATION AGAIN MEETS 
 AN OLD CONFEDERATE COMRADE A STORY OF 
 HARD TIMES PRESIDENT CLEVELAND INFURI 
 ATED. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., Dec. 16. 
 
 Well, after much tribbylation I have entered once 
 more into the National Capital and am ready to do 
 business. Got here day before yesterday. Found 
 " Hominy Hall" on its last legs only four boarders 
 and three of them right badly behind on board. 
 Mebby the poor widow and her gifted daughter, the 
 poetess, wasn t glad to see me ? I agreed to assume 
 the duties of landlord and make an effort to rescue 
 the establishment from its graspin creditors. As for 
 Lemuel Tolliver, Esq., I found that he had been 
 doin no good to speak of. The poker parlor done a 
 very fair business whilst I was absent, thanks to 
 Mose Hampton (my colored half brother), but Lem 
 uel, like a good many Southern gentlemen, ain t 
 equal to much prosperity. Between follerin slow 
 race horses and fast women he s about collapsed 
 finanshally. He blowed his share of the receipts in 
 right along and is up to his whiskers in debt. Yes 
 terday I bought him out and transferred his interest 
 on the dead quiet to Mose. It wont do for people 
 to know that I ve got a nigger partner, but unless 
 
 (140) 
 
In the National Capital Again. 141 
 
 I have a man with some business and horse sense in 
 with me I m a goner. Mose, havin a resterant and 
 considerable property, can look after our boofay, and 
 customers will regard him as a high class servant. 
 He s most like a gentleman of any nig I ever seen. 
 * * * 
 
 I was detained in gettin away from home by two 
 or three fool law suits and a couple of fights and I 
 spent a whole week tryin to arrange a new system 
 of fenance for my people. As already stated the 
 repeal of the Silver law didn t benefit our secktion 
 the scrapin of a toe-nail. It didn t bring five cents 
 into our neighborhood and never will. After talkin 
 matters over with Driscoll and Clay and a few of our 
 leadin men it was agreed to try my plan of bringin 
 out our old Confederate money and usin it as a cir- 
 culatin medeum in our own township. We sent 
 some fellows around to see everybody and get their 
 consent and to bring their old money to town Satur 
 day. About two-thirds of the people agreed to 
 the plan and when we got together at the " Root " 
 we rolled up over $300,000. I had over $15,000 
 myself. A fellow in Tuskeegee, hearin of our 
 scheme, come up with a coffee sack full of the old 
 stuff to sell, but that wasn t what we wanted. It 
 was very touchin to see how the old boys kindly 
 fingered and gazed at the bundles of the dear old 
 Confederate bills which they had been hoardin for 
 years. I saw tears in the eyes of more than one. 
 My plan was to have all the money dumped in and 
 then divided up as they say per cappity so much a 
 head all around, share and share alike. I made a 
 little talk and the idee seemed to be goin all right 
 until a man named Dan Howell got up and wanted 
 to know whether any arrangement was bein made to 
 redeem this money at anytime. I explained that 
 
142 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 the idee was to keep it circulatin till it wore out, 
 unless we got our State banks started, and then we 
 wouldn t need it. I said that we must all agree to 
 keep it at a parity with the greenback, dollar for 
 dollar. (The word parity I pict up durin the Silver 
 debate in the House and I had to explain its mean- 
 in to the boys). Finally old Sim Driscoll, who I 
 thought was solid with us, spoke up and said that 
 while we could use this Confederate money as neigh 
 bors he d like to know what he was goin to do when 
 he wanted a fresh stock of groceries. He said he 
 had to send United States money where he dealt. 
 Now suppose, said he, that I ve sold all my stock to 
 you fellows for " old Jeff" (that s what the boys 
 called C. S. A. money) what am I goin to do ? That 
 started up quite a discussion and in spite of all I 
 could say or do I saw the scheme was weakenin. It 
 was finally agreed that old Sim should take all the 
 money and pay it out in change to his customers, 
 lettin it be understood always that it would be good 
 for face value at his store. I had previously showed 
 him that he d have the advantage of all that got lost 
 or wore out. That caut him and I showed that in 
 order to keep from havin outside stock run in on 
 him he must have a private stamp that nobody could 
 counterfeit to mark the back of each bill. Something 
 like this : " Good for its face value at Simon Ken- 
 ton Driscoll s Grocery Store Finest Stock in Briar 
 Root." He liked the idee of the advertisement, and 
 so the new scheme is to go into effect on the 1st of 
 
 January. 
 
 * * * 
 
 On my way up I had quite a pleasant time. I 
 talked with a great many people on the cars and 
 found that most of em was disgusted with old Cleve 
 land and the way our folks was dilly-dallyin in Con- 
 
in the National Capital Again. 143 
 
 gress. Nearly everybody custthe new Tariff bill be 
 cause it didn t toe the mark, and it was plain to see 
 that the Populists was gainin. The failure to pass 
 the Bankruptcy bill in the House was much de 
 nounced but I said that so far as the South was con 
 cerned the damd Tariff law had been about all the 
 bankrupt law we had needed, It had bankrupted 
 nearly all of us. Several people told me that they 
 had heard about my hangin and burnin old Cleveland 
 in effigy down at Briar Root, and one man remarked 
 that before Spring he thought the old hog would be 
 roasted, bristles and tail, in every town in the South. 
 Just before we got to Richmond I stopt a fight be 
 tween two chaps from Georgy who fell out about the 
 Hawayan matter. One of em was standing up for 
 the President s policy and the other swore that he 
 couldn t understand how a Southern man could favor 
 a nigger government any place. He said here in the 
 Sunny South we all holler for a white man s govern 
 ment. We lay down the doctrine that the superior 
 race must rule without regard to numbers. No nig 
 ger domination is our doctrine and yet old Cleveland 
 wants to put the white people of the Sandwich 
 Islands under the rule of an old nigger wench. I 
 sided with this gentleman, whose name was Colonel 
 Hokake, and when the dispute got hot and both 
 men drawed, I got in between em and probably saved 
 several lives, for the car was crowded. 
 * * # 
 
 I scraped an acquaintance of Colonel Kosciusko 
 Hemphill, of Selma, who was in Kershaw s South 
 Carolina brigade all through the war, and who is now 
 practisin law in Selma. He spoke about the hard 
 times and lack of business down his way. He said 
 that he heard a story just before he left home that 
 illustrated the hardness of everybody s upness. He 
 
144 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 said : " The other day a one-hoss country merchant 
 from down at Owl Holler come up to Selma to buy 
 some goods of old Isaac Rosenheim, our leadin 
 clothin merchant. After he d made his deal he said 
 to the clerk that waited on him, Looky hyar, Mr. 
 Dryfoos, I ve bought quite a bill of goods of you, and 
 as Christmas is comin on I think you ought to make 
 me a little present. Certainly, said the clerk, and 
 after lookin around awhile he pict out a very nice 
 necktie worth about a dollar and handed it to his cus 
 tomer. * That s a ornery present to make to me after 
 the business I ve done with you, said the country 
 dealer, and I want somethin better. Veil, said 
 the clerk, I ll haf to speak to de House about it. 
 Coin into the back office he said: Meester Rosenheim, 
 I haf sold a bill of goots to Mr. Higgins, of Owl Hol 
 ler, and he vants a present. I haf offert him a neck 
 tie and he vont take it. What shall I gif him? 
 * How much vas de business, and vot vas de terms ? 
 inquired Mr. Rosenheim. * He bought $500, paid 
 $300, and gif his two notes for $100 in thirty and 
 seexty day. Very well, replied Mr. Rosenheim, 
 make him a present of his seexty day note. The 
 clerk went back and told Mr. Higgins the good news. 
 After a little hesitation Higgins said : Will the old 
 man indorse the note ? * I ll see, said the clerk, 
 and he went back, saw Mr. Rosenheim, and returned. 
 De old man vont indorse de note, said he. Very 
 well/ said Higgins, then give me the darned neck 
 tie. I never seen money matters quite so scarce as 
 they are with us since the close of the war," said the 
 Colonel. I soon had him solid on the War Claims, 
 and he promised to write a hot letter to his member 
 of Congress. 
 
In the National Capital Again. 145 
 
 I met Captain Huger to-day and he told me that 
 the account of my war on the Administration had 
 reached the White House, and that old Cleveland 
 pawed like a peny-royal bull when he read the ac 
 count of our hangin him in effegy. That tickled me 
 immensely, and I told the Cap that that was only the 
 openin chorus. I ll bet $2 that Cleveland will send 
 for me and make me an offer of something before the 
 month s out. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. I m disgusted to learn here that every time 
 a protected Robber Baren up North sends a letter or 
 telegram to our Weighs and Miens Committee sayin 
 that if this or that claws of the tariff bill goes through 
 wages will be cut 50 per sent. Wilson runs into his 
 hole and makes a change in his bill. Here s the case : 
 We started out to rip the thievin Protection system, 
 devised by the Yankees, right up by the roots. 
 We ve got a tariff bill full of free list and Protection 
 and the cowardly Democrats who are tremblin be 
 cause I m here a howlin for the payment of Southern 
 War Claims has got to walk up and vote for it be 
 cause the old bag of Buffalo bran, up in the White 
 House, has sold us all out to the Capitalists, Monopo 
 lists, Trusts and golden chinch bugs of Wall Street. 
 By the bugler that blowed at Manassas, I m mad 
 from my bald head to the bunyan on my heel. 
 
 10 
 
RELIEF FOR SOUTHERN CLAIMANTS. 
 
 MAJOR HEMPHILL S PLAN INDORSED AN INTER 
 VIEW WITH EX-SPEAKER REED COLONEL CAL- 
 
 HOUN REPUDIATES CLEVELAND AND HIS PARTY 
 TOLLIVER S LAW ESTATE. 
 
 "VERY WELL, THEN," SAID MR. REED, "DAM THE 
 WILSON BILL." 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 22. 
 
 I have been as busy all week as a bee in a tar barl 
 tryin to prop up Hominy Hall. Raisin good South 
 ern boarders in this town now is no pastime. Judge 
 (146) 
 
Relief For Southern Claimants. 147 
 
 Fairfax Carter, who is what they call slow pay, has 
 stood noble by the Widow Toombs, and I have se- 
 kured four new boarders which, if they pay, will en 
 able the house to about break even. Everybody is 
 snivelin about hard times. Our poker play has been 
 light but Mose, my pardner, says that after Christ 
 mas things will brighten up greatly. Down in the 
 soft end of my old gizzard I feel good at the idea 
 that we Southern Democrats have made the rich 
 and arrygant North feel some of the pangs that have 
 distressed us for thirty year. And we aint through 
 with em yet. When we get em down to where we 
 are we can all start even and as there wont be any 
 Protection for the Robber Barens I reckon like we ll 
 have a shade the best of it. That s politics of the 
 clean cut kind. I d like to make a bet that when it 
 comes to a show-down that our Southern statesmen 
 are a little bit better n hired men. 
 
 I ve had several talks with Mr. Hemphill, the able 
 South Caroleenian representative who has advocated 
 before the Jewdiciary Committee of the House 
 in favor of extendin the act for the settlement of 
 Southern Claims. Major Hemphill wants the law 
 changed so that the claims of our people who suf 
 fered spoliation at the hands of the mersenary Yan 
 kees in the late War for Independens and which 
 have been rejected by Courts and Commissions on 
 account of disloyalty can still come in and share. 
 When the dirty Republicans were in power they 
 wouldn t allow a dollar of damages to a man who 
 couldn t prove that he was a Union man. Lots of 
 sufferers couldn t jest get the kind of proof wanted 
 at the time but they can get all they want now. 
 Their claims was carelessly looked into and rejected 
 because the infernal Republicans didn t want to do 
 
148 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 justice to us. Hemphill tells me that there is $11,- 
 000,000 layin right in the Treasury to-day to be used 
 in settlin the rejected claims. By gawd it makes my 
 blood sizzle to think that we haven t got at that yet, 
 and Congress has been in runnin order five months! 
 Hemphill says that in lots of cases of Southern suf 
 ferers the Yankee courts allowed half, and said that 
 the price charged for property stolen was too high. 
 He stated the case of William Johnson, of Tennessee, 
 who put in a bill for $22,389.50 and was allowed 
 $13,000. His loyalty was established to the satis 
 faction of the courts, but his charge for oats at $i a 
 bushel, corn meal $1.25 a bushel, flour $12 a barrel, 
 etc., was exorbetant. Hemphill will get his bill 
 through make no mistake and when he does we ll 
 get a Court of Claims that ll not only pay out the 
 $11,000,000 in the Treasury but $100,000,000 be 
 sides. Him and me has agreed that this is the best 
 scheme for gettin at the Claims business and I am 
 greatly cheered up. All I m afraid of is the old 
 swag-belly up in the White House. I ve sent full 
 particklers of what Hemp is doin down to my peo 
 ple and I know they ll feel much encouraged. In 
 leggin for the measure I meet scarce any objection. 
 The Democrats all say that it is fair and just. The 
 House will put it through a whoopin. 
 * # * 
 
 I had a run-in the other day with Tom Reed of 
 Maine, personally as nice a man as you will find out 
 side of the South, but a bitter and uncompromisin 
 Republican and therefore an enemy to the country. 
 Indeed I regard this man Reed as one of the most 
 dangerous men we have to deal with. He is brilliant 
 and tricky and there is no tellin what devilish job he 
 may set up at any time on the Southern Wing which 
 is really the head, tail, legs, back, kidneys and white 
 
Relief For Southern Claimants. 149 
 
 meat of the Democratic bird. The bold and auda 
 cious method adopted by this unscrupulous Down 
 East Yankee to compel the house to transact its 
 business when he was Speaker, shows us how little we 
 have to expect of him. If it wasnt that we can bor- 
 rer money from such men I would be in favor of 
 sendin ail of them into exile endurin their natural 
 lives But I must tell you of my run-in with this 
 arch-enemy of the Democratic party. I accosted 
 him the other afternoon while he was in the House 
 restorant eatin a New England dinner almost an 
 act of hostility to the South in itself. 
 
 " Mr. Reed," I ejaculated from the adjoinin table, 
 where I had syruptetiously seated myself, " if that 
 corned beef and cabbage ain t of more vital interest to 
 you than the affairs of the Nation I would be pleased 
 to have your views in detail on the Wilson bill." 
 
 Mr. Reed stabbed a carrot with his fork and con 
 veyed it to his mouth in the most indifferent way. 
 At the same time he ast, with the vulgar, Yankee 
 drawl, which is so exasperatin to a cultured Southern 
 gentleman: " For publication or merely as a guaran 
 tee of good faith? " 
 
 I was quick to inform Mr. Reed that as a Southern 
 gentleman of the old school I knowed my place and 
 as such would scorn to transgress the unwritten laws 
 of good society in the matter of keepin inviolate the 
 confidences exchanged between gentlemen. 
 
 " Very well, then," said Mr. Reed, " dam the Wil 
 son bill/ and with that he harpooned a piece of the 
 cabbage and ate it with as little concern as one of the 
 Pilgrim Fathers might have evinced. 
 
 " Is there any schedule that you particularly ob 
 ject to, and what would you suggest as a substitoot?" 
 
 " I have scheduled the whole bloomin bill, as 
 above," and this plain and unresponsive person from 
 
150 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Maine actually permitted his mind to fall away from 
 the great tariff question while he went to harpoonin 
 around for more carrots. What impression could one 
 hope to make on the mind and heart of sech a sordid 
 individual? And yet I fetched him to Limerick. 
 When I ast him how he liked the idea of havin his 
 blamed New England cow feed largely on the free 
 list, he flared up and, with that spirit which some 
 times marks his utterances, said : 
 
 "You infernal and blattant idiots from the South 
 are enough to drive Moody and Sankey to drink 
 again. If it hadn t been for the system of Protec 
 tion which has obtained in this country since the 
 war half the people in the South would be living in 
 holes in the ground like gophers. Protection has 
 built your cities, such as they are, and tilled your 
 fields, but in the blackness of your mental gloom 
 you went gropin and groanin around after the theo 
 ries and traditions of the days of Calhoun, and now 
 that you ve got em you will be forced to hang up 
 the store keeper and rum seller on a higher peg than 
 ever before. The ignorance and conceit of your so- 
 called representative Southern gentlemen constitute 
 a combination which is positively pitiful. A friend 
 of mine up in Maine made a Southern Congressman 
 a present of a chafing dish last year as a Christmas 
 gift. What do you suppose he did with it? Why, 
 this gifted statesman he was from Alabama, too 
 thought it was a new kind of shaving mug, and may 
 the pine trees of my native State never again drop 
 their medicinal gum if he didn t use it for that pur 
 pose ! And that is just how much you fellows know 
 about the tariff, the currency and other questions 
 which interest the people of this country who are 
 alive and endowed with intellects. You wear frilled 
 shirts and your hair in front of your ears and live 
 
Relief For Southern Claimants. 1 5 1 
 
 back iii the dim and distant past when these musty 
 memories were the vogue. Why don t you shed the 
 scales often your blasted eyes and come into the 
 sunlight?" 
 
 And so sayin Mr. Reed gathered up his check and 
 takin not the least further notice of me proceeded to 
 the desk where he paid for his dinner like the miser 
 able bourgeois that he is. And all this abuse and 
 invective was heaped on me and my section before I 
 could pull myself together and strike down the vile 
 slanderer in his tracks. If this insultin Yankee 
 hadn t been so tetchy he would soon have found out 
 that I don t think any more of the Wilson bill than 
 he does himself. I regard it as a wretched vermi 
 fuge or is it subterfuge ? and a blot on the es 
 cutcheon of the Democrat party. What we want to 
 do is to hit this Northern Protection in the head 
 with an axe and stop its confounded buildin up of 
 towns and " industrial centres," as they call em. 
 Let em stick to agriculture like the South, and 
 agriculture long ago ceased to pay any better than 
 peddlin pork sausage in Jerusalem. But instead of 
 waitin until he found out how I stood on the Wilson 
 bill myself he had to fly often the handle and abuse 
 me like a pickpocket. Still, what else could you 
 expect from a man who will eat a biled New Eng 
 land dinner? As for me, give me jole and greens. 
 * * * 
 
 The other evenin Colonel Cuthbert Calhoun, a 
 lyneal decendent of the great S. C. Statesman, was 
 up playin poker in our place and I got right well ac 
 quainted with him. He hails from near Mobile, and 
 it was his father that got into a fight in the Short 
 House in Mobile before the war over a game of cards, 
 and when the niggers went to drag him out of the 
 house, after he d licked the two men that was cheatin 
 
152 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 him, he shot three of em and then set fire to the 
 hotel and, it bein a frame buildin, it was burned to 
 the ground. I remember as a young fellow what a 
 trouble they had to keep the Grand Jury from suin 
 the old man. Well, Colonel Cuth, who was in the 
 i /th Alabama from start to finish, told me he had 
 come on here to get a place in the Counseller Service, 
 but that if he d been a horse thief old Cleveland 
 couldn t have treated him worse. He said he called 
 at the White House last Tuesday and had to wait 
 for nearly an hour before he could see our President, 
 as he was engaged in prayin for the country. The 
 Colonel said that somebody up there told him that 
 the old lubber prayed now four times a day. Finally 
 he got to see the Emperer and handed him his let 
 ters. He says Cleveland read em and by the time he 
 got through the sweat rolled off him as though he d 
 been sawin wood. He said : " Colonel, wan t you ar 
 rested for cock-fitin on Sunday about six years ago?" 
 The Colonel said he admitted it and then old Cleve 
 land wanted to know if he hadn t had trouble at the 
 Presidential election in 1884. Cuth told him that he 
 had helped to bulldoze niggers that day in order to 
 give a clear Cleveland majority in his district and a 
 United States Marshal had made some trouble about 
 it. He finally ast the Colonel if he hadn t been in 
 the Confederate army. Bein proudly told that he 
 was, Cleveland said that he was afeered he d been 
 givin too many offices to Confederate soldiers and 
 that a Presbyterian preacher in Elmira had wrote 
 him that it was a mistake. He told Colonel Calhoun 
 that he couldn t do anything for him and Colonel 
 Calhoun told him to go where old John Brown s soul 
 is bein dried out, put on his hat and retired. "And 
 now," said the Colonel to me, " I ll spend a hunk of 
 my time helpin to beat the Democratic party in Ala- 
 
Relief For Southern Claimants. 153 
 
 bama. I m with the Pops. It won t do any good to 
 denounce Cleveland or burn him in effegy as you ve 
 done, because he s got his office for three years more 
 and the salary is hisn, but if we beat the party in 
 Alabama it ll scare the Democrats in Congress and 
 they ll put a ring in the old bull s nose. 
 * * # 
 
 Old Sim Driscoll has wrote me about the new 
 financeal project I set on foot. He says the neigh 
 borhood is feelin better, but he s not feelin so well. 
 He has put out about $3,000 in Confederate money, 
 but says the people are usin it in dealin with him, 
 but they re slow about takin it among each other. 
 His stock is gettin low and he is afeared that he ll 
 be scarce of current funds when he comes to replen 
 ish. I wrote him to stick to the idea of only given 
 out Confederate bills in change and that when we 
 get our State Bank started at Briar Root we can 
 print a lot of new money and redeem his issooe. 
 # # * 
 
 My ex-pardner, Lem Tolliver, turned up yesterday 
 evenin and tapt me for $2. Lemuel is still stickin to 
 the mud horses. He had no overcoat on and he 
 didn t have clothes enough to dust a fiddle with. As 
 he does a little cappin for our poker room I helped 
 him, but I do hope the Democrat party will do some- 
 thin for Lem and do it soon. I invited him to bring 
 some of the boys up on Christmas to nibble a little 
 turkey that Mose is gettin in shape, and sip a little 
 egnog. If Lem hustles he can run in a dozen or two 
 good fellows for poker, and that means linin for my 
 ribs and a commission for him. 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
154 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 P. S. This here holiday recess falls a little heavy 
 on me, but I ll endeavor to make a bit of hay even 
 if the sun isnt shinin much. The town is dead as 
 Julius Cesar s horse, but there s some Southern 
 bloods left who ll be right sporty for the next ten 
 days. My distinguished relative, J. Hampton Hoge, 
 who Cleveland is tryin to punish as a drunkard, is 
 here, and I m gettin up testimony to show that a 
 Southern gentleman is expected to drink whiskey, 
 and that a man in the South isnt considered drunk 
 till he cant lay on the ground without holdin. The 
 attempt to ruin this Counsel to Amoy, China, is one 
 of the blackest charges yet brought against the mor- 
 phydite Administration. 
 
A BALTIMORE COCKING MAIN. 
 
 THE MAJOR ACHIEVES A VICTORY HIS GAME CHICK 
 ENS HE DECLINES TO VISIT THE WHITE HOUSE 
 ON THE PRESIDENT S INVITATION EX-PRESIDENT 
 HARRISON REBUKED COLONEL BULLETT IN 
 SULTED BY CLEVELAND THE FLORIDA PRIZE 
 
 FIGHT. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Dec. 29. 
 
 Things have been right dull here sence Congress 
 went on a recess. Outside of considerable guff about 
 tariff there s been very little politicks. I don t pay 
 much attention to the tariff because our cowardly 
 skunks refuse to obey the orders of the Democratic 
 party and rip Protection up by the roots. They ve 
 got a sort of namby-pamby Jumbo Jum bill which is 
 half Protection and half Free Trade and I don t care 
 a continental whether it gets through or not. The 
 jelly fish which are runnin the party here have got 
 us into a fix where it looks as though the party will 
 be damned if it do and be damned if it don t and so 
 the best thing to do is to let em wrestle and groan. 
 I don t believe in reformin tariff. We don t want 
 any tariff at all down our way and my views on the 
 subject, I find, are about as unpopular as my views 
 on Southren War Claims in the estimation of some 
 of these milk sops, However, this is holiday week 
 and let that pass. 
 
 * * 
 
 ( 55> 
 
156 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 I ve been giving myself up largely to the festivities 
 of the season. Old Cleveland went off the other day 
 in a Government ship lookin for ducks but I antici 
 pated him and went to look at chickens. There was 
 a great main fout between Baltimore and Washing 
 ton cocks last Monday night at Canton, which is the 
 lower end of Baltimore. I went over with a party 
 of friends and we had a gay time. I acted as umpire 
 for the regular main and it done me good to see the 
 way them Baltimore chickens stamped the feathers 
 offen the Washington birds. IVe always been proud 
 of Baltimore because she is the true Southern grit. 
 From the day she licked that dirty Yankee ridge- 
 ment in 1861 down to the present time she has been 
 sound on Democracy. Washington is a kind of hy- 
 bred town, but we ll make it Southern in a few more 
 years. I m a man that lets his sympathies go on all 
 occasions, and as I was solid with Baltimore I desided 
 in favor of her chickens where there was any question 
 of doubt. I had to draw my gun twicet in order to 
 defend my decisions and keep peace. After the 
 main fightin was over I backed some chickens in 
 some private scraps and my old Mexican gaffs came 
 into great play. I named one of my chickens " Jeb 
 Stuart," after old Jeb, who was a great friend of mine, 
 and somebody nicknamed the other chicken " Grover." 
 Well, it was funny. Jeb done that poor cock in about 
 six winks and the boys was so tickled, although all 
 was Democrats, that I think it safe to say that old 
 Cleveland didn t have a friend in the crowd. I re 
 marked : " That s about the way the old Buffalo stuff 
 would get it now if the people could get him in the 
 pit again," and dam me if the laugh wasn t so loud 
 that it shocked me, tuff as I am. I won about $60 
 on the evenin s cocking and pickt up about $30 more 
 in a poker game in which I sat before leavin Balti- 
 
A Baltimore Cocking Main. 157 
 
 more. I am goin to send down home for some 
 chickens that I have of high breed and I think I ll 
 be able to give the cock-fighters of this secktion some 
 sport before the season is over. I can make more 
 money than a Congressman with my crate of chick 
 ens among these bloods. Hard as the times is these 
 fellows have money to put up on game fowls. 
 # * * 
 
 I want to say that I had a quiet tip from my good 
 friend Congressman Tim Campbell on Sunday last 
 to the effect that if I would call around at the White 
 House anytime before Tuesday mornin I would get 
 a bid to accompany the Presidential party on its 
 duck shootin trip down the Potomac. I haven t 
 done any shootin on the Potomac sence our second 
 war for Independens, but I preemptorially and with 
 considerable haughtiness declined to put myself in 
 the way of the proffered invite. Some of my friends 
 say I should have accepted this offer of the olive 
 branch in the spirit in which it was tendered and 
 accompanied the President and the gentlemen of the 
 Cabinet who constitooted his party. Perhaps it 
 would have showed the country that I am makin 
 a deep impression here in my campaign for the 
 sacred rights of the South in the matter of our War 
 Claims, and it may have been old Cleveland s inten 
 tion to use my presence in his party as a sort of 
 feeler upon the people at large. Howsomever this 
 may be, your Uncle Randolph didn t go to the 
 White House and he got no bid. So while the 
 President was wallerin around in the mud I was 
 here in the Capital transactin business at the old 
 stand and keepin my eyes peeled for No. I. I know 
 I am tetchy and high-strung, and it may be that my 
 refusal to throw myself in the President s way may 
 give my crusade for Claims a set-back. Of course I 
 
158 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 am free to confess that I would have been glad 
 enough to be one of the duck shootin crowd. On 
 the dead quiet it was more or less of a big spree, 
 and I fancy I could have kep up my end of the 
 double-trees in such a phisical and intellectual con 
 test. That some of them didn t fall outen the boat 
 was monstrous lucky. And I was glad for the ever- 
 lastin dignity that he has hedged about the office of 
 late that old Grover hisself didn t take a header. My 
 friends, I trust, will understand that I would care to 
 have been one of the party for the political signifi 
 cance of the thing only. As for the duck shootin 
 itself I wouldn t give three hurrahs in Hagerstown. 
 For real down right sport of the true sporty kind 
 there s nothin like cock fightin. There is still a 
 good deal of the old cock fightin spirit left in Alex 
 andria, and it wouldn t surprise me if the Presidential 
 party stopt there and took on a few brace of birds. I 
 once saw an old blue game kill a nigger baby that was 
 crawlin in an alley in Alexandria, and I think it was 
 about the purtiest piece of gaffin I ever witnessed in 
 my life. I felt kinder sorry for the pickaninny, too. 
 * # * 
 
 I was greatly disgusted by the crude remarks of 
 Benjamin Harrison at the banquet of the New Eng 
 land Society the other evenin. It will be a long time 
 before the South will cease to feel the deep disgrace 
 of havin permitted this man to be elected President 
 and take his seat. He is a man of small calibre and 
 his speeches are the commonest rot. He is not a 
 thinkin man. What this country wants is men who 
 think; men who will be content to sit right down in 
 a corner and think for several hours at a stretch. 
 When you see a man with holes in the seat of his 
 trousers you can put him down among the thinkin 
 class. Sometimes it takes these fellers a good while 
 
A Baltimore Cocking Main. 159 
 
 to find out what they are thinkin about, but that 
 should not be laid up aginst them. They are thinkin 
 all the same. But I digress. I intended to make a 
 few remarks in my usual caustic vein anent the ob 
 servations of this man Harrison touchin New Eng 
 land men and the South. He went on in his exas- 
 peratin Northern style to insinuate that it was New 
 England men and women who, as school teachers in 
 the South, had implanted in the breasts of our chil 
 dren the love of knowledge and those principles which 
 make good citizens. Now take notice that I, Major 
 Randolph Gore Hampton, do not hesitate to brand 
 that statement as an infermous untruth, not to char 
 acterize it by a harsher term. It is true that before 
 the war we did have in the South a great many 
 school teachers and school marms, but it did not take 
 us long to ascertain by findin out that they were in- 
 stillin into the minds of our children the slow and 
 insiduous pizenof anti-slavery. And when the South 
 ern people awoke to the situation you bet we had 
 great fun drivin these Yankee school teachers outen 
 the country. As a matter of fact, that was the in- 
 seption of the righteous organization known as the 
 Ku Klux Klan. My memory is conveniently treach 
 erous on pints that are not material to the subject in 
 hand, so I entirely disremember whether we burnt 
 any of these mischievous people at the stake or not, 
 but it would not surprise me if we faggoted a few of 
 em on the quiet just by way of an anchovy, as it 
 were. I will regret the longest day I live that there 
 was no high-toned and chivalrous Southern gentle 
 man present to hurl back in the teeth of this man 
 Harrison the vile slander that the South is in any 
 way indebted to New England for the high water 
 mark it has attained in the broad field of learnin. 
 The only thing we ever got from New England that 
 
160 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 was worth a hooter and for that we owe the old 
 rum-guzzlin Puritans much thanks was the sugges 
 tion of the noble institution of slavery itself and the 
 burnin of people at the stake. To be sure some of 
 the most pernicious and mischievous anti-slavery 
 agitators that the country was ever cursed with be 
 longed to New England but they were the degener 
 ate sons of noble sires. Take William Lloyd Garrison 
 and Wendell Phillips, for example, who disgusted all 
 right thinkin people with their heavin and surgin 
 agin slavery. I dare say you would not have to trace 
 back their ancestry very far until you run plump 
 agin a lot of noble gentlemen and ladies who made a 
 pot of money out of the nigger as a chattel the 
 only condition in which the nigger should ever have 
 been considered. But it was their noisy shoutin 
 aided by the infernal Methodists and Quakers that 
 helped to raise up that despot Lincoln to undo the 
 grand work of a century, in which New England 
 took no conspicuous part. Pardon me as Mark 
 Anthony said to the corpse if I dwell too long on 
 this subject. But when my mind gets to workin on 
 the question of slavery, and I contemplate what a 
 paradise on earth the South might be to-day if we 
 only had our slaves back again and what a barren 
 waist it is without them I am moved almost to 
 tears. No, siree, I do not propose to allow Ben Har 
 rison, even though he is an ex-President of the 
 United States, or any other Northern howler, to as 
 sert that the South owes anything to New England, 
 except, as I have indicated, for the introduction of 
 human slavery into our section and for the happy 
 suggestion of burning obnoxious persons at the stake. 
 Yes, I do remember that our very best nigger drivers 
 before the war came from New England, 
 
A Baltimore Cocking Main. 161 
 
 I have had a little touch of delereim trimmins 
 this week and have had to keep close to my hall 
 bedroom in Hominy Hall. Like a old fool, when 
 some of the boys said the other day that I was soak- 
 in too much licker I pulled up short and didn t take 
 a tod for twenty-four hours. That brought on the 
 grip followed by a chill, and that night a red monkey 
 come and percht on the tail board of my bed and 
 made a speech on the Silver question and our War 
 Claims. I kicked him out of the place and then a 
 red-nosed bear come in and danced a hornpipe on the 
 floor to the musick of the rattles of six rattlesnaiks. 
 I had quite a circus and next day the doctor told me 
 what was the matter, but I wasn t much skairt. I 
 am all right now and I haven t missed much. I am 
 settin up and readin and writin in bed and am able to 
 hit a little whiskey panada. I have not been idel. 
 A number of people has been in to visit me and talk 
 about the tariff, War Claims and Income tax. I seen 
 in a newspaper to-day the statement that only 
 85,000 people in the country have incomes of over 
 $4,000 a year. I ll gambol high that if that s so not 
 less than 65,000 of em live in the North and that s 
 why I m a shoutin for income tax and lots of it. It 
 is infernal nonsence fer Southern members to oppose 
 income tax, but I see we have a lot of fools and 
 traitors a fightin it along with old Cleveland, who 
 has a salary of $50,000 a year and no poor kin. The 
 fluffy old gold bug very naturally stands with his rich 
 friends in this matter, but I think we ll be able to 
 sock it to em. 
 
 * -x- * 
 
 Speakin about old Buffalo Grove, I had a call yes 
 terday from Colonel Sage Bullett, from Bowie, Texas, 
 who is the man that shot the Yankee Provost Mar 
 shal just at the close of the war and lived two years 
 11 
 
1 62 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 in a swamp with an old cow while hidin. Sage was in 
 our redgement till after Fredericksburg, and then he 
 got transferred to the Texas Rangers. He came up 
 here to get appinted Marshal for his district, and 
 hearin of me, called to see me. He had been up to 
 the White House the day before with Hooper A. 
 Long, the Southern Claims lawyer, and both of em 
 had been insulted by Cleveland. Sage said old Suet 
 had ast him if he was in the Confederate Army, and 
 when he told him he was he said he was afraid to ap 
 point any more ex-rebel soldiers for the present, be 
 cause his brother-in-law had writ him that it was 
 hurtin the party in the North. Sage wanted to know 
 how in hell he could find anybody in the South 
 worth a cuss who hadn t been in the Confederate 
 Army. One word followed another and finally Cleve 
 land said that the South had been too hoggish about 
 offices, and besides Southern Congressmen was not 
 showin a disposition to respect his views and policies. 
 Sage wanted to know whether he regarded himself 
 as President or Grand Mogul. That made the old 
 stuff right hot, and after Sage had give him a piece 
 of his mind, he invited him to come down to Texas 
 and hunt tarrantulas, It done me good to hear old 
 Bullett cuss Cleveland. He said : " I m dead broke 
 and owe $6,000. I can t make over $500 a year off 
 my place down in Texas, and I ve been waitin and 
 hopin all along that Congress would let us start home 
 banks. I finally concluded to try for an offis, and 
 sence comin here I ve found out that Cleveland s 
 the man who has kept us from gettin our State banks. 
 That old hound is a traitor to the Democratic party, 
 and I ve got a bigad notion to cut both his years off 
 and nail em on the front door of the Capitol." You 
 ought to have heard him beat up the dicksionary for 
 Grovy. Old Sage is a fighter, and you can bet that 
 
A Baltimore Cocking Main. 163 
 
 it was no good day for Cleveland when he hurt the 
 feelins of this noble Southern gentleman. Every 
 body will know that Sage is in town. He wears a 
 old rusty suit of broadcloth, the kind of clothes they 
 bury people in, a red necktie, a soft hat with a brim 
 twelve inches wide, lyle thread gloves, and a leather 
 watch guard, with a peach kernel basket for a charm. 
 He carries a cane made out of a bull s tail, and his 
 face is as red as a turkey gobbler s snout string. He 
 says he ll be in town for ten days, and when I get up 
 a ad around I think we ll give the western sky here 
 a little rainbow tinge. Old Sage has a war claim of 
 $25,000 himself for a barn that some niggers burned 
 about a year after the war, but it is a war claim just 
 the same for it wouldn t have occurred if the Yan 
 kees didn t set the niggers free. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I hope to the Lord there ll be no fool interferin 
 with that prize fight down in Florida. I ve got to 
 see that. I suppose Congress will take a recess for 
 it, but if it doesn t I am goin to scrape up a few dol 
 lars and go. I have no feelin one way or the other 
 but I like always to see a first class job of knockin. 
 We haven t added this to our Southern sports yet, 
 but I think we ll come to it. Our people are not as 
 fond of duellin as they was before the war, and as 
 duellin drops out I think prize fightin will come in. 
 As a rule Southern gentlemen don t care to fight for 
 money they ll fight for a girl or for honah ; but 
 when it comes to money, chicken fightin is what suits 
 em. My opinion is that Mitchell will have the best 
 of the fight. Most Southern people are on his side 
 for he is an Englishman and the English helped us 
 in the war when the Irish were tryin to down us for 
 pay and bounty. At the same time I hear Colonel 
 Corbett very well spoken of and I m told he s a good 
 
164 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Democrat. I m a little nervous yet and writin isn t 
 quite in my line. Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. You can see what kind of luck I m in. I 
 telgraft last week to my son Plantagenet to ship me 
 up my half-dozen game cocks. They got here yes 
 terday and two of em is dead birds that I wouldn t 
 have took $50 apiece for, and here I m confined to 
 the house with a nervous .attack. But Mose is 
 lookin after the chickens and he understands the 
 business for he was trained by my noble old dad. 
 As soon as I get onto my pins again I ll sing a song 
 for them Baltimore plug uglies. R. G. H. 
 
THE MAJOR HIMSELF AGAIN, 
 
 A TYPICAL ALABAMA DEMOCRAT THE MAN WHO 
 LIVED ON A BEE TREE A STORY OF SOUTHERN 
 POVERTY SAD EXPERIENCE OF A YOUNG TEXAN 
 THE FINANCIAL COLLAPSE OF SIM DRISCOLL. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Jan. u. 
 
 My little nervous attact, the result of my suddent 
 stoppin of daily stimulants, has left me just a bit 
 weak, but I am up and around and takin my rashens 
 regular. I had two of my chickens out to a fight last 
 night with some boys from Alexander, Va., and 
 though one had his eye knoct out and the other was 
 killed standin up, I managed to gather in about 
 sixty dollars on the evenin s sport. We had a dozen 
 or two Southern Congressmen with us, and you bet 
 they enjoyed theirselves. Somebody brought along 
 gallant old Major Jim Pincus, of Talledega, in our 
 State, one of the dead gamest old sports you ever 
 seen, and he won more money than a greyhound 
 could jump over. Jim made hisself famous some 
 years ago. There was a Republican runnin for the 
 Legislature in Jim s county named Hollingsworth or 
 Hornswoggler or some such thing, and he printed in 
 a newspaper that if he got to the Legislature he 
 would introdooce a bill to make a close season for 
 niggers in the State, same as they do up North for 
 deer and fish and so forth. He said he d have a nig. 
 ger Game Law makin it unlawful to shoot niggers in 
 the State for two days before every general election 
 
 (165) 
 
1 66 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 and two days thereafter. Pincus thought that was 
 an insult and challenged the fellow, and the cuss 
 wrote and published an account of Jim s bein in 
 dicted when a young man for settin fire to a neigh 
 bor s barn. Then Jim went out to the ornery devil s 
 place to cut off his years and hosswhip him, but 
 Hornswoggler got the drop on him and when Jim 
 turned to run he hopped on his mare and chased 
 Jim plum into Talledega. The story got out and 
 Jim had four or five fights about it and one mornin 
 Hornswoggler was found dead in a fens-corner about 
 a half mile from his place. Political excitement was 
 runnin high and nothin was done about it though 
 Pincus got the credit of that job. He has applied 
 for Col. Hoge s place as Counsel to Amoy, China, 
 and Cleveland, they say, thinks right well of him. 
 x- * * 
 
 I had a very serious talk to-day with Secretary Car 
 lisle, relative to the condition of our people in the 
 South, my object bein to enlist him a little more 
 openly in the holy cause which lies nearest the great 
 throbbin heart of our secktion, viz., the payment of 
 the Southern War Claims. I selected Mr. Carlisle 
 for this talk for two reasons : first, because he is a 
 Southern gentleman and therefore capable of reason- 
 in, and, second, because I regard him as the most 
 likely man with whom to reach Mr. Goosefat in the 
 White House. I begun by paintin in red colors the 
 poverty-stricken condition of the Southern people, 
 and cited him to many cases where some of our 
 proudest and most aristocratic families had been re 
 duced to the dire extremity of hustlin for a livin. I 
 I was very much shocked, and not a little pained, 
 when the Secretary said he had been obliged, endurin 
 his long and excitin career, to do considerable hustlin 
 hisself, and he thought it was kinder good for the 
 
T/ie Major Himself Again. 167 
 
 circulation. I checked him at oncet and said that 
 workin was all well enough for Northern people who 
 was used to it and didn t have any aristocratic blood 
 in their vains anyhow, but it couldn t be thought of 
 for the high strung and sensitive people of the South. 
 These proud souls would welcome death any time 
 befo they would git down to vulger toil. 
 * # # 
 
 In describin the poverty of our people, and the 
 great need that exists for gittin some money outen 
 the Treasury for them, I greatly moved Mr. Carlisle 
 by my recital of the sad condition of Captain Clay 
 ton Barbour, of Bullock County, who fit side by side 
 with me in the Eighth Alabama. I referred to the 
 case of Captain Barbour in one of my previous 
 skreeds, but only tetched on his unhappy plight. I 
 hev it from the Captain s own lips that for twenty- 
 eight long years ever sinse the close of the war he 
 has supported his family on the product of a bee 
 tree which he had the good fortune to find on his 
 place. At this juncture Secretary Carlisle ast me 
 how it happened that if Captain Barbour had a place 
 he didn t raise cotton, hogs, hominy or somethin in 
 stead of dependin on a bee tree. That is jest the 
 pint I wanted the Secretary to make, and I met it 
 quicker n a flash. " That s jest it," I ejackerlated ; 
 "the noble old Captain wanted to turn his attention 
 to plantin, but the thievin hounds of old Sherman s 
 army stole all his fence rails, and while he had a hun 
 dred and seventy acres of as fine land as ev.er a mule 
 gazed at, he never had been able to git enough rails 
 together to fence in so much as a ten acre lot." 
 
 " Not in twenty-eight years ?" ast the Secretary. 
 
 " Not in twenty-eight years," I retorted. " How 
 could he? The Yanks burnt em up. He could t do 
 it in a hundred and twenty-eight years." 
 
1 68 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 " But there are other fence rails in this broad land 
 of ours," said the Secretary, in his velvety way, " and 
 we have railroads and navagable streams by which 
 they may be transported from one part of the country 
 to another. Had this occurred to your friend the 
 Captain, he might have been able to allow the bees 
 on his place to enjoy the reward of their own patient 
 industry instead of taking the very wax out of their 
 mouths, so to speak." 
 
 I saw the Secretary didn t exactly understand the 
 situation and I explained to him that the deplorable 
 condition in which we found our plantations after the 
 war had such a depressin influence on Southern gentle 
 men of sensative organizations that they had never 
 been able to pull theirselves together and go to work 
 the task ahead of them was too great. Such a man 
 is Captain Barbour. The honorable Secretary wilted 
 a little and said : 
 
 " I am sorry the Captain is constituted that way 
 sorry for him and sorry for his bees. I presume that 
 having a bee tree on his place he has also other trees. 
 I can t help but think he should have felled some of 
 them and split them into fence rails. Quite a num 
 ber of honest, God-fearing men in this country have 
 split rails. Abraham Lincoln, if you remember, split 
 quite a few hisself." 
 
 At this point I rebuked the Secretary sharply for 
 his reference to old Lincoln. " Dont call up that 
 arch-enemy of the South, Mr. Secretary, if you 
 please," and I looked him sternly in the eye. " He 
 was the cause of all our woes and if you want to 
 thrust a knife in our hearts you can do it by conjurin 
 up that old vulgarian, the most infermous character 
 that befouls the pages of history." 
 
 Mr. Carlisle saw that I was rot up and said he 
 would let Lincoln pass. He also apologized for 
 
The Major Himself Again. 169 
 
 introducin a personage who was so distasteful to 
 me and I accepted his apology. 
 
 I then went on to impress the Honorable Secretary 
 still further with the sad condition of Captain Bar- 
 hour, who I said was but a type of a large class of 
 our whipped and maltreated people. That he had 
 lived for over a quarter of a century on the product 
 of a bee tree I knowed to be a sad and solemn fact. 
 That this was the result of a condition growin out of 
 the war I also knowed to be a fact, for ever sence 
 that period I had been a little short of fence rails 
 myself. I called upon Mr. Carlisle to picter to his- 
 self the eagerness with which the Captain watched 
 the busy bees as they improved each shinin hour 
 knowin that it was meat and drink to the Barbour 
 family, which was of the same dimensions as that 
 which followed John Rogers to the stake, to wit, 
 nine small children and one at the breast. I begged 
 Mr. Carlisle to contemplate the dread anxiety with 
 which this gallant old warrior watched these bees at 
 swarmin time lest they might split up and escape 
 from him altogether. I told the Secretary that I 
 knowed of Captain Barbour and his five boys at one 
 time followin these blamed bees for seven days and 
 seven nights and directed by the all-seein eye of 
 Providence finally collarin them and bringin them 
 back in safety at last. " Let your mind s eye dwell 
 on this picter," I said, with much pathos ; " think of 
 the anguish of mind of this little band as they fol- 
 lered these bees over hill and dale feelin that at any 
 minute the damd things might take a sheer and the 
 Barbour family lose its staff and prop, as it were. 
 Think of these things, Mr. Secretary," I concluded, 
 " and say if our Government should not pay our sa 
 cred War Claims and put us on our feet again." 
 
 The kind hearted Secretary of the Treasury said 
 
The Major in Washington City. 
 
 he would give the matter thought, but for fear there 
 might be some delay in gettin the money he would 
 also advise with the Secretary of Agriculture as to 
 the advisability of encouragin bee culture in the 
 South. I fancy I made a decided impression on Mr. 
 Carlisle, but I didn t jest exactly like his suggestion 
 of encouragin apiary in our section. A land flowin 
 with milk and honey in a figurative sense only is 
 what we want. We can have that if money is scattered 
 in our midst with a lavish hand, and I am on deck 
 here to see that this is done. But we ve had enough 
 bigad, of bee trees. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I run up the other day with a son of the South in 
 distress here. He came from Texas and his name 
 was Esto Perpetua Hogg. He wanted a clerkship in 
 some department, but the second day after he got 
 here he stumbled into a saloon late in the evenin and 
 when a man had his pocket pickt he was accused and 
 arrested. He was locked up in jail for nearly a week 
 before he could prove hissef a perfect gentleman of 
 good family and he hadn t been out of jail an hour 
 before he got drunk and was robbed of all he had, 
 twelve dollars in money, a horseshoe skarf-pin and a 
 self-cockin pistol. When he corne to me he was 
 wearin an old army cap that a nigger barber give 
 him, and he had pawn tickets to show for his over 
 coat, vest and a photograf album of his folks which 
 he brought on. I helpt him and got him board with 
 Widow Toombs. That there name of hisn struck 
 me funny like and I ast him about it. He said that his 
 old daddy, who couldn t read very well, got a holt of 
 a book on the Polypusnisian War about the time he 
 was born and seein esto perpctua in it thought it was 
 a Roman General s name and so called him Esto 
 Perpetua Hogg. I think we can git Esto a place in 
 
the Major Himself Aga in. 1 7 f 
 
 tloke Smith s office, for his daddy, he tells me, 
 
 served in Hood s old command and had his left year 
 
 shot off in the skirmish at Jimson Weed C. H. in 62. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Dolefull news reaches me as I am puttin the fin- 
 ishin touches on this essay. Old Simon Driscoll 
 Kenton writes me that he is busted. Business 
 whooped along briskly till he got out about $3,000 
 worth of Confederate bills and during the holydays 
 everybody bought big bills of groceries and now his 
 groceries is gone and he has no money to replenish 
 stock with. They wont give him credit in Tus- 
 kegee or Selma or Columbus or anywhere else be 
 cause he s been doin business loosely, they say. That s 
 what a broad man gets for tryin to help a lot of her- 
 rin-gutted, wind-broken, swamp-trottin people that 
 aint worth the sulphur in the powder it would take 
 to kill em. Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
CLEVELAND AND HIS PARTY. 
 
 DEMOCRATS WHO ARE HOSTILE TO THE ADMINIS 
 TRATION THE PROPOSED NEW ISSUE OF GOVERN 
 MENT BONDS FACTS ABOUT GREEN GOODS- 
 HOW THE SCHOOL TEACHER WAS DICIPLINED IN 
 ALABAMA. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON CITY, Jan. 18. 
 
 I was settin up late the other night, chinwackin 
 with some genuwine Southern gents when the topick 
 turned on the old bull of Bashan in the White 
 House. I struck a line of thought and had about 
 drawed up to make some remarks with my pen 
 about the way that Cleveland bulldozes and bosses 
 Southern Senators and Representatives when an 
 incident occurred which caused me to paws. I was 
 tryin to reason it out how this old Buffalo bum, who 
 is no more of a gentleman than a weasel is a wildcat, 
 could force Southern gentlemen to bow to his will 
 and obey his commands. If there is anything that 
 our high-toned people like it is to boss. We do not 
 like to be dictated to. And yet I have saw an elert 
 and most chivalrick man absolutely cringin before 
 Cleveland, simply, I suppose, because he carries the 
 key of the hog trough. It made my gaul turn red. 
 But just as I was gettin ready to swipe our recreant 
 sons the rejection of that man Horntooter was an 
 nounced. That showed the true spirit. Some of 
 the best men of the South in the Senate stood by 
 Hill in this business, and if your Uncle Randolph 
 aint mistaken the big Stuff has had sharp notis that 
 (172) 
 
Cleveland and His Party. 173 
 
 he cant do all the drivin fer the Democrat band 
 wagon and beat the big drum too. George Vest, of 
 Missouri, is a cuss and the Southern Democrats owe 
 him a great deal for kind of settin them free. Nobody 
 will be afraid of Grovy now and the party will soon 
 be around to my platform which is to pound the 
 pious old fraud tell he stops his Mugwumpin and his 
 goldbuggin and becomes a true Democrat of the old 
 school. As a leader in this revolt against Cleveland 
 I feel as proud as a stud hoss goin to a fair and it 
 does me good to see how some men that uste to try 
 to give me the cold shoulder are now comin around 
 with a " how-de-do, Majah, and how goes it ? " Mr. 
 Lunkhead Cleveland will have to dance to our music 
 or get off the platform. Begad he s been off the 
 Democratic platform ever sence he resoomed his 
 snorin in the White House. 
 
 * x -x- 
 
 This jabber *about the new issue of Government 
 bonds makes me lop-sided. It s a good thing to 
 have em. There was no trouble about gettin bonds 
 when the Yankees and their infernal foreign mersen- 
 aries was pillagin and shootin us Southerners for 
 assertin our constitutional rights. Now that the 
 Republicans have left the treasury bankrupt there s 
 nothin to do but grind out some bonds. If Carlisle 
 was of my way of thinkin I believe he d join in urgin 
 the payment of our War Claims in new greenbacks, 
 and that would make our end of the country pros 
 perous in about two wiggles of a sheep s tail. As 
 one of the representatives of a gallant people who 
 has been reduced to a paw-paw died for about thirty 
 years I m glad to hear that the Northern louts are 
 doin a little starvin now. Let em groan and kick. 
 We had it and we ve got it yet. The Robber Soldiers 
 cleaned us out and the Robber Barrens has kept us 
 
174 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 cleaned out with their infemous Protecktion scheme 
 and when we all get down to bare feet we can start 
 new. Like old Watterson, I m disgusted because 
 we are not wipin out everything in site at one swoop. 
 If Carlisle would only push through the State bank 
 scheme it would be a great help to us of the South. 
 Alabama is ready and waitin. The machine to make 
 State money is geared up and ready and if the belt 
 don t slip it won t be fifteen minutes after old Cleve 
 land signs the law before we ll have bank notes a 
 flyin in the air. 
 
 * -x- * 
 
 I m cussed if I wouldn t like to know what Attor 
 ney General Olney means by his rulin that the man 
 who offers to buy " green goods " is equally guilty 
 with the man who prepares the little spurious cur 
 rency. That s a dirty slap at the South, and the first 
 time I see Olney I ll tell him so to his teeth even if 
 he locks me up for contempt of court. The South 
 goes in strong on " green goods" and its jest about 
 this addition to our circulatin medium that has en 
 abled us to keep our heads above water. I ve taken 
 two or three flyers in the long greens myself and by 
 this means have pulled through whereas otherwise I 
 couldn t have done it. I ve a brother over in Bar- 
 bour County who is a hard-workin, ploddin man, not 
 much in tetch with the world, and only last spring 
 I bought a mule from him for $75 payin him in crisp 
 green goods that I had jest received from New York. 
 He only ast $50 for the mule, but I told him that 
 things have been comin my way purty lively of late 
 and I d make it $25 better because, as I told him, 
 blood is thicker than water. He was the most grate 
 ful man you ever seen. Its wonderful the amount of 
 this stuff one can shove out among the people of the 
 South without excitin any suspicion. Money is so 
 
Cleveland and His Party. 175 
 
 scarce with us most of the time that anything that 
 looks like a bank note is grabbed and no questions 
 ast. I m sorry that Olney has made this dicision be 
 cause it will have a tendency to make the business 
 risky. The only way out of it is to shoot a lot of 
 these U. S. Marshals and thus rid the country of a 
 surveillance that has long been gallin to our best 
 people. With these contemptible creatures out of 
 the way and U. S. Judges dodgin behind stumps to 
 escape the unerrin rifle, maybe we can dally a little 
 with the stuff, the fresh Mr. Olney to the contrary 
 notwithstandin. 
 
 * * # 
 
 I see that Secretary Herbert has issued an edict 
 settin forth in plain and even emphatic terms that 
 no person in the United States Navy shall write for 
 a newspaper or magazine on any subject whatever 
 without first having secured permission from the 
 Secretary hisself and submittin the manuscript to 
 him. Now, that s business. It will start up a lot 
 of Northern cayotes who will howl and hoop because 
 it is contrary to American ideas and savers some 
 what of the style of Russia. But that is just what 
 we want in this country and particular do we want 
 it in the Army and Navy where there is still a strong 
 Union sentiment. This infemous sentiment must 
 not be exploited in the newspapers and it makes my 
 heart pump faster to see a good Confederate soldier 
 like Hillary A. Herbert taken sech decided steps to 
 prevent it. This is the best thing Ive knowed Hill 
 ary to do sence he was appointed to his high post in 
 the Government. He has showed the white feather 
 considerable in our Southern War Claims issue, and 
 I was beginnin to lose confidence in him. " The re 
 calcitrant atmosphere which exudes from the White 
 House/ to employ a figure used by Judge Fairfax 
 
176 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Carter, is enough to destroy the best intentions of 
 any man except a true Southron built on my plan, 
 which shows no shadder of turnin, The very thing 
 to be done is to appoint a National Sensor of the 
 Press and give him absolute jurisdiction over all the 
 newspapers and magazines of the country. The 
 Northern press is gettin to cavort a little too high 
 and if it isn t hamstrung in some such way as this it 
 will soon become unbearable. We are in full con 
 trol now and I am in favor of seizin things with a 
 strong hand. 
 
 # # # 
 
 I am pained to say that my ex-pardner, Lem Tol- 
 liver, is not doin well. He has been reduced to the 
 point of cappin for a faro bank on a percentage. 
 To see this elegant Kentuckyan shinnin around for 
 suckers to steer against a faro bank is saddenin in 
 the extream. He only made $15 last week and bor- 
 rerd$io. I didn t do much better for the dullness 
 of the times has hurt play very much, and as for bor- 
 rerin anything, why you might as well try to peel 
 the bark off a basswood tree with a quill toothpick 
 as to negosheate a loan from the stiffs, Congressional 
 and otherwise, that infest this free lunch town. Lem 
 is a victim of that old slouch Cleveland s meanness. 
 He had a right to expect an offis when he ast fer it 
 fer he has all the sunny geniality and hospitality of 
 a Southern gentleman, and no better Democrat ever 
 mixed a tod or whooped around a ballot box. But 
 Jehovy in the White House thinks he knows what s 
 good for the country. All we can do is, say u Thy 
 will be done." I give Lemuel a little money to look 
 after my game cocks and he s about arranged for a 
 main with Colonel Dinwiddie Dunbar, of Alexander, 
 one of the best chicken breeders in the Old Do 
 minion, But he won t get much fethers off me, 
 
Cleveland and His Party. 177 
 
 I ve got one chicken that I ll bet can kill a cyart load 
 of bald-headed eagles if I have the handlin of him 
 and the settin of my Mexican gaffs that General 
 
 Mejia once owned. 
 
 .* . 
 
 My son Oglethorpe writes me that he was out the 
 other night and helped to whitecap and hosswhip a 
 hog-eyed school teacher we have in the Briar Root 
 neighborhood. One of Vespasian Dabney s freckeled 
 facet boys had a wrangle with the teacher, whose 
 name is Sol Pettingill which I think means that he 
 is of Yankee extractsion, for I never heard of any 
 Pettingill stock in the South about a point of war 
 history and Mr. Teacher made the statement that 
 the first battel of Manassas was undoubtedly a draw. 
 Young Dabney called him a liar and the teacher 
 licked him. As soon as the young chaps in the 
 neighborhood got wind of the affair they went and 
 done Mr. Pettingill up as afoarsaid and now there s 
 no school in Briar Root. But that ain t much of a 
 misfortune these hard times. I m glad they ve got 
 rid of Pettingill for I heard when I was down home 
 the other day that he had ast the school managers if 
 he might display a Stars-and-Stripes flag on the 
 school house same as was done in the North. We 
 
 can dispens with him. 
 
 # * -x- 
 
 It isn t no sure thing that I ll get down to Florida 
 to that fight. It ain t certain that there ll be a hus 
 tle, and it s a long ways from certain that I ll have 
 the money past me for the trip. For a Democrat, 
 that Governor Mitchell has acted like a skunk, 
 When the South ceases to support all kinds of sportin 
 it will lose two-thirds of its attractiveness and I think 
 I ll turn Puritan. Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 12 
 
THE MAJOR REFLECTS. 
 
 CLEVELAND S DISRUPTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC 
 PARTY ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD 
 CROKER THE STORY OF A POKER PLAYER A 
 POOR BRITISH FIGHTER HE MEETS A HIGH TYPE 
 OF SOUTHERN GENTLEMEN, 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON CITY, Jan. 26. 
 
 I want to say that when I come up to this Capital 
 City last summer it would have been worth a man s 
 skalp to be heard sayin a word against Mr. Jehovy 
 up in the White House. The Democrat that didn t 
 see in Mr. Cleveland the consecrated essense of Om- 
 nipitence was either skarce or he knowed how to con 
 ceal his thoughts. Now you can t go into a bar room 
 or ride in a street car or set in a theayter or indulge 
 in a game of poker without hearin somebody a cussin 
 old Cleveland. It makes me feel proud to know that 
 I was the first man from the South to discover his 
 sneakin hypockrisy and bull headedness, to say 
 nothin at all about his cowardice, When I discov 
 ered him dodging behind the hay-stack on the South 
 ern War Claim issoe I found that he was a yaller 
 dog. And you ll be good enough to remember that 
 your Uncle Randolph said so. But I m beginnin to 
 feel a little sorry for the friendless old rhinocerass in 
 the White House and I really hate to hear him cust 
 so much. Things are awfully mixt up. Here s one 
 gang of Democrats howlin against an income tax a 
 lot of Northern sneaks who thinks that they ll be 
 (178) 
 
The Major Reflects. 179 
 
 hurt if the old Robber Barrens have to give up a 
 little of their ill-gotten gains to help run this Govern- 
 ment. Then the Louisianna Democrats are kickin 
 because their sugar tit is about to be taken away 
 from them. A few fools are mad about the new is- 
 shoeof bonds and everybody is denouncin old Cleve 
 land s Hawaian policy. Whilst this is proceedin a 
 few Jimmydandies is growlin because Secretary Car 
 lisle is gettin out a Columbus medal with a young 
 man on it with a few less clothes on than some of 
 Lee s shirt tail rangers wore the last few months of 
 the war. If we dont get together pretty soon and 
 isshoe a fresh grist of greenbacks to pay off the South 
 ern Claims I wouldn t be at all surprised to see the 
 whole country go to h 1 a whoopin. 
 
 X- -X- -X- 
 
 I have just left General Richard Croker. He called 
 on me this evenin to pay his respecks. He informed 
 me that he had come over to Washington to help set 
 things right up in the Capitol, especially on the In 
 come tax. I soon seen that Richard, like all the rich 
 Wall street gang of goldbuggers, was no better than 
 a Republican when it comes to touchin the Robber 
 Barrens. He told me that he had just come down 
 from the White House where he had been havin a 
 long confab with old Grovy. He said that G. had 
 sent for him as soon as he heard that he was in town 
 and Richard said to me : " Major, that man needs 
 friends. He is forlorn and I never knowed him to 
 be so willin to listen to other people. He treated 
 me like a brother and he wants me to help bring 
 about a reconsillyation with Hill and all the boys. 
 We ve made up and he s goin to stand by Tammany 
 Hall if I can induce Hill and Murphy to pull off. I 
 know all about your trouble with him and I know 
 that if you d go up to the White House now he d 
 
i8o The Major in Washington City. 
 
 reseive you like a prince and probably agree to what 
 you want about the Southern War Claims. He 
 wants Southern friends worse than Bannager wanted 
 poteen and I know that he thinks you have done 
 him great injury in the South by hangin him in ef- 
 fegy and cursin him from Ballyhoo to the Giants 
 Causewhy." I ast him if Cleveland had mentioned 
 me and he told me he had and that he thought I had 
 been instrumental in defeatin Horn Blower. I told 
 him that begad I had and that I was now engaged in 
 everlastinly knockin the sawdust outen Mr. Peckhim. 
 He told me to go right up to see Cleveland for he 
 was ready now to do most anything to save P. I 
 told him it would be ettykett for Mr. Cleveland to 
 send for me, in view of what had occurred and that 
 as for doin anything for me, about this time a loan 
 of about $500 would touch the spot. I told him I 
 had hinted for a long time that an invite to the White 
 House would be acceptable to me but that I had 
 been ignored and overlooked couldn t been more 
 overlooked if I had been a temperance law in Ala 
 bama. But Mr. Croker remarked that things had 
 changed up on Goose Creek and that a man carryin 
 an olive branch up there now was as welcome as a 
 candy-treatin teacher in a country school. I as- 
 shoored him that I would call and see the dejeckted 
 President durin the approachin week. I told Mr. 
 Croker about a fine yearlin colt down in our naybor- 
 hood, owned by Col. Bourette Spikes. He is a 
 Longstretcher by Lambaster, dam Lady Gay Spanker, 
 and I think he s a jumper. Mr. Croker said he d 
 drop down that there way on his Southern tour and 
 look at the youngster. I give him nice letters to lots 
 of our people and no flowers of May ever had such a 
 welcome as he ll get in the Sunny South. There s 
 the kind of man we ought to have for President 
 
The Major Reflects. 181 
 
 barrin his leanin toward goldbuggin ; but, bein born 
 in Ireland, I suppose we ll have to go without him, 
 but it looks to me as though he had command of 
 about all that s left of the Demmercrat party in the 
 North now. I was gratified to hear him state that 
 my friend Gen. John Y. McKane would soon be 
 relieved of the annoyances which are now annoyin 
 
 him. 
 
 # # # 
 
 There was a queer sort of rooster up in our poker 
 room the other night and he set in a game where I 
 had a hand. I noticed that he had lost the forefin 
 ger of his right paw and I ast him how he had parted 
 with it. He said that some years ago he went on a 
 poker-playing trip through Texas with a fellow who 
 was a smart card player and it was his business to 
 set around the table as a stranger when the playin 
 was goin on and signal his pard what was in the 
 hand of the sucker they was tryin to beat. He said 
 he would set careless like along side the sucker and 
 when he could get a glance at his hand he would 
 kind o telegraf by stickin out of his fingers, his 
 hand bein loose like on the table. If he stuck out 
 one finger the sucker had two pair, two fingers 
 meant threes, three fingers mean fours and four 
 fingers meant a flush. The sucker got onto the 
 trick, and when he saw the forefinger stickin out he 
 whipped out a big knife and cut it off. We all 
 thought that it was a funny story and a chap in the 
 game turned round and said : " What a lucky thing 
 it was for you that the cuss with the knife wasn t 
 
 holdin a flush." 
 
 # * # 
 
 Owin to stringency in the money market I didn t 
 go down to Florida to see the prize fight and I m 
 glad I didn t go for I was goin to bet a little on that 
 
1 82 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 English lummix that had the vertigo. Think of 
 travelin nine hundred miles to see a nine-minute 
 fight ! How Mr. Mitchell ever got the name of bein 
 a fighter I dont know, but he must have had some 
 such luck as a company cook we had in pur redge- 
 ment had. When we was layin in front of Fredericks- 
 burg one day he went down to the river toards evenin 
 with a camp kittle to get some water. There was 
 two other soldiers down there washin their feet. 
 The Yanks on the opposite side of the river opened 
 fire on em and the cook grabbed one of the feller s 
 musket and cartridge box and started to run. His 
 foot got caught in the forks of a fallen tree and the 
 other fellers got away. When a company of our 
 boys got to the spot they found the cook there with 
 his musket, a couple of holes through his close 
 and a flesh wound in the arm. They supposed the 
 cuss had been makin a big fight and he was called 
 Leonidas for a long time. The fact is the coward 
 couldn t get away and he never fired a shot, for he 
 told me so after the war, but every man in the redge- 
 ment envied him for his courage, but I notice he 
 didn t ast for any promotion and kept on cookin as 
 long as there was anything to cook. I suppose Mr. 
 Mitchell some time in his life got backed up into a 
 corner where he couldn t help makin a little record, 
 but my opinion is he s a British possum, 
 x- * & 
 
 A letter from a brother of Rube Burrows, an old 
 friend of mine, who lives near Jacksonville, conveys 
 the pleasant information that the late prize fight 
 was the means of relievin the financial stringency 
 thereabouts to a very gratifying extent. Persons 
 who haven t seen money for so long that they had 
 almost forgot the color of it are now quite flush and 
 confidence is in a measure restored. And this in- 
 
The Major Reflects. 183 
 
 dicates what a little money will do for our oppressed 
 and bleedin secktion. If this hog Administration 
 could see six inches ahead of its dirty snoot it would 
 begin to pay out money on our War Claims and 
 spread happiness in our midst, I am informed by 
 the above authority that some of the oldest and 
 prowdest families in Jacksonville were glad of the 
 golden opportunity to take these Northern tuffs 
 into their houses and entertain them endurin the 
 fight for the money they got out of them for board 
 and lodgin. What a awful scandal and shame this 
 is! When I read this portion of the Burrows letter 
 to Colonel Bushrod Huger he wept with grief and 
 mortification. <4 To think," said the gallant old 
 Colonel " that it would come to this when our Gov 
 ernment owes us so many hundreds of millions of 
 dollars for property wrung and wrested from us by 
 the mersenary fiends of the North." The Colonel s 
 emotion touched me, and claspin his hand I regis 
 tered a solemn vow that I would never relax my 
 effort to secure justice for our robbed and sufferin 
 people. This is about the six hundreth time I have 
 registered a solemn vow to the same effect, and, 
 bigad every one of them goes ! 
 
 * # * 
 
 I had a funny circumstance happen to me the 
 other night in the Metropolitan Hotel bar. I was 
 talking about bur War Claims with Col. Thurston 
 Braxton Twiggs of Texas, and I invited the Colonel 
 to take a drink. I was chinnin away when the bottle 
 was set in front of us, and havin some sugar in my 
 glass was thotlessly proceedin to mix a tod when the 
 Colonel turned his back on me and I saw he was hot. 
 I spoke to him and he said quite hostile like : " You 
 invited me to drink, sah, and I accepted your hospi 
 tality ; then, sah, you proceeded to pour your licker 
 
1 84 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 first, which is an insult to a gentleman. Down in 
 Texas, sah, no greater disrespect can be showed a 
 gentleman. I must decline to participate with you, 
 sah, and as a Southern gentleman I am ashamed of 
 you." My first impulse was to pick up the bottle 
 and hack the old man over the brow-band but I seen 
 at once that he was right. I explained to him that 
 I had been in Washington so long that I had lost a 
 good deal of my manners and I apologized as best I 
 could. We treated backwards and forwards about 
 twenty times and you ought to see us bow and pass 
 the bottle to each other as we called. It carried me 
 back to the courtly days of the old school. Colonel 
 Twiggs is as fine a gentleman as I ever met up with 
 though just now he is in a little trouble. He has 
 come away from home temporarily on account of 
 havin dealins with a man that he owed $20 to. 
 I believe that in the altercation growin out of the 
 matter he shot the blackguard, who is now layin up 
 with a broken collar bone and the Grand Jury is 
 threatenin to sue the Colonel. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
CARLISLE AND HIS BOND SCHEME. 
 
 THE MAJOR CRITICISES THE MONEY POLICY HAPPY 
 OVER THE INCOME TAX MEASURE HOKE SMITH 
 AS AN ENTERTAINER SAD FATE OF SOUTHERN 
 OFFICE SEEKERS THE OLD REBEL YELL IN THE 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 IOTSEHX*, 
 
 "I M MAKING CONVERTS TO THE CAUSE EVERY DAY." 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Feb. 2. 
 
 It don t become me to be talkin out loud about 
 finansheal matters for I m a pore hand in that line, 
 havin been broke steady for about thirty years, but 
 
 (185) 
 
1 86 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 it does make me grunt to see the way John Carlisle 
 is handlin things. Here s as smart a Kentuckian as 
 ever drawed a card gettin ready to put a lot of Gov 
 ernment bonds on the market and every cussed one 
 of em already taken by them infernal Shylocks and 
 gold bugs up in New York city. What does this 
 mean except that a lot more of good intrust money 
 is to go into the pockets of these same money Rob 
 ber Barens who has been robbin us for years ! Of 
 course the South can t buy any bonds because we re 
 broke, and now that they have temporarily killed our 
 State Bank scheme, what are we goin to do for 
 money ? Why, we ve got simply to force through 
 the bill to pay off the Southern War Claims. Any 
 man who has got as much sense as a red woodpecker 
 knows that s the only way to get money into the 
 South. That money will go square into Southern 
 pockets and the Yankees wont get a smell. Any 
 other scheme, I don t care a Continental dam what 
 it is, will help the Yanks. I m in hopes our idiots 
 are beginnin to see this thing now in its true light. 
 Its not interest bearin bonds that is wanted but 
 money that will go into circulation in strictly South 
 ern circles. I m makin converts to the cause every 
 day and if I only had a little money to oil things 
 you bet we d get our bill through before Spring. 
 # * * 
 
 Mebby we old Johnny Rebs wasn t tickled when 
 we got the Tariff bill and the Income tax through 
 last Thursday. It aint much of a Free Trade bill, 
 but it s a nice starter. And that Income tax is. hot 
 rags for us Southern fellers. Judge Fairfax Carter, 
 who s good at riggers, estimates that of the forty or 
 fifty millions a year which this tax will raise, the 
 South won t pay 10 per cent. That s great. "Time 
 at last sets all things even," as old Bob Toombs used 
 
Carlisle and His Bond Scheme. 187 
 
 to say. We started in to give these dirty Yankees 
 the hot end of the poker and we ve done it to the 
 Queen s taste. Of course every rooster from Dixie 
 went on a spree Thursday night. We had quite a 
 conviveal gatherin in my poker parlor and I set it up 
 for the boys right peartly. We had some appropri 
 ate speeches from Huger and from old Colonel Shan 
 non Slaughter, from Virginia, who is here visitin his 
 nephew, who is a member of Congress. We sung 
 the " Bonny Bleu Flag," " Dixie" and " My Mary 
 land." Major Hawke Hawkins, of our State, said the 
 joy in the South hadn t been so great sence we split 
 old Hooker up the back at Chancellorsville. I told 
 him that was a rather an unfortunate remark, for we 
 got right well licked after that. He explained that 
 he meant to simply indicate the Southern feelin at 
 that time and let bygones be bygones. Southern 
 members of Congress kept comin into the place all 
 night long and helpin themselves to the lickers on the 
 boofay. A few of em played poker, and as I ve got 
 a first class mechanic here from New York we 
 skinned em right and left. My man passes off for a 
 Californy gentleman interested in a bill before the 
 House. He is a gentleman appearin man, but I won t 
 be able to keep him long, for Southern gentlemen 
 won t stand much losin. I ve been lookin for a big 
 kick already. After another big rake-off or two I ll 
 have to let him jump out and then I can denounce 
 him as a card sharper who got into my place unbe 
 knownst. But to come back to politicks. Old Jim 
 Cobb was in to say that there was no doubt about 
 the tariff bill goin through the Senate, Income Tax 
 and all. He said old Peffer told him so. If we don t 
 do anything else this session, that ll settle it that the 
 State Bank scheme and the War Claims will be O. K. 
 for next session. As soon as the pore people of the 
 
1 88 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 North find that the rich men are bein forced to pay 
 the burdens of taxation they ll begin to have confi 
 dence in Southern Statesmanship. Then we can 
 make the fur fly. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Its kind o cheerin to, see how our Geaujah states 
 man, the Hon. Hoke Smith, is keepin his end up 
 here. When it comes to puttin on style there aint 
 nobody who can hold a candle to a real Southern 
 gentleman. Before the war we didn t have any styl 
 ish people or horses in the country except what come 
 from the South. When the Yankees got rich fightin 
 and robbin us and then got up their infernal Protec 
 tion scheme to keep us pore they begun to put on 
 airs, but they never had the aristocratic Southern 
 swing. I was readin in the Star paper the other day 
 about Hoke s reception to the Clevelands. I see 
 that the house was filled with camelias and cheese 
 straw brought from Geaujah, also the fruits and the 
 smilax. They had lillies-of-the-valley, asparagus, 
 butterflies and all the china was heirlooms belonging 
 to the great Southern Hoke family. They had harp 
 music and fine decorations which you can hire here 
 at a cost of about $100. But the dinner they served 
 the Clevelands was the great feature of the entertain 
 ment. Hoke brought his old nigger cook up from 
 home with him. She used to belong to the Cobb 
 family. She give em Geaujah beat biscuit and roast 
 pig with apple sauce, and before dinner Hoke give 
 the President a drink of home-made whisky out of a 
 good old brown jug with a rale corn-cob stopper. 
 The President was delighted. He said that if there 
 was anything he liked it was a meal cooked by an 
 old Southern nigger. He said there was no real hos 
 pitality but Southern hospitality, and he told how 
 when he first come to Washington he found Arthur s 
 
Carlisle and His Bond Scheme. 189 
 
 French cook in the White House. He discharged 
 him after a week or two and sent up to Albany for 
 his old Irish cook who could give him corn beef and 
 cabbage and fry his stakes for him, That delighted 
 Hoke, who never will eat, they say, Northern cookin 
 of any kind. The place, however, to get fried chicken 
 is Mrs. Toombs boardin-house. That s what we hold 
 our Southern boarders on that and whole-grain 
 hominy. While I feel proud of Hoke s big blow out, 
 which must have cost him over $1,000, I couldn t help 
 thinkin of the thousands of poor, hungry devils down 
 our way who would like about now to get a smell of 
 his slop-barl. But its necessary to cut these capers 
 here and I m glad to see that the South has took the 
 cake, as it were. But I notis the Cleveland family 
 isnt givin away much food this winter. They treated 
 the Cabinet to dinner not long ago and now they are 
 goin around eatin it out of em, so, as the gamblers 
 say, I think they ll break even on hash. 
 * * * 
 
 Pore old Aleck Skates, from Goochland County, 
 Virginia, who died here in the hospital yesterday, 
 was a relation of my wife s. He walked all the way 
 up here to try and get a place under the Govern 
 ment. He toted two calf skins in on his shoulder 
 which he sold and then hunted me up. I told him 
 there was no earthly chance for him and he went 
 and got drunk, caught cold, got newmonia and 
 kicked the bucket as mentioned. I only refer to 
 this sad incident to impress the point that while 
 Cleveland is shut up there in the White House as 
 unapproachable as the Grand Lamma, and Hoke 
 Smith and the rest of em is givin big dinners, South 
 ern gentlemen are dying of broken hearts right here. 
 The South owns the town and is apparently runnin 
 the Country but the fact is there is an immense, 
 
190 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 amount of Southern sufferin here. I have spoke to 
 some of our fellows about organizin a Southern Re 
 lief Corps to look after stranded sons of the South 
 who come here full of hope and expectations, and 
 who are actually in want. The borrowin racket is 
 about plaid out. Wonder how old Cleveland would 
 like to subscribe to this fund. If the thing is organ 
 ized I ll give him a chance and I ll take the paper to 
 him myself if I have to go into the White House 
 through a winder. 
 
 Mirabeau Clay, my postmarster down at Briar 
 Root, is in trouble. Ever sence he had this office 
 Clay has been more or less drunk. He s a hundred 
 short in his accounts now and the boys of the neigh 
 borhood are makin it up for him. He s been trustin 
 everybody for postage stamps and been gamblin 
 more than usual. Besides the receipts of the office 
 have fallen off because he treated the niggers so 
 cussed mean that they all do their postoffice busi 
 ness now down at Doless P. O., about ten mile from 
 us. They have a little nigger boy that they send 
 down for mail on a mule twicet a week and distribute 
 it at Jeff Ledlie s stable. This may be against the 
 law. I ll have it looked into. All this my son Plan- 
 tagenet writes me and he asks me if I cant chip in a 
 $5 to help Clay out. See him damd first. I got him 
 the P, O. and that s enough for me. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I want to say it done my old military soul 
 good to hear the whoopin and howlin in the House 
 when the Tariff bill went through. I was in the gal 
 lery along with Lem Tolliver and when the Dixie 
 boys carried Mr. Wilson around on their shoulders I 
 stood up and give the old Rebel Yell we used to give 
 
Carlisle and His Bond Scheme. 191 
 
 on the Chickahominy, at Bull Run, Antietam and 
 Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville when we used 
 to start for the blue bellies end on. Appreciatin the 
 great occasion I took a pint of Bourbon whisky with 
 me when I went up to hear the debate, and as I fin 
 ished my wild whoop I took a swig that went clean 
 down to my waistband. Lem joined in the yell 
 chorus. The same as to the whisky, too. It was 
 one of the great events of our history. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. I am heavily reminded that this here 2d 
 of February is Groundhog day and I m about out of 
 meat. 
 
FEDERAL ELECTION LAWS REPEAL. 
 
 THE MAJOR CONGRATULATES THE SOUTH A JOLLY 
 
 CELEBRATION TROUBLE BETWEEN YOUNG 
 SOUTHRONS SOUTHERN STATESMEN ABUSED. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Feb. 9. 
 
 My old military throat hadn t quite recovered from 
 the howlin that I done when the Tariff bill past when 
 long come the death nell of the infemous Federal 
 Election law. It s been many a day since we paid as 
 much attention to that law as a stump-tail bull would 
 pay to a gadfly on his horn down in our secktion, 
 but the thing had to go. We are in the business of 
 wipin from the statoots the evil work of the devlish 
 Republican party, which has for the past thirty 
 years kept the South in the bonds of poverty and the 
 gaul of bitterness. Not since the first Manassas fight 
 have I gee-whooped as I did last Thursday. Just as 
 soon as I heard that old Ran. Tucker had the gold 
 pen that old Grover Cleveland signed the repeel bill 
 with I run and hunted him up. I found him in 
 Shoomaker s saloon a showin it to a crowd of good 
 Southern boys. Randolph Tucker is one of Virginia s 
 noblemen. His brother Beverly used to keep the 
 Confederate Refuge up in St. Catharines, Canada, 
 durin the war and many a poor Southern gentleman 
 fleein from persecution found a welcome with him. 
 When I found Ran. he had the sacred pen rapt in 
 cotton in a beautiful silver box. I ast him to be 
 permitted to hold it in my hand. He obliged me 
 (192) 
 
Federal Election Laws Repeal. 193 
 
 with the true courtesy of a courtly Southern gentle 
 man and after I had kist it I took out of my pocket 
 a relick which I had carried for years, to-wit : a gold 
 sleeve button that I took from a Yankee Colonel 
 that I found on the field of Gettysburg. I d of had 
 the other one, but a gentleman belongin to Hood s 
 Texas forces had holt of that, besides a watch, a ring 
 and a nice pair of epaletts. With Mr. Tucker s per 
 mission I rubbed the pen and the sleeve button to 
 gether, thereby increasin the value of the button one 
 hundred per cent, as a relick. I told Tucker that I 
 intended to pass this seuvenir down through my 
 family (I expect Oglethorpe, my youngest son, to 
 furnish me with a grandchild this year). After we 
 had all had a good lot of toddy by way of celebra 
 tion, and a little speech-makin, I rushed over and 
 telegraft to my son Plantagenet the news and told him 
 to fire a saloot of a hundred guns on " old Beaure- 
 gard " that s the name of the cannon that Wilson s 
 men left in our parts in 1865. This mornin I got a 
 message from him sayin : " Takes money to buy 
 powder. Send us five dollars." In an instant my 
 joy was dashed. Great god ! said I to myself, is it 
 possible that our circumstances is so much redooced 
 in the South that we can t raise the paltry pence to 
 buy a little powder to celebrate the greatest triumph 
 that Democracy has acheeved sence old Osserwat- 
 tomy John Brown was hung ! I pawn you my word 
 I was pained and distrest. I didn t send the money 
 because I need it myself, and I wanted to carry the 
 fresh bitterness of this hewmiliation in my soul. If 
 I had been at home you bet Briar Root would have 
 reverberated with the belching of " Beauregard " if 
 I d had to levy an assessment of twenty-five cents 
 per head on every nigger in the neighborhood. Pov 
 erty is nothin new in our place, but this episode 
 
 13 
 
194 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 drove it home to me and the realization of the hard 
 ness of our upness in consequence of a quarter of a 
 century of Republican class legislation dam near 
 drove me mad. But the doom of the Robber Baren 
 is pronounced. We are on his fowl trail and he ll 
 be up a tree you can bet before the daisies peep in 
 
 Vermont. 
 
 x- * -x- 
 
 In our poker parlor last Tuesday evening there 
 was a disturbance of serious preportions. A young 
 man from South Caroleena named Hemphill met 
 accidently at the roolet table (we have added a red 
 and black wheel to our business) with a young gen 
 tleman from Tennessee named Pillow, a grand- 
 nephew of General Gid Pillow, and he unfortunately 
 requested him to liquedate a debt of $10 which I 
 understood had been standing since New Orleans 
 Mardi Graw four years. I always regret when South 
 ern gentlemen pass a polite dun in my place for I 
 know what it means. I wish to heaven that they d 
 transact their financeal business elsewhere. Of 
 course young Pillow struck his insulter and a mon 
 key and parrot time ensooed. Hemphill drawed a 
 knife, and before I could stop the nonsense he cut a 
 hole in Pillow s face that reminded me of a gashed 
 wattermellon. The row was such that an offisheous 
 police come in, and he would have arrested every 
 body in the place if I hadn t squard matters in the 
 old way. This police interference with private mat 
 ters is an infernal noosance, and it s got to be stopt 
 when the Democrats get a little more grip on the 
 tail of this here government. Down South affairs 
 like this go off every day and nobody thinks about 
 invokin the law any more than they do when a neigh 
 bor s cow is sick. The tendency to deprive every 
 body of personal liberty has been growin ever sence 
 
Federal Election Laws Repeal. 195 
 
 the New England Puritans begun to stick their 
 snouts into Government affairs. There was a chap 
 from Boston in our place when this row come off- 
 how he got in I don t know and he was scairt to 
 death. I pushed him under a table and he laid 
 there all evenin and didn t pay a cent toards squarin 
 the policeman and yet next day when he come in 
 and I ast him to loan me $10 he refused in a man 
 ner that was most insultin. I have sworn that I ll 
 never do another Northern man a favor or a kind 
 ness while I m on the crust of this here earth. 
 Speaking about the way we do affairs of personal 
 character down South I want to say that when my 
 son Plantagenet was only nineteen years old he 
 quarreled about a mulatto girl with a big hulk named 
 Stivers and shot him in three places in the jaw, in 
 the left arm and in the hip. There was no lawin. 
 I give Stivers $303 and a sorrel two-year-old colt of 
 old Lignumvity stock that turned out speedy and 
 he sold for $450 cash. After he got shaped up he 
 rode past our place one day when I was settin out 
 on the verandy absorbin a julep and he hollered 
 over to me : " Hay, Maje, tell that cock-eyed son 
 of yourn that my bones is all sticht together agin 
 and he can take another crack at me on the same 
 terms." That, bigad, is civilization. 
 *#* 
 
 A villenous oppersition has been started here 
 against the confirmation of my old comrade, Gen. Joe 
 Shelby, of Missouri, who Cleveland has had the 
 good sense and decency to appoint a U. S. Marshal. 
 It is charged that Joey didn t fight fair and that he 
 shot prisoners and nigger children and Yankee school 
 marms durin the war and done a little lootin. 
 What s the use of bringing up bygones of that kind 
 and how does that affect office matters now ? An 
 
196 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 ex-Confederate officer told me in the Metropolitan 
 bar-room the other night that he saw old Joe s men 
 on one of the Missouri battle fields breakin open the 
 heads of dead Union soldiers with rocks in order to 
 pick the gold fillin out of their teeth. He said one of 
 Shelby s men offered to sell him three gold plates 
 and a lot of gold fillin that he had pickt up in the 
 course of his service. Well, what of it ? War is 
 war and nobody ever looked for ball room politeness 
 on the field of battle. Shelby socked it to the Yan 
 kees wherever he found em, and I respect him as 
 one of the noblest and most chivalrick men that up 
 held the true Cause. He was a terror to the blue 
 bellied Yankees and I honor him. If I d had his 
 chance I d have made just such a record. You can 
 bet he ll go through the Senate all right. He s an 
 old man now, broken down by his hard service durin 
 the war, and the Democratic party owes it to him to 
 take care of him in his old age. I m sorry he can t 
 be pensioned for no man ever deserved better at his 
 country s hands. 
 
 * -x- * 
 
 In at Hancock s saloon the other night I was dis- 
 coursin on the proud intellectual character of the men 
 who the South has been sendin to the Senate sence 
 the war and comparin them with the mud diggers 
 that the North has been sendin here. I referred to 
 such men as Zeb Vance, George Vest, Wade Hamp 
 ton, Lamar, Gordon et settery. A man who was lis- 
 tenin to me said : " I happen to know, sir, that for 
 the last thirty years the South has been sendin to the 
 Senate a lot of dead beats and borrowers. If Sena 
 tor John P. Jones, Zach Chandler, Leland Stanford, 
 Don Cameron, Tabor, George Hearst and a lot of 
 our rich Senators could tell their stories you d be 
 ashamed of your great pennyroyal statesmen. There 
 
Federal Election Laws Repeat. iQj 
 
 isn t a millionaire Senator from the North that hasn t 
 loaned to your frowsy gang from $25,000 to $100,000 
 and the chance of gettin back a dollar isn t as good 
 as a snow ball s chance in the furnace of a rail-mill. 
 Your old retired rebels come up here with their shirt- 
 tails flappin in the breezes and they think they have 
 all the brains and honah and gentility in the land 
 and they make it their business to do up the Pluto 
 crats. If they can t do it playin skin poker they go 
 to borrowin. Why, blow the whole hungry gang, if 
 it hadn t been for the rich Northern Senators who 
 took pity on your noble Romans the crows would 
 have picked em long ago." My disposition was to 
 cut this insolent blackguard down but I come to 
 think there was a good deal of truth in his remarks. 
 I approve the way in which our distinguished Sen 
 ators despoil the Egiptians. Besides, I don t want 
 to do much fightin here until we get the courts and 
 the law machinery and can have a chance as we have 
 
 at home. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Old George Jones, the father of the Greenback 
 cause, was here the other day. He has just issooed 
 another proclamation designed to hold the Green- 
 backers together. For years Jones has been keepin 
 his party alive like a hunted down and proscribed 
 priest keepin the coals on his sacred altar alive by 
 blowin them with his feeble breth. I advised Jones 
 to join with me in urgin the payment of Southern 
 War Claims in greenbacks and he saw the point. 
 He s got to see a fresh slush of greenbacks before he 
 dies or his whole life will be a failure. I told him 
 that I hated and despised the greenback as a medium 
 of exchange but if the Democrats issooed em they 
 would be acceptable as clover to bees down in our 
 secktion. He seen the points and I think he will be 
 
198 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 with us. If we can get an indorsement of our War 
 Claims in the next platform of his party it will help 
 us mitily for the Greenback party is about as strong 
 as the Populist in the North. Uncle George Jones 
 looks though as he needed greenbacks like a man 
 needs a pistol down in Texas. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. I regret to learn that my old friend, Col 
 onel Waterhouse, of Warrenton, lost a cockin-main 
 down at Alexander night before last and $250. He 
 has good chickens but he is not keepin up his breed 
 as he should. The Alexander people have the Es- 
 panola stock now nicely inbred and I must say that 
 I never saw anything gamer. Fm expectin some 
 eggs up>from Havana this month. 
 
THE SINKING OF THE KEARSARGE. 
 
 BRIAR ROOT REJOICES THE MAJOR WRITES A POEM 
 ON THE OLD YANKEE SHIP HE HAS A BRIEF IN 
 TERVIEW WITH THE PRESIDENT WHY THE TAR 
 IFF BILL IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON CITY, Feb. 16. 
 
 Bein prest for time last week I neglected to dash 
 off a few thoughts on the sinkin of that old Yankee 
 ship, the Keersarge, but my mind is called to the 
 matter by a series of resolutions adopted at a hasty 
 called meetin held in Brier Root last week. My boys 
 got up the meetin. Old Simon Kenton Driscoll pre 
 sided and some hot speeches was made by Mirabeau 
 Clay, P. M., and others. The resolutions referred to 
 are as follows : 
 
 Whereas, The U. S. Warship Keersarge has been wrecked, 
 we, the citizens of Brier Root and neighborhood, Alabama, feel 
 called upon to take advantage of the incident in order to set 
 right an important feature of American history. Therefore, 
 be it 
 
 Resolved, That the Confederate cruiser Alabama was a credit 
 to our noble State. 
 
 Resolved, That the battle between the Keersarge and the 
 Alabama was not fought fair on the part of the enemy and that 
 the victory achieved over the Alabama was a disgrace to the 
 Navy of the Federal Government. 
 
 Resolved, That we cherish the memory of Admiral Raphael 
 Semmes and that we rejoice to know that the Keersarge is at 
 the bottom of the sea. 
 
 I am right glad to say that these resolutions 
 touched me in the right spot. They was written by 
 
 d99) 
 
2oo The Major in Washington City. 
 
 my son Plantagenet, who has stuff in him. I expect 
 to see him in the Legislature ear long. I want to 
 say about this Keersarge business that I knowed old 
 Rafe Semmes quite well. His heart was broke 
 about the way that Keersarge took advantage of 
 him. He supposed that she was about his size and 
 weight and he thought he had a sure thing on 
 knockin her out. If he had knowed that the Keer 
 sarge had her sides covered with log chains and 
 sneakinly covered up with black planks he d a seen 
 her damd before he would have come out of 
 port and fout her like a gentleman. He told me 
 that he knowed that his powder was poor and he 
 had a notion to ast Captain Winslow to lend him 
 some of his n, but he didn t want to ast any favors 
 of a miserable Yankee. He was glad afterwards that 
 he didn t when he found that the Yankee sneaks had 
 covered their dirty ship with armor. We of the 
 South had no more respect for Winslow than we al 
 ways had for a man who would fight a duel in a steel 
 undershirt unbeknownst to his adversary, It was 
 the same thing exactly. Semmes thought he was 
 fightin an honorable duel and he was simply buncoed 
 by a Yankee poltroon. I know that if it hadn t been 
 for the prejudice in the country after the war 
 Semmes would have placed the whole matter in the 
 hands of a Court of Honour. If he had I know 
 that Captain Winslow would have been disgraced 
 for he was guilty of false pretentses and of conduct 
 unbecomin of a gentleman and a naval officer. I 
 was always proud of my State and of the ship Ala 
 bama. She gave us lots of glory and honour. 
 * * & 
 
 After a good deal of thinkin about the Keersarge 
 I sat down and written this little poem about the 
 Alabama which I ll send down to the boys. I ain t 
 
The Sinking of the Kearsarge. 2OI 
 
 much on poetry but when I m pushed I can do a 
 little in that line, to wit : 
 
 Oh sound the glad tidin s o er Egyp s dark Daughter, 
 Jehovah has conquered the same as he oughter; 
 The wicked old war ship that brought Semmes to grief 
 It busted to flinders on Roncador Reef! 
 
 Come, cash in your checks, boys, and fill up the kittv, 
 You all chip in freely whilst I sing this ditty 
 A great shaft of triumph we ll rear on the spot 
 Where the Keersgarge went down without firm a shot : 
 
 The chains that hung on her old bullworks, Doddammer. 
 And helped her to sink our bold Alabama, 
 That glorious piroot, will now do for relics 
 Oh, I m so bellicose, now, I m plum full of bellies ! 
 
 Hurray and Hooroar, the old Keersarge has perished, 
 Here s hoping the same to the old cause she cherished ! 
 A column shall deck Roncdaor hunkadory 
 In honor of Semmes and the Alabam s glory ! 
 
 What do you think of me ? I ve been up at the 
 White House talkin with Cleveland again. It come 
 about this way. As the head of the committee ap 
 pointed to raise funds for the busted Southern men 
 here lookin for office I made up my mind to see the 
 old Stuff and give him a chance to put down his 
 name. I saw that skunk Thurber and told him my 
 business. He tried to bluff me, but he saw that I 
 was out on business and so he went in, saw Grover, 
 and I was invited to step in. He wasn t a bit sweet, 
 but he looked at my subscription paper. Turnin to 
 me and tryin to smile a little he said : " Major, I 
 am sorry we havn t been gettin along nicely but I 
 must say I think the fault or the misunderstandin 
 has been on your side and not on mine." I simply 
 said that I regretted the driftin apart but I said, " Mr 
 President, you are not with me and the Southern 
 
2O2 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 people on the great War Claims issooe and until you 
 are it won t be possible for me to be right pleasant 
 with you. If you ll give me a chance to set down 
 and talk to you some day I think I ll be able to con 
 vince you that your standin in your own light. But," 
 1 continued, " I m here for business to-day." After 
 gazin at my paper he said kind o soft like : " Major, 
 I m really sorry for the starving Southerners here in 
 Washington, but you understand I didn t invite em 
 to come here." I said that as Democrats they had 
 a perfect right to come up and ast for recognition at 
 his hands. They didn t have to wait for invitations, 
 bein good Democrats. The President took his pen 
 and subscribed $5. That was $4 more than I ex 
 pected to get and I thanked him. He saw that he 
 hadn t made a hit and so he pulled out $i and made 
 it $6. I thanked him a little more. I felt like the 
 old nigger preacher we had down our way, old Rev. 
 Hoogley Gabboon, who went around collectin 
 money for a Methody Church. He called on Mr. 
 Hedges, the merchant down in Tuskeegee. Hedges 
 put down a $1.50 on his paper but the old nig didn t 
 see very well and he thought it was only one dollar. 
 He said : " De lord bress you Mistah Hedges ; I 
 prays dat de dollar dat you gib de church will bring 
 you a hundred thousand." Hedges handed him a 
 $1.50 and the old nig seein the extra half dollar, 
 shouted out : " Why, Mr. Hedges you done increase 
 your subscription ! Den I done increase my pra r." 
 That s the way I felt about old Cleveland. As I 
 shook hands to leave him he told me that he wanted 
 to have a talk some day and I can tell you right now 
 that old Bullhead is gettin reddy to change his pol 
 icy. He knows that he has got to lean on the South 
 for support and he knows that there is only one way 
 to win the affection of the South pay us what the 
 
The Sinking of tlic Kcarsarge. 203 
 
 Government owes us. If I can get about an hour s 
 chat with Grovy I ll fetch him. 
 
 * -x- # 
 
 From the weekly newspapers that is reachin me 
 from the South I see that some of the folks in Makin 
 County are still celebratin the Wilson bill victory, as 
 they call it. These Yallerhammers down there are 
 altogether too thankful for small favors. The Wilson 
 bill is a big thing, but it ain t what we want at all. 
 We want square-toed Free Trade and the freer the 
 better. I ain t in sympathy with the people of Bir 
 mingham, in my State, who want to proteck iron 
 and coal because of their confounded mills. Mills 
 and factories in the Sunny South is mere incerdents 
 in our great economick system and there is no need 
 of caterin to a few iserlated spots. What Congress 
 ought to do is to legislate for the whole South and 
 if it does this we will have the Free Trade that the 
 sainted Calhoun advocated so eloquently and ably. 
 Of course when we get this Free Trade for the South 
 such towns as Birmingham, Anniston and Chatta 
 nooga can be fenced in and planted in cotton and 
 terbacker. As " industrial centres " they will be 
 busted wide open, and for one I will be glad of it. 
 We uns of the South can well afford to give up these 
 places knowin as we will, that the hated and insolent 
 North will suffer the loss of thousands of her best 
 towns. It makes _me fairly glote when I think of 
 the destetution that Free Trade will spread among 
 the factory towns in New England. Want and misery 
 will set grinnin on every hearthstone, and that is just 
 what I want to see in these proud and pampered " in 
 dustrial centres, "so called. When the people of Lynn, 
 Worcester and towns of that class git down to the 
 basis of goin barefooted in the winter, like the op 
 pressed people of the South have been doin for the 
 
2O4 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 past 25 years, then and not till then, will I be ready 
 to concede that things is comin exactly our way on 
 the tariff question. 
 
 * * * 
 
 The joy that we all feel here about the kickin of 
 the sawdust out of Peckham is dashed by the news 
 that General John Y. McKane has been found guilty 
 of election frauds in Brooklyn. What kind of Demo 
 cratic management is this? Who set up that jury in 
 a Democrat county to give a verdick against one of 
 the best Democrats that ever lived? Why, down 
 with us we d sooner think of puttin a crown on the 
 head of a man like McKane than sending him to jail. 
 What encouragement is that for Democrats to turn 
 out and do extra work for the Cause if there s to be 
 no protecktion in the courts. When I saw Mr. Mc 
 Kane last November I advised him privately to go 
 right down South and go into politicks where he 
 could be proteckted and rewarded. He was not a bit 
 afeard, and he said he d stay right there and fight it out. 
 What sort of men is Boss McLaughlin and Gen. 
 Richard Croaker that they allow McKane to be out 
 raged in this cruel way ? Begad it seems to me that 
 Congress ought to do somethin in this matter. 
 There ll soon be no Democrat workers in the North 
 if this thing goes on. 
 
 5f * # 
 
 My boy Ogle writes me that our neighbor, Mahlon 
 Burrows, has just got back from a trip up North and 
 that he is clean broke. He went on to lay in a stock 
 of " green goods" for the Spring. He got done up 
 for about $800, all the money he could scrape to 
 gether. He s got a morgage on his place. He s 
 about the twenty-fifth man in our secktion around 
 Brier Root that has be"en skinned by these Northern 
 scalawags. I ve tried for years to stop it. Why, 
 
The Sinking of the Kearsarge. 205 
 
 these Yankee bunco men have took on an average 
 about a hundred dollars a week out of our county 
 for the past fifteen years. That s been a heavy drain 
 on us, but nothin can be done with fools. I ve made 
 it a rule all my life to have a little counterfeit money 
 on hand but I know where to get it and how. I m 
 nobody s sucker in that matter I m tellin you. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. Had another little touch of delerum tremens 
 in the early part of the week, caused, I think, very 
 largely by the suddent change of weather. But Lem 
 Tolliver took two of my chickens over to Baltimore 
 and won $100 and divided fair, and that s fun for me. 
 He -won $50 of it from a fellow from Anna Randell 
 County, Maryland, who has challenged him to fight 
 a duel on account of his not tellin him that he was 
 usin Mexican gaffs. As soon as I brace up a little I 
 am to act as second and the affair isn t to come off 
 till the weather gets warm. 
 
THE SOUTH COMING TO THE FRONT. 
 
 ANOTHER SUPREME COURT JUSTICE SECURED A 
 FEW REMARKS ABOUT GENERAL SICKLES THE 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF SOME NORTHERN ELECTIONS 
 A RELIEF FUND FOR DISTRESSED SOUTHERN OF 
 FICE SEEKERS. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, Feb. 23. 
 
 Notwithstandin the general tendency of President 
 Cleveland to act a wild hog you will observe that the 
 glorious old South is slowly gettin thar. Well, I 
 really thought that the hand of Providence showed 
 up the other day when old Cleveland, after tryin for 
 several months to make a Supream Judge in the 
 State of New York, walked right into the State of 
 Louisiana and took one of our ablest Southern Jew- 
 rists. Why, old Moses never had sech divine assist 
 ance and direction as old Cleveland seems to have at 
 times. Things are really comin our way, indead. I 
 was figgerin with Lem Tolliver on Tuesday and 
 we ve got it down so fine that we can bet that a ma 
 jority of the Supream Court will be composed of 
 Southern men before Cleveland s time is out. The 
 deaths and retirements will do the business if Cleve 
 land will do his and it looks that way. A South 
 ern Supream Court is what we want above every 
 thing else. Just think of it ! Why, we can then 
 declare the war unconstitutional and collect every 
 cussed dollar of damages and expenses run up while 
 we was bein jumpt on. Old Judge Fairfax Carter 
 says, what s more, that if the war on us was uncon- 
 (206) 
 
The South Coming to the Front. 207 
 
 stitutional, as it clearly was, a decree to that effeck 
 will make it encumbent on the Federal Government 
 to restore the statis quo, and that will put us back 
 where we was with slavery restored. The same doc 
 trine that Cleveland has been proclaimin in Hawaya 
 will apply to our case. It makes me dizzy with joy 
 when I think of the glorious future which opens up 
 to the people of the South. The old Cradle of Lib 
 erty is a rockin, you bet. All that is wanted is for 
 Cleveland to stand right solid with us. It peers like 
 he is gettin more sense into him every day. Why, 
 he knows that there aint any Democratic party worth 
 dependin on outside of Dixie, and he certainly knows 
 who it was that nominated him three times and 
 elected him twicet. 
 
 x- * * 
 
 I m pretty tired of the cavortin of old Gen. Dan 
 Sickles around here. He went against the party on 
 the Hawayan matter and he s against us on pensions 
 and a good many other things. Every time I see 
 that old galoot hobblin around here on his crutches 
 I m mad, for he passes off as the great War Demo 
 crat. Oh, yes ; Old Ben Butler was a " War Demo 
 crat." I ve got no use for such cattel. Our boys 
 have about made up their minds to make old Sickles 
 give up his seat in the House or get off the army 
 rolls whar he s drawin pay as a retired Major-General. 
 He cant hold both places. Besides, I think we will 
 get his pension away from him before we quit. I 
 heard a party of smart Southern gentlemen cussin him 
 yesterday and one of em said that it was an infernal 
 lie about Sickles havin his leg shot off at Gettysburg. 
 I think it was Col. Joel Tarlton, of Geaujah, that said 
 that Sickles was runnin away from the fightin in the 
 peach orchard and was half a mile to the rair on the 
 Baltimore pike when he run into a mule train that 
 
208 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 was haulin ammunition and hurt his leg so that he 
 had to have it sawed off. We are all denouncin him 
 as a coward here, and if we can get this story a goin 
 we ll find men to swear to it, and its peanuts to putty 
 that we ll have the old fraud off the pension rolls be 
 fore six months. No man that fout against the South 
 can be depended on to be with us through thick and 
 thin. It isn t natural. I don t want any old cripple 
 Union War veteran Democrats in mine and I ve just 
 wrote to some friends down in Atlanta to put .a 
 stop to this scheme to bring the old chicken 
 thieves of the G. A. R. down there to camp next 
 year. We had enough of them filthy bummers durin 
 the war, and now that we don t have to toady to em 
 I m for lettin em slide. While we are engaged in 
 cuttin off their pensions it wont be good taste to be 
 askin em to pay us a friendly visit. The presence of 
 25,000 of these old hellhouns in Atlanta would be an 
 insult to every Southern mother who had a son in 
 the war. # ^ ^ 
 
 There has been more or less chucklin around here 
 this week on the part of the yaller dog Republicans 
 over the elecktion in Pennsylvania the other day. 
 Suppose the Republicans did roll up a pretty stiff 
 majority, what does it matter to us? Pennsylvania 
 has always been against us. When we visited there 
 in 1863 with General Lee we found no friends to 
 speak of, and yet we knoct the eye out of many a 
 Yankee after that, and now after thirty years we can 
 tell every old Robber Barren in the State to go to Brim 
 stone Valley, which is four miles this side of Hades. 
 The miserable State of Pennsylvania has been pam 
 pered and protected until every chucklehead workin- 
 man in the old State thinks he is "award of the Na 
 tion," same as the old pension bums. I think it 
 would be cheaper to put em all on a pension roll 
 
The South Coming to the Front. 209 
 
 than to keep up this Protecktion system, which is 
 hourly impoverishin and robbin the oncet productive 
 South. If this elecktion, which the Yanks are snick- 
 erin over so much, has any meanin it is that the 
 Democrats must see in it a rebuke for their going so 
 slow. Failure to execute pledges is always disaster- 
 ous. If we had got our Free Trade machine a run- 
 nin the State of Pennsylvania would not have dared 
 to vote as it did Tuesday. But to halifax with Penn 
 sylvania, anyhow. 
 
 * * * 
 
 There is considrable chafin in Southern circles 
 about a speech made by old Abe Hewitt in New 
 York on the occasion of the celebration of the birth 
 day of that great Virginia Statesman, George Wash 
 ington. This man Hewitt never was no friend of the 
 South. If it hadn t been for him Tilden would have 
 been President in 1877 and the South would have 
 got its rights about ten years before it did. Our 
 people here say that Hewitt is crazy, that he never 
 told the truth, that he is an old Protecktion goldbug 
 and that he had contracts durin the war to furnish 
 gun carriages for the Union army. He has always 
 hated the South. I ve heard a hundred Southern 
 gentlemen denounce him to-day and I think he will 
 be posted before Sunday. Every Southern State 
 ought to proclaim such an infemous old slanderer an 
 outlaw and put a price on his hoary head. I m sur 
 prised at the Southern Society in New York listenin 
 to such a vitooperative old slanderer. Why wasn t 
 he dragged down off the platform and stomped? 
 What sort of sneaks is the Southern Society of New 
 York made up of ? A lot of money-grabbin specu 
 lators, I ll warrant. Wouldn t give a dam a thousand 
 for Southern men unless they have the old stock in 
 em. I mean the old aristocratic fightin stock, 
 14 
 
2IO The Major in Washington City. 
 
 I ve just made out my first report as Chairman of 
 the Southern Relief Fund. With the assistance of 
 Tolliver I ve raised and disburst $237.80. With this 
 we supplied funds to 48 needy persons, sendin six of 
 em home, buryin two and takin $25 for myself and 
 $25 for Tolliver. I think this is a good showin. 
 The most remarkable thing to me is that not a 
 cussed one of these office-seekers wants to go home. 
 They live on here from day to day in hope because 
 they had all heard stories about fellers that have 
 staid here two years and then got nice offices. After 
 a man has been here for a year borin his Senators 
 and his member they get together and go to the 
 President and demand a place for the poor devil just 
 to get rid of him. That s the game that a good 
 many of our Southern boys are playin. Besides, a 
 heap of the first batch of Counsels sent out will be 
 gettin drunk and disgracin theirselves soon and there 
 will be some vacancies same as there was in the 
 China case of my cousin Hamp. Hoge. Of course 
 these vacancies has got to be filled. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. You will notis that General Joe Shelby, the 
 great Yankee scalper, was confirmed as slick as 
 grease the other day. I ve just wrote a letter of 
 congratulation to the gay old swordsman and I m 
 goin up to Delaware with some friends on Saturday 
 to see a lot of niggers whipped. Delaware is one 
 State in this aggregation of sovereign States thataint 
 ashamed to keep a whippin post for niggers. It 
 works well, too, and I m goin to report in favor of it 
 for Alabama. 
 
CALAMITY OVERTAKES THE MAJOR. 
 
 HIS POKER ROOM CLOSES UP IN CONSEQUENCE OF 
 HARD TIMES THE PRESIDENT S ALLEGED HUNT 
 ING EXCURSION COLONEL DUNBAR S NEW PAR 
 TY ANOTHER SALOON BRAWL HOMINY HALL 
 AND ITS VICISSITUDES. 
 
 \L 
 
 " WE CLINCHED AN HE THROWED ME." 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, March 9. 
 
 This has been a sort of distressin week for me. 
 For some time back business has been very dull in 
 
 (211) 
 
The Major in Washington City. 
 
 my poker room, owin to the general financeal depres 
 sion. My game has catered specially to members of 
 Congress but sense the Senatorial gamblin game was 
 opened I have felt the competition keenly. Men 
 that uset to drop into my place almost every even- 
 in and take a hack at draw are now nosin around 
 tickers all day and rubbin their sore spots at night. 
 This week the gamblin on shugar up in the Senate 
 knockt me out, and Mose Hampton, my pardner, al 
 though a mulattoe, is a sharp business man, he 
 swore that he wouldn t pay rent any longer and so 
 we closed down. We haven t cleared rent for two 
 weeks and I owe Mose $100 borrowed money. This 
 blow falls heavy on me for as long as I had a reglar 
 business here I had a sort of standin with the Demo 
 crats. What makes me cussed mad is that all these 
 hard times that folks is whinin about is dew entirely 
 to the stupidity of our people in Congress I mean 
 our Southern people who are responsible for legisla 
 tion. Of course the new Tariff bill was expected to 
 to knock the eye out of the North and split the Rob 
 ber Barens up the back, but there was no use to make 
 the. South suffer any more than it has for the past 25 
 years. If we had past the law to start the State 
 banks and had paid off even a sheer of the Southern 
 War Claims the folks down in our secktion would 
 have been eatin lark pie by this time. But between 
 the wild hogs and the cowardly lunk-heads up in the 
 Capitol we are all bein drove to destitution and be 
 dam to us. Personally I don t care no more for the 
 growlin up North than an owl cares for a green per 
 simmon. That s music in my old years, but our pol 
 icy is to lift up the South and skin the Yankees 
 and we haven t carried it out thanks to Crisp and 
 Wilson and old Cleveland. 
 
Calamity Overtakes the Major. 213 
 
 Speakin about Cleveland, it is a pity this here man 
 is so regardless of things that are goin on around 
 him. By puttin himself square at the head of the 
 Southern element all there is of the Democrat 
 party he might have had things a hummin now, 
 but he just wraps himself up in his exclusive togy, 
 draws his salary, bosses his Cabinet, consults nobody 
 and acts like a man who has a cancer and don t ex 
 pect to live but about six weeks. The goin off down 
 South on a Government vessel and the talk about his 
 shootin a swan and a cuckoo and a bear and gray 
 goose is all rot and rubbish. Everybody knows 
 here in Washington that he took the trip in order to 
 drink up a gallon or two of whisky where nobody 
 could smell his breath but Gresham and the hands 
 on the boat. I have said before that if Grover would 
 keep a dekanter on his sideboard at home and take 
 his licker like a gentleman right along daily every 
 body would respeckt him. Nobody expects a Dem 
 ocrat to be doin his drinkin under the bed, or behind 
 the door, or out in the hay mow. That s the New 
 England style, but Democrats despise a white-livered 
 sneak. But Cleveland was born a Presbyterian and 
 he can t get over it. I feel just as sorry for a man 
 who suffers from Presbyterianism as I do for a man 
 that surfers from roomatism. The difference is that 
 you can cure roomatism, but you cant cure the other 
 thing. Hypockrasy is killin our party. We don t 
 come right out from behind the haystack and say 
 what we mean and what we are goin to do. Just 
 look at them skunks up in the House passin 
 that Pension bill the other day votin away $151,- 
 000,000 to the old skins and frauds of the Union 
 Army of marauders ! Not five members from the 
 South that voted for that bill that didn t know they 
 was misrepresentin their constitooents. One half of 
 
214 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 the amount would have been fifty per cent, too 
 much but the cowardly Congressmen seem bent on 
 goin back on every pledge made by the Democratic 
 party. If they keep on I ll be cust if we don t lose 
 two or three Southern States next election. 
 * * * 
 
 I met here this week for the first time Colonel 
 Jay Durham, a noble Kaintuckian whose father 
 introduced the first Durham bull into Kaintucky, 
 and who organized two years ago the P. F. O. N. 
 party, which means the Pay for Our Niggers Party. 
 Colonel Jay resides here and he is a newspaper 
 corespondent. From what he said to me I think I 
 could get the nomination of his party for President. 
 I can t quite agree with his policy. He is ahead of 
 the hounds, so to utter. Only a few people com 
 paratively in the South owned niggers before the 
 War but nearly everybody has a claim against the 
 Yankees for war damages. If they haven t got one 
 they can cussed easy get up one. What we want is 
 pay for fence-rails, straw, chickens, cotton, horses, 
 provisions of all kinds, mules, harness, bacon, burned 
 houses, barns and such like. That will put money 
 in everybody s clothes. The pay for niggers will 
 come in due time when the Supream Court declairs 
 the infernal war unconstitootional. Colonel Durham 
 is a fine lookin, stalwart man and he comes of good 
 Kaintucky stock Durham stock and he didn t 
 lose a solitary nig by the war, He is just fightin 
 for principle and I wish him well. At the same 
 time I would advise him to go slow, 
 x- * # 
 
 Referrin to fightin I ve been at it again. I was 
 promenadin the Avenoo the other evenin in company 
 with a old school gentleman, Colonel Cotesworth 
 Pinckney, of South Caroleena, when, feelin a little 
 
Calamity Overtakes the Major. 21$ 
 
 faint, I invited him to step into Driver s to sip a 
 toddy. He done so with becoming elegance and 
 grace and while we was quaffin our drinks I was forced 
 to overhear the conversation of a groop of men at 
 the bar which grated severely on my hearin. They 
 was denouncin the Southern Brigadiers and talkin 
 about Senators Vest and Gorman and others for havin 
 made considerable money out of theshiftin of shugar. 
 Their gab annoyed me severely so I finally walked 
 up to em and said : " I infer, sirs, that there is some 
 dissatisfaction among the Yankees of this country 
 about the way things are bein managed here in 
 Washington. If that is so they have their remedy. 
 I had the honour to draw a sword in defense of the 
 South in the last war and I am ready to draw again." 
 At that one of the gang a young hulk weighin forty 
 pounds more than me sneerinly said : " Why, you 
 old black swamp yallerhammer, I ll bet 10 that if 
 you ever drawed a sword you drawed it in a lottery." 
 Quick as lightnin I let him have it, but he ducked his 
 head and I landed on top of his coca nut. We 
 clinched and he throwed me. Colonel P. rushed up 
 to my relief, but before he could get his gun out he 
 was intercepted by the gang and injured. Seein the 
 situation I hewmiliatingly ast for quarter and the af 
 fair was stopt, but not until my right eye was discol 
 ored. As there was no gentleman in the party I 
 couldn t challenge anybody, but I handed my assail 
 ant my card and informed him that I would see him 
 again. The villenous blaguard remarked that if I 
 thought it would help me to see any better he would 
 present me with a whole pair of goggles. I have 
 made up my mind to have no more bar room alter 
 cations, especially with trash that I cannot invite to 
 the field of Honour. 
 
216 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 I m disgusted with hearin our folks here talkin 
 about takin up some popler Western Democrat for 
 President next time. What s the matter with a 
 Southern man ? Isn t it time to recognize the fact 
 that the Southern Democracy does the electin of 
 Democratic Presidents? How about some such 
 popler man as old Bill Gates, of our State, or Wade 
 Hampton or General Lee s son, who married the rich 
 King Cyarter s daughter over in Virginia tother day ? 
 How about Representative Elisha Meredith, the gal 
 lant Virginian (he was born in Alabama, though), 
 who shook his fist under under the nose of Funk, the 
 Illinois skunk, the tother day and made him squat? 
 There s a risin statesman, that Meredith the soul 
 of honour. Poor man, he represents the districk 
 right across the river and he has a tough time of it, 
 because his constitooents can walk into town and de 
 mand offices of him. He told me that he has had as 
 many as five hundred yahoos here lookin for Gov 
 ernment jobs in one day. You can tell his gang from 
 Barnes Compton s. You know Barnes represents 
 the Maryland district that butts up agin the Capitol. 
 The clay over in his districk is red, while in Mere 
 dith s districk it is yaller. All you ve got to do is to 
 look at the color of the mud on the hoofs of the 
 droves of hungry-lookin fellers that hang around the 
 Capitol halls to tell which man they re after Comp- 
 ton or Meredith. Elisha lives in Alexander and he 
 seldom goes home on account of the office-seekers. 
 Last week he was hidin in a boardin house down by 
 the Navy Yard. He s entitled to consideration be 
 cause lots of the M. C. s here save their salaries and 
 live off their mileage and Meredith hasn t got 
 no mileage. He still thinks that Funk called him a 
 liar last week and he ll lick him yet if he catches 
 him in a Southern crowd. It s about time for some 
 
Calamity Overtakes the Major. 217 
 
 Southern gentleman to take a horsewhip and dust 
 the trousers of some inselent Northern Congressman. 
 
 Among other woes that have attacted me this 
 week is the partial collapse of our boardin house, 
 Hominy Hall. I introdooced to the Widow Toombs 
 a young man who accosted me in the Metropolitan 
 Hotel, and introdooced himself as the son of Con 
 gressman Leonidas Livingston, of Georgia. He said 
 he had come on ta take a clerkship up in the Capi 
 tol, and as I knowed that nearly all the Democrat 
 Congressmen had secured places for their sons, 
 daughters, nephews and wives, I didn t bother to en 
 quire, but just introdooced him. Well, he was a 
 thief. He stole night before last a lot of spoons and 
 an old family shugar bowl and tongs and a watch 
 from one of the boarders. The Lord knows how 
 we ll get along now. The old woman gives us cab 
 bage and corn beef three times a week now and liver 
 for breakfast. Every man in the house is from three 
 to six weeks behind, and there are signs of closin up 
 and a red flag. The first day I see sour krout on the 
 table I skip. If the worst comes to the worst I can 
 camp out, for the weather is growin spring-like. 
 
 # * # 
 
 I was chattin about Hawayan matters last evenin 
 with a naval officer a Kaintucky gentleman, too 
 who said he never liked old Jim Blount after he saw 
 him take a drink of whiskey out of a bottle without 
 removin his cud of tobacker. That made me snicker. 
 Why, down our way that s regarded as an accomplish 
 ment. I ve seen a dozen Southern members of Con 
 gress do that in the Metropolitan bar, and I know a 
 member from our State that can sleep with a toback 
 er cud in his mouth and snore like a callyope. A 
 
218 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 man down our way who doesn t take a dram and a 
 chaw before breakfast is a pore shote. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. My son Plantagenet writes me that he is in 
 trouble again. He traded horses about two weeks 
 ago with Charlemagne, the oldest son of Major Jo- 
 siah Hamestring, and discovered afterward that the 
 horse which he got had a snake in his left eye and a 
 weak hind hock. He felt cheated, and meetin Char 
 ley up at the Root, he had words. It ain t settled 
 who drawed first, but Plan thinks he can make out a 
 case of self defense. Hamestring s boy got a lead 
 pill in the chest and lost a part of his jawbone. He 
 will be lucky if he is able to get to the polls next Fall. 
 Plantagenet is out on bail and he writes that he would 
 like to put in ten acres of corn this Spring in the field 
 back of the barn. 
 
THE SENATE AND THE SEIGNORAGE. 
 
 WHY THE BLAND BILL PLEASES MAJOR RICKETTS 
 AND THE RETREAT OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY 
 THE CONSPIRACY TO RUIN A KENTUCKY STATES 
 MANNEED OF A CONGRESSIONAL GOLD CURE 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON CITY, March 16. 
 
 Politics has been duller than a alligator swamp this 
 week. Mr. Eland s bill on silver, which I don t quite 
 understand, has gone through. I know it s a good, 
 square Southern measure and it will give us more 
 money but I supose that the Robber Barens will 
 make old Bowels up in the White House veto it. If 
 he does he will be deader politikally than Jewlius 
 Cesar s hoss in about fifteen minits. Already them 
 Wall street wolves are howlin and it wouldn t sup- 
 prise me a bit if old Grover does just what they want 
 him to do. The Lord help him if he does. We of 
 the South want that signorage silver turned into 
 good money and we want it quick. It s been rustin 
 there in the old Treasury about long enough. If 
 we can coin it at once there s a chance that we ll 
 have money in our secktion to move crops with. I m 
 told that sence he returned from his duck hunt or 
 from " chasin the duck," as the boys say Cleveland 
 is meaner and selfisher than ever. He s got to the 
 point now where if he had two nice red apples he d 
 eat one and keep the other hisself. There s some 
 satisfaction in knowin that his health ain t tip top. 
 But that s simply the satisfaction that a man whose 
 
 (219) 
 
22O The Major in Washington City. 
 
 had boils feels when he hears of a boil on another 
 man s neck. There s nothin in that. 
 * * # 
 
 Old Major Rodney Ricketts, of Accomack County, 
 Virginia, who is here to get pay for a barn and forty 
 head of hogs and cattle that he lost durin the war 
 (also a thousand dollars worth of fence rails), is stew- 
 pendously discouraged about the outlook for the 
 Democrat party in next election. Old Rod who 
 drinks hard says that it looks to him that the party 
 was demoralized in the North and West and a-re- 
 treatin faster than old Hunter when he got out of 
 Virginia in the fall of sixty-four. He says the gettin 
 to the rair reminds him of the story that General 
 Gordon, of Geaujah, tells about an incedent that he 
 seen in one of the battles in Northern Virginia. The 
 General had rode back to see about somethin, and as 
 he slowly come back toards the front he seen a long- 
 legged North Caroliny soldier a jumpin to the rair 
 like a skeered jack rabit. He hollered to him, " Here, 
 soldier, what are you runnin for? The skedadler 
 just give him one wild looked and shouted : " Hell, 
 Gineral, I m runnin simply because I can t fly ! " Old 
 Rod says that the Democrats up North are just flyin 
 in every direction and he thinks we ve gone a leetle 
 bit too fur on the tariff question. I cheered him up 
 by showin him the returns from New Jersey local 
 elections which I found in a newspaper this week. 
 These elections show that the State is still Demo 
 cratic and that it is solid for tariff reform. Rod said 
 that New Jersey was no gage to go by, for it was the 
 only Confedrate State in the North durin the war. 
 He said New Jersey voted the Democrat ticket 
 right through and never flickered till the idiot Dem 
 ocrats put old Horrors Greely up for President. He 
 said he d like to bet that New Jersey would be votin 
 
The Senate and the Seignorage. 221 
 
 the Democrat ticket fifteen years after Mississippi 
 had been captured by the Republicans. 
 * -x- * 
 
 The infernal conspirators who are roastin and tryin 
 to ruin the distinguished Southern statesman, Colo 
 nel Brackenridge, are havin a good time this week 
 but there will be a day of vengence. I m only sorry 
 that the woman in this case is a Kaintuckian. If 
 she was only a Yankee we could show up the whole 
 thing as a conspiracy on the part of the dirty Yan 
 kees. But it s a conspiracy just the same. I think 
 Brackenridge is comin out all right. At the same 
 time he s such a religious crank that it s hard to stick 
 up for him. I thought there was goin to be some 
 fun when the lawyers got into a row the other day 
 but the thing petered out. Down South a case like 
 this, if it ever got to court at all, would be wound up 
 with a shootin match between the lawyers and the 
 principals and the Jedge would be lucky if he didn t 
 get pinked hisself. That would settle it and ther 
 would be no more heard of it. I was a-defendin 
 Billy Brackenridge in the Metropolitan bar-room the 
 other evenin and tellin what a good man and noble 
 Confederate soldier he was, when a cream-faced Yan 
 kee spoke up and said that he d tell a story that 
 would express his sentiments. He said two old 
 farmers up in his State of Maine lived nabors to 
 gether for forty year and the two families was just 
 like one. Boys and girls was raised and schooled 
 together. One Sunday mornin old Seth Pettingill, 
 which was the name of one, was settin and sunnin 
 hisself on a fence when old Jethro Bingham, his na- 
 bor, come walking through the medder lookin very 
 sad. Comin up to Seth the usual greetins was ex 
 changed when old B. said : " Seth you and me has 
 been nabors for a good many years and our families 
 
222 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 has never had no trouble. Now, you know that boy 
 Silas of yourn has been courtin my girl Mary Ann 
 pretty steady for two years. Well, I ve come to tell 
 you that he has deceived and betrayed her." " Je- 
 whillikens ! " said old Pettingill, "you don t tell me? 
 Well, I ain t the least bit supprised. He s a durned 
 keerlessboy; he broke our rake yisterday." And 
 the Yank went on to say that whatever else might 
 be said about Brackenridge it would have to be ad 
 mitted that he was keerless when it come to dealins 
 with the fair sext. I admitted that and said that 
 moreover he might be said to be reckless but I 
 showed him how Dannel Webster and Bonyparte and 
 the Sultan of Turkey and President Cleveland and 
 thousands of distinguished men had been subjeckted 
 to the same criticism. I find that its Brackenridge s 
 hypocrasy that makes it hard to defend him. Nobody 
 but us old soldiers wants to forgive him for that. I 
 can forgive a Confedrate soldier for anything except 
 votin the Republican ticket and that s one crime 
 that the Brackenridges don t commit mutch. 
 * -x- -x- 
 
 The hard times is still onto me. Old Mrs. 
 Toombs has raised the price of board a dollar a week 
 at Hominy Hall. She got old Judge Fairfax Carter 
 to make the sad announcement at breakfast Monday 
 mornin. The devotion of that grand old man to 
 Hominy Hall is very touchin, but as he hasn t paid 
 but very little board durin the past six months the 
 raise don t bother him mutch. We ve got in two 
 more tabel boarders and there is a sort of " God- 
 bless-our-home " air about the place now. I was 
 forced to sell my two game cocks this week all I 
 had left (one of em was killed by a low-bred nigger 
 chicken belongin to a Dutch saloon-keeper here that 
 I fout last Saturday night). Lem Tolliver sold em 
 
The Senate and the Seignorage. 223 
 
 to old Shadbelly Dunwoody, the whisky man, in 
 Alexander, for $5 a piece whilst I ll take my oath 
 the pair was worth $25. But the worst thing about 
 it all is that I ve been forced to go cappin for a faro 
 bank here on a per centage. The place is run by a 
 chap from Tennessee who was a Captain under Pat 
 Cleburne, and he has a warm side for old Confeds. 
 He thought I could steer in a good deal of Southern 
 trade and I think I can. The evenin after I made 
 the arrangement I got a young clerk in Hoke Smith s 
 office to stake me with $15 and I went up and played 
 on the shares. They skinned me in exactly twenty 
 minutes and when I ast the dealer for my per cent- 
 age he appeared dazed and wanted to know what I 
 meant. I said : " Don t I git a commission on all 
 money won from suckers that I steer in ? Well, I 
 steered myself up against this game, and I want my 
 per centage." This led to high words, but it was 
 settled by the dealer simply lendin me five on per 
 sonal account. I ve been speakin to the Sergent-at- 
 Arms of the House, and he thinks he can give me a 
 little job up there, where I will be a sort of custodian 
 of spit-boxes. The place don t amount to mutch but 
 it won t interfere with my gamblin work, and it s 
 plain to me that we ain t goin to get any decisive 
 action on War Claims this session thanks to Mr. 
 Grover Cleveland, the traitor to our Cause. 
 K- * * 
 
 I want to say that I think it would pay the Gov 
 ernment right well to start here a little Congressional 
 Gold Cure establishment. I never saw so much lushin 
 as I see on the Democratic side of the House. We 
 have from fifteen to thirty men drunk here all the 
 time, and it s a gay day we don t have four or five 
 men in the alcohol department of Providence Hospi 
 tal. Some of our Southern members have been 
 
224 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 jagged since the session opened. It wouldn t cost 
 much to add a small Keely department to the Marine 
 Hospital, which is in old Ben Butler s house, near the 
 Capitol. I wouldn t mind runnin it myself. It s so 
 close and handy to the House end that the votes of 
 members under treatment could be taken without 
 trouble. I tell you now that if somethin isn t done, 
 we ll lose six or eight good Democrat members be 
 fore the first of July. I dred the approach of hot 
 weather. Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. Sim Driscoll writes me that my postmaster, 
 Mirabeau Clay, is still blowin in all the money he gets 
 for postage stamps, and he wants a receiver appointed 
 for the office. That nigger, Sippio Judson, who I 
 had turned out of the postoffice to make a place for 
 Clay, wasn t short a cent, and that s what makes it 
 embarassin. Lycurgus Smoot and Driscoll have 
 three times passed the hat to raise money to straighten 
 out Clay s accounts. I think I ll have him fired out 
 and have my son Oglethorpe appointed. I ve wrote 
 Driscoll to go over and tell my son Plantagenet to 
 give him one of my Queen Bess fox terrier pups. 
 Sim is crazy on dogs and one of these pups the 
 best bred dogs in Alabama will fix his inflooence 
 for us on the postoffice. 
 
STARTING THE STEVENSON BOOM. 
 
 THE MAJOR S CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT HIS SON 
 APPOINTED P. M. AT BRIAR ROOT THE MARRIAGE 
 OF MISS TOOMBS A FAMOUS TEXAN RECALLED 
 SYMPATHY FOR COLONEL BRECKENRIDGE. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON CITY, March 23. 
 
 I had a little informal meetin of Southern gentle 
 men in the dinin room of Hominy Hall nite before 
 last to discuss the next Presidency. Judge Fairfax 
 Carter acted as a sort of chairman, and we had with 
 us Captain Bushrod Huger, Major Houston, Pow- 
 hatan Spottswood, of Virginia, and a half dozen 
 square-toed men from various secktions of the South. 
 I had a gallon of good whiskey that Mose Hampton 
 kindly let me have, and there was good feelin all 
 around. Judge Carter made us a little address in 
 which he said that it had pained him intentsly to 
 give up his faith in Cleveland, which he had regarded 
 at one time as the Moses of the South. But, he 
 said, it was plain now that Cleveland had allied him 
 self with the Money Power, that the Rober Barens 
 had him by the umbilicuss and that the South had 
 nothin to expect from him aside from the offices it 
 had already bagged. He went on to state in his 
 courtly, polished way how our Southern War Claims 
 had been ignored by Congress simply because it was 
 known that Cleveland was indifferent to em ; how 
 our demand for State bank currency, though in 
 dorsed by the Chicago platform, had been ignomini- 
 15 (225) 
 
226 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 ously rejected at Cleveland s demand ; how he had 
 defeated free silver; how that he had done all that 
 he could to thwart a Free Trade measure ; how he 
 had insulted the highest-toned and chivalrous gen 
 tlemen of the South, and how he was now gettin 
 ready, at the demand of the Eastern goldbugs, to 
 veto our Signorage bill which would have give us 
 more money at oncet. He damd old Cleveland up 
 hill and down dale and declared that the time had 
 come for an alliance between the Democrats of the 
 South and the West. His sentiments was loudly 
 applauded and every gentlemen present filled his 
 glass and drunk to the new alliance. Bein called on 
 I indorsed every word the Judge said and proceeded 
 to skin the White House hog alive. I briefly com 
 pared what we of the South had expected of Cleve 
 land with what we had really got, and I told em 
 that we was like the man that went out to get wool 
 and come home with his head shaved. I said that 
 the time had come for the South to put up its can 
 didate for President and compel the Northern dough 
 face Democrats to accept him. I said that my 
 choice had been Gen. Gordon, of Geaujah, but that 
 he had weakened hisself by lecturin around the 
 country and wavin the Stars and Stripes on the 
 stage up North. I said we must put up a fighter 
 like Col. Bill Gates of my State a genuine Confed 
 erate. I showed how we could carry the South, and 
 with a Western man on for Vice-President and the 
 right kind of platform we could scoop the entire 
 Populis vote of the West. 
 
 One or two gentlemen endorsed my views but 
 Judge Carter said that the logical successor to Cleve 
 land was Vice-President Adlai Stevenson. He spoke 
 of his Southern birth and his thorough sympathy 
 with the South both endurin and sence the war. He 
 
Starting the Stevenson Boom. 
 
 said that he couldn t be more of a Southern gentle 
 man if he had been cradled in South Caroleena and 
 nurtured in Virginia. He pointed out his greenback 
 record which demonstrated that he was with the 
 South in the universal demand for more money. 
 He went over his Free Trade record which was 
 good. He showed how he had been snubbed by 
 Cleveland, how he had ast for offices for twenty-five 
 members of the Ewing family and had only got six. 
 He said the South owed it to its transplanted son 
 to vindicate him. He said that while Adlai would be 
 credited to-Illinoy he was just as much of a South 
 erner as Wade Hampton. He thought the ticket 
 ought to be Stevenson and Gates. The suggestion 
 met with loud approval. We all took a drink on it 
 and it was decided to invite General Stevenson to a 
 little dinner at an early day. It done me good to 
 hear the denunciation of old Cleveland at this little 
 gatherin. His hog s ears must have burnt that nite. 
 Sence the meetin I have talked to numerous South 
 ern representatives and they all heartily endorse 
 Stevenson and Gates. We ve got the thing agoin 
 and it s a winner, mind you. I believe in startin in 
 early in these matters. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I went right to work last week and had my son 
 Oglethorpe appointed postmaster at Briar Root in 
 place of Mirabeau Clay. The change was made at 
 oncet but this mornin Driscoll wired me a telegraph 
 message that Clay was drunk and that he had two of 
 the ornery Kincaid boys and old Jim Anderson, who 
 served two years in the penitentiary for horse stealin, 
 in his place with the doors and windows barred, all 
 armed, and swearin that they won t give up the of 
 fice. This is a nice pickel. If the soundrels have 
 whiskey enough and, of course they wouldn t un- 
 
228 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 dertake this sort of a dido without at least three gal 
 lons in stock they ll all be paralized and helpless by 
 tomorrer. I dispatched Sim to send in to Tuskeegee 
 for the U. S. Marshal to settle Clay s hash. I hate 
 them Federal officers but they are useful at times. 
 I hope this business will be kept quiet for if it gets 
 out it ll hurt me here as to what little inflooence I 
 have. I ll bet a hundred to ten that if Clay bothers 
 either of my boys about his being chounced out of 
 the postoffice the angel orchestry in new Jerusalem 
 will be reinforced by a very abel base fiddler before 
 this month runs out. I flatter my old self that I ve 
 raised them boys like gentlemen and the man that 
 gets the best of them when they re lookin on will 
 have no trouble about gettin a faverable job in a 
 dime museum. Mebby Clay will wait and take it out 
 of me. If so, I ll be obliged. I knowed his old 
 daddy, who was shot at Shiloh, and his grandfather, 
 who owned the famous race horse Tallyhooter, and 
 who won $300 on a cock fight in Mobile in 1845. 
 He s related to the fightin Rhett family of S. C, but 
 he knows what to expect when he goes up against 
 me. If he realizes the value of good health he ll 
 keep his hands off both me and my boys. The 
 trouble with Clay is that he couldn t stand prosper 
 ity. I think his granddaddy died givin a snake show 
 down in Talladega durin court week. Clay s appe 
 tite for whiskey has increased terrible sence he begun 
 lickin postage stamps for the Government. 
 
 -* * * 
 
 Another calamity has overtook us at Hominy Hall. 
 The daughter of our landlady, Miss Georgiana Vir 
 ginia Toombs, has been surrepticiously married to a 
 goodfornothin young man named Cadmus Pettigrew, 
 from S. C. He is a clerk in Hoke Smith s depart 
 ment and while he comes of good family stock he is 
 
Starting the Stevenson Boom. 229 
 
 as poor as a Japanese tinker. He has a salary of 
 $800 a year and it takes that to keep him in cigaroots 
 and hair oil. I ve been expectin somethin of this 
 kind for the past three months, for I ve seen him and 
 Virgie quite frequent snugglin softly together like on 
 the parlor sofa with the gas turned down to the neigh 
 borhood of zero. This pimple-facet scrub will now be 
 dumped down on the boardin house, free of charge, 
 and that s about what he inveigeled the sweet mag 
 nolia of our home for. The widow is about dis- 
 trackted, but she says she ll make the best of it. I 
 give the young man a piece of my mind this mornin 
 and he had the impudence to say that they lynched 
 a man down in his State the other day for tryin to 
 attend to other people s business without a license. 
 Georgie will make him a good wife, but her prospects 
 would have been improved if she had waited for warm 
 weather and follered off a circus. 
 
 I had the nigger luck to hold an eighth interest in 
 a lottery ticket which netted me $125 in the last 
 drawin. This put me right on my feet financeally, 
 and I am once more in the runnin, head up, tail up 
 and feet a-crackin. What a blessin a well conducted 
 lottery is to the people, and yet a lot of old sneaks 
 are everlastinly squawkin about them and tryin to 
 suppress them. If I can open up a little headquar 
 ters place here for the Stevenson-Oates movement 
 with this little surplus capital I now have, I can pick 
 up some contributions and by actin as secretary I 
 can rake off enough so that I wont be compelled to 
 accept that job of Spittune Cleaner which the Sar- 
 gent-of-Arms of the House has offered me. It pains 
 me to think about gettin down to that. 
 
230 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 This reminds me that I met here this week Colonel 
 Fitzhew, of Texas, who used to be Doorkeeper 
 of the House along somewhere in the sixties. He 
 wrote a letter to a friend down at home tellin how he 
 was whoopin up things and he said in it that he was 
 a biger man than old Grant. Well he was, but it 
 just shows what a cowardly lot of curs there was in 
 the Democrat House then, just as there is now, and 
 dam me if they didn t turn him out of his office. 
 You can t hardly believe that sech a thing ever hap 
 pened but it did. By gracious, a Southern man 
 could stand up here now and abuse old Grant from 
 Boston to Belize and nobody would object much. 
 Colonel Fitzhew is here askin for a place as Chief of 
 Division of the Treasury and I am told he has a lead 
 pipe cinch. I hope he ll land for he s been a badly 
 
 abused man. 
 
 * -x- * 
 
 It touches me deeply to see how Colonel Bracken- 
 ridge is bein tortured in court this week, but he ll get 
 a virdick in his favor or a standoff or I m a army 
 mule. You can bet that there s at least one chival- 
 rick soul on that jury who knows what it is to be a 
 victim of a designin woman and who knows when it s 
 time for real men to stan together. Poor Bracken- 
 ridge has been punished too much for his little peck- 
 adillo, as Judge Carter puts it. He must feel like an 
 old nigger preacher we had down with us who said 
 in a sermon one Sunday : " I tells ye, brederin, I am 
 a man of speriance an I say to you that sin ain t sat- 
 isfyin no it ain t satisfyin." 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
CLEVELAND S LATEST VETO. 
 
 DENOUNCED AS A TRAITOR TO THE SOUTH THE 
 STEVENSON MOVEMENT GETS A FRESH IMPULSE- 
 SAD SACRIFICIAL TALE OF A SOUTHERN WAR 
 CLAIM HOLDOVER REPUBLICANS IN THE DE 
 PARTMENTS DENOUNCED. 
 
 MAJAH, THAT WAS A GREAT EFFORT OF YOURN. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, March 31. 
 
 I must say that I don t know mutch more about 
 this here Signorage bill that old Spermacity up in 
 the White House has vetoed than a groundhog knows 
 
 (231) 
 
232 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 about shoemakin, but I want to say that this veto 
 has put the finishin touch on Clevelandism. From 
 the time this old, ungrateful rhinocerass entered the 
 White House the second time thanks to the votes 
 of the Solid South he has done nothin but chaw up 
 and spit out the Checago platform. He has treated 
 the people of the South and West as though they 
 was a lot of beggars. He has give em a few offices, 
 it is true, but he haint stood up and maintained a 
 single great Democrat prinsiple. From the very 
 jump he has shown that he was the tool of the Money 
 Power and in sympathy with the infernal Rober Bar- 
 ens. We of the South and West wanted this Signo- 
 rage bill to become a law. It would have give us 
 some more money. That was enough for the Wall 
 street thieves. They begun to howl and old Cleve 
 land accepted, as usual, their dicktation. I never 
 heard a man cust as much by representatives of the 
 South sence old Ben Butler s day. I believe, begad, 
 that if Cleveland was up for President to-day he 
 wouldn t get as many votes as the Beast got in the 
 South in 1884. My people will be hot when they 
 hear of this last blow at the hands of the old Buffalo 
 traitor. I hate to use this word, but Judge Fairfax 
 Carter and all of us agree that this is the only thing 
 to do. We ve got to treat Cleveland as a traitorous 
 dog to the prinsiples of Democracy. It would be a 
 good slap in the face to pass the bill in the House 
 over his veto and then raise the black flag on him. 
 He ll get no quarter from the South from this time 
 on. I think we have bagged about all the patronage 
 that we are goin to get and we can afford to cut loose 
 now and fight him to the finish. I m so cussed mad 
 about this thing that I ve made up my mind that if 
 ever General Coxey s army reaches here I m goin to 
 get on a horse and go out and receive em. I ll vol- 
 
Cleveland s Latest Veto. 233 
 
 unteer as an aid on the General s staff, and I ll be 
 proud to lead the boys up to the White House and 
 give old Grovy a serenade. We want a demonstra 
 tion here of some kind to wake the servants of the 
 Money Power up and give em an idee of what the 
 people are thinkin about. I wish I had gone into 
 the movement. I ll bet I could have brought up 
 25,000 good men from the South who d have made 
 this town echo with an old rebel yell that would have 
 made the cowardly Democrat leaders trembel in their 
 socks. If Coxy s scheme works I ain t so certain but 
 what I ll give em a call from the discontented South 
 
 Of course this late performance on the part of old 
 Cleveland has been butter on the griddle of our 
 Stevenson movement. I have already collected some 
 cash and have got a place for headquarters estab 
 lished in F street. I have selected a young man 
 named Calhoun Randolph Barnwell, from Cheraw, 
 S. C., to act as secretary. He is a brilliant writer 
 and highly edducated, but he haint had no employ 
 ment sence he wrote tickets for a bookmaker on the 
 Ivy City track. I was gettin things in shape early 
 in the week when I was called on to arbitrate a 
 question of honour between two of our foremost 
 Southern gentlemen. It seems like they was playin 
 single-handed poker in a room in the Metropolitan 
 Hotel when a nigger waiter boy told em that the 
 bar-keeper would like to have pay for the drinks al 
 ready consumed, the bill amountin to $37 and some 
 cents. One of the gentlemen, Colonel Drane, of 
 Virginia, knockt the boy down and kickt him out of 
 the room. Colonel Kershaw, of Geaujah, who mar 
 ried the daughter of old General Rawson, whose 
 three-year-old Tecumsy made the record on the 
 Metaire track in New Orleans in 1859 and who shot 
 
234 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 Bill Seeds, the gambler, for tryin to bribe his jockey, 
 said that it warnt the gentlemanly thing to lick the 
 nigger when Drane ought to have gone down and 
 killed the bar-keeper. This led to a altercation, both 
 men bein dead game. They first talked about goin 
 out and it was finally agreed to leave the matter to 
 me. I desided that Drane done wrong, as a South 
 ern gentleman, but he kickt on the decision till I got 
 the bar-keeper and the nigger boy to apologize and 
 in that way the whole thing was smoothed over. 
 Major Cloot, of Arkansaw, droppin in, we started a 
 game of draw. This was Tuesday afternoon and we 
 didn t quit playin till the next day at 4 P. M. The 
 kitty took in $97 and when I got out of there I had 
 $4, which was was about twicet as much as any other 
 man in the party had. It was a death struggle for 
 me to save my underdose in that sientifick game. I 
 started out to say that it was this eppesode that in 
 terfered with my political work but it is safe to say 
 that the Stevenson movement is whoopin right along. 
 I haven t talked to a Southern man who doesn t 
 think favorable. I am told that Adlai hisself pre 
 tends to think the movement premature but I expect 
 to get $100 out of him before another week rolls 
 around. * * * 
 
 I haven t got much of a head for jokes but I can 
 enjoy a good thing now and then even though I get 
 the worst of it. I was in at Schoomaker s drinkin 
 emporium last night and I had steam up. Bein sur 
 rounded by a groop of Southern gentlemen, I cut 
 loose on Cleveland and before I knowed it I was 
 makin a set speech which attrackted the attention of 
 everybody in the place. When I finished with a big 
 blast of sulpher there was considerable applause. A 
 fellow, evidently one of our secktion, but to which I 
 had not been introdpoced, stept up to me, and says 
 
Cleveland s Latest Veto. 235 
 
 he : " Majah, that was a great effort of yourn. You 
 are really a rippin fine orator, but I m goin to norate 
 you a little story that Governor O Ferall, over in Vir 
 ginia, peddels. He says an ole nigger in his State 
 was travellin on foot one evenin in the mountains in 
 the western part of the State when night come on, 
 and it was soon so dark he couldn t see the road. A 
 tremendous storm arose and the nigger soon lost his 
 way. When the flashes of lightnin would brighten 
 things up for him he d get out of the brambles and 
 find his way again. The claps of thunder was terri 
 ble. Finally the nigger, who could only see to move 
 when the lightnin flashed, begun to pray. He didn t 
 think to pray for the storm to cease. He just said : 
 Oh, Lordalmity, help dis poh nigger. Give him mo 
 light and less noise. I want to say that the boys 
 smiled and I treated, but they didn t get any more 
 lightnin out of me that evenin. 
 
 * * # 
 
 I seen a pitiable sight here this week. A man 
 named Dalton, from near Savanny, Ga., had his 
 place ript up by Sherman s mersenary thieves in 
 1865 and he s been here about two months with his 
 claim. It amounted to $50,000 and was all proved 
 up, reglar cotton, fence rails, bacon, mules, game 
 chickens, wagons, bed close and a English bulldog 
 valued at $100. Dalton was away with the Confed 
 erate army when the raid was made but he estab 
 lished his loyalty. He thought that all he d have to 
 do with a Southern Democrat Congress would be to 
 hand in his bill and get a check. Well, bein broke 
 and unable to borrer any more he sold his claim 
 yesterday to a Government clerk here for $300 cash ! 
 I seen the transaction, and by the souls of the gal 
 lant Southrons that fell in the Cause I was never so 
 conspickuously mad and heartpained in my whole 
 
236 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 life. I can t trust myself to discuss the matter. 
 And to think that we havn t got an ex-Confederate 
 Representative up in that half-drunk, half-crazy, 
 cowardly House that dare speak up for the right and 
 such scenes as this bein enakted right under their 
 noses ! By Jewpiter, I feel like gettin a couple of 
 pistols and takin to the road ! 
 
 * * * 
 
 Things are quiet in and around the Brier Root 
 postoffice. My son, who is now P. M., writes me 
 that he is in possession of the ranch and runnin it 
 on business principles. Mirabeau Clay and his 
 crowd, after bein drunk in the place for nearly three 
 days, surrendered. He give Ogle some of his slack 
 and the boy knockt him down and kickt three of his 
 ribs loose. He wont be out of the house for a 
 month. There s considrable feelin in the neighbor 
 hood against me but I guess it ll keep till I get home. 
 Clay s family is married into nearly every family in 
 the township except ours and he has no less than 
 fifty cousins of one kind and another and some of 
 em are wild hogs, you bet. But they ll cool off in 
 time. Ogle says that the P. O. aint worth over $40 
 a year and that if he isn t aloud to sell liquor and 
 segars in the place he ll throw the thing up for he 
 can t spare so much time from the plantation. 
 & -x- -x- 
 
 The conduct of that man Tom Reed up in the 
 House has become unbearable. The idea that he 
 can cavort around the House as he does when we 
 have seventy-six ex-Confederate soldiers there to 
 say nothin "of twenty-five or thirty ex-Confederate 
 door-tenders and sergeant-at-arms is hewmiliatin. 
 I wonder that he hasn t been thrown out one of the 
 south windows ear this. I think Meredith, of Alex 
 ander, will lick him before the session is over, He 
 
Cleveland s Latest Veto. 237 
 
 seems to be a fightin man of the old Southern 
 school but you can t tell. The bray of a jackass is 
 more terrifyin to a man that never heard it before 
 than the howl of a tiger. I think, though, that 
 Meredith is due to wallop a dam Yankee before the 
 weather gets hot. 
 
 # * # 
 
 I was much astonished and disgusted to-day to 
 learn that are still about 800 Republican clerks in 
 the departments here that could be kickt out if our 
 people wanted to kick em. And many of these 
 blagards was in the Yankee army and helped to 
 despoil us. This shows how we have been betrayed 
 by the Administration in which we placed our full 
 faith. We have Southern gentlemen waitin for rec 
 ognition here who haven t a change of shirts and 
 who have lived on saloon lunch crackers, pickt up 
 around town, till they cant blow their noses with 
 their fingers without raisin a cloud of cracker dust. 
 But as long as Cleveland has turkey stuffed with 
 oysters what does. he care? The ignomineous and 
 foresworn son of a journeyman soul saver ! 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. The gallant Colonel Brackenridge is bearin 
 up noble under the base conspiracy set up by the 
 Yankees to annoy him. The saddest feature of this 
 infemous attempt to embarass and slander a 
 Southern gentleman is that they have been able to 
 find a Kentucky woman unpatriotic enough to lend 
 herself to the scheme. I am glad to know that when 
 she tried to shoot the Colonel he stole her pistol. 
 That was a game thing. 
 
THE RHODE ISLAND ELECTION. 
 
 IT IS REGARDED AS A REBUKE TO THE FALSE AD 
 MINISTRATION THE WHISKEY TROUBLES IN 
 SOUTH CAROLINA THE FIGHTING EDGEFIELD 
 DISTRICT A GEORGIA WAR HORSE THE STEVEN 
 SON CAMPAIGN GOING ON FAMOUSLY. 
 
 HOMINY HALL, 
 WASHINGTON, April 6. 
 
 There is considerable rejoicin here this week in 
 Republican sircles over the apparent upsettin of the 
 Democratic apple cart in Road Island, or Rogues 
 Island. I don t care a owl s hoot about this thing 
 for I attach no wait to the affair, in view of all the 
 circumstances. At the same time I must say that 
 this thing has caused me to tilt the bottle more than 
 usual this week. I regard the result of the election 
 in Rode Island as one more rebuke for the ring-tailed 
 Democrat leaders who pledged theirselves to wipe 
 out the inniquitous Tariff aad who ought to have 
 done it the first month of the session of Congress. 
 Their failure to carry out the promicis made has in- 
 sensed the people. I believe that Road Island to 
 day is as good a Democratic State as Maryland, but 
 the people up there, as well as down in my secktion, 
 are disgusted with the shilly-shallying of their Con 
 gress, which now seems to have been bought up 
 completely by the Money Power and the Rober 
 Baren gold bugs of Wall street. I wisht a few of us 
 had thought of Coxey s idee about three months ago 
 and had brought up about 50,000 men in a solid 
 (238) 
 
The Rhode Island Election. 239 
 
 army from the South to demand from Congress the 
 wipin out of the Tariff, the issuin of more money and 
 the payment of Southern War Claims, to say nothin 
 about the cuttin down of Yankee pensions. A week 
 would have done the business. It may be necessary 
 for the South to do somethin of this kind yet. It 
 looks as though we wouldn t get our legislation in 
 any other way, though the whole country, only a little 
 over a year ago, said we was to have it. And we 
 would have had it, too, if it hadn t been for the trea 
 son of Grover Cleveland. That big fat man should 
 never be fergive for he obtained his second term 
 under false pretenses. He is a meaner skunk than 
 Benedick Arnold, and he will be in big luck if he 
 isn t impeeched and hung. When this here Tom-tit 
 Congress feels the anger of the people its goin to 
 move and the man who is goin to get crushed, the 
 first two letters of his name is G. C. Mark my pre- 
 
 dicktion ! 
 
 * * * 
 
 I wish I had been with the boys down in South 
 Caroleena this week. What a singen time they ve 
 had of it. I m surprised that the whole State don t 
 rise up and put a stop to the interference with the 
 whisky business. To think of Ben Tillman, as good 
 a Confederate as fought in our war for Independens, 
 making a blue-nosed monkey of hisself in this mat 
 ter ! There never was such game cocks on earth as 
 them South Carolina boys. Why, up in the Edgefield 
 district a stranger couldn t show his nose there before 
 the war without runnin the risk of bein shot for not 
 havin his hair cut just right. Fightin ! Why, dam 
 it, they get up pic-nics there now just to shoot off 
 matches between neighbors that havn t been friendly 
 and the boys that ain t mixed up lay bets on the 
 outcome. I was talkin to old Col. Pedee in the Met- 
 
240 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 ropolitan barroom about that great fightin secktion 
 last night. He is a South Carolenian, married into 
 the Pickens family, and he is proud of his warlike 
 State. He told a story which I enjoyed. He said 
 that the fighters in the Edgefield district had what 
 they called the " Twelve Gospels of Edgefield " 
 that is, a six-shooter on each hip and that a Evan- 
 gelis that didn t have his gospels with him down 
 there day or night was a sickly sort of person and not 
 expected to live long. He said that when his ridge- 
 ment went into the fight at Gains Mills he noticed 
 that Bill Booker, the color-bearer, was dodgin Yan 
 kee bullets like a duck in a hail storm. Bill acted 
 real shameful though he didn t show his white 
 feather. He had supposed Bill to be the gamest 
 man in the ridgement. In the evenin, after the shindy 
 he spoke to Bill about his duckin business an Bill 
 simply said, " Ef I hadn t dodged, Majah, some of 
 them Yanks might have killed me." He simply re 
 marked to William that as a soldier he should perform 
 his duty to his country heroically, and be prepared 
 at all times to meet his fate. " Why, Majah," said 
 Bill, " I come from the Edgefield district, and by 
 gawd, I come into this here war to keep from gettin 
 
 shot ! " 
 
 * * * 
 
 My old friend and war-hoss, Gen. Clem. Evans, is 
 makin a hot fight for Governor down in Geaujah. 
 The General was wounded three times durin the war 
 and he s makin his race squarely on his Confederate 
 record. That s what I like to see. Some of the 
 ginny pigs up North is squeakin, but the more they 
 objeck the more votes Clem will have. No man 
 should be elected to an office worth $500 a year in 
 our secktion who didn t do military service for the 
 glorious Confederacy. We can t pension our old 
 
The Rhode Island Election. 241 
 
 heroes, but we can give them the offices. Gen. 
 Evans denounces as poltroons the white-livered 
 Northerners who are opposed to his policy of runnin 
 on his war record. I never see a dozen Yankees that 
 want poltroons anyway. They had to hire Irishmen 
 and Dutchmen to do their fightin in the war. Every 
 body is poltroons who object to Southern gentlemen 
 bein proud of their war record. I can tell a poltroon 
 a mile off, and I ll bet Gen. Evans can, too. We 
 don t have em in the South, thank God. I don t be 
 lieve a poltroon could live on the glorious soil of the 
 South or breath its pure and upliftin air. If he hap 
 pens to be born that way he certainly wouldn t reach 
 his full growth not with us. I think from what I 
 hear, that by comin out boldly on his Confederate 
 war record, and defyin the Northern poltroon, Gen 
 eral Evans will be elected unanimous. I wouldn t 
 give much for the house and barn of the man that 
 votes agin him. The General has a watch charm 
 made out of the shin-bone of a Yankee soldier that 
 he chopt up with a bowie knife at Malvern Hill and 
 he keeps it right at the front wears it when he 
 preaches a Methody sermon. He is religious, but 
 he s as game a man as ever broke into a smoke house. 
 * * * 
 
 The boys down at home sent me a nice little pres 
 ent the other day. What do you think it was? Why, 
 about 20 pounds of real, ole-fashioned Alabama jole ! 
 They dont have jole any place on earth but in the 
 South and there s no place in the South for it like 
 our part of Alabama. Its the way we smoke it. We 
 had a treat in Hominy Hall when that jole got here. 
 But the greens around this secktion are not as good 
 as our home greens, though we sent over to Virginia 
 and got em. The greens here dont get the sunshine 
 that our greens get, What a blessin it is to live in 
 II 
 
242 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 the South, where the Lord has showered his favers 
 on everything. I d give a dollar right now for a nip 
 of mint from that old bed right behind my spring- 
 house ! 
 
 * * * 
 
 I am managin to get enough funds to keep the 
 Adlai Stevenson Headquarters open. A couple of 
 poker tables in the back room helps to bring the 
 Southern boys around, and the movement to make 
 Adlai the next President is goin right along. I had 
 one of Adlai s old lithografs in the front window in 
 the early part of the week labeled " Our Next Presi 
 dentA Man that Wont Renig." One of Ad s 
 friends come down and said that the Vice President 
 hoped that I would foredraw it for the reason that 
 he couldn t get near enough to the White House 
 fence now to hand a red apple through to the old 
 Presidential hog, and he was afraid that if Cleveland 
 heard of this he d give orders to the police to keep 
 him on the east side of Fourteenth street. He said 
 that Adlai didn t care so much for hisself, but he 
 hoped to get one more office for a member of the 
 Ewing family. That s always the way with these 
 pennyroyal statesmen. I ll make that man Stevenson 
 President if he ll only keep his nerve stiff and let it 
 be known that he doesn t care a continental for old 
 Cleveland and the Rober Barens that own him. 
 x- * # 
 
 There s more trouble about that P. O. down at 
 Brier Root. Ogle writes that Mirabeau Clay wouldn t 
 allow niggers to get their mail in the P. O. He 
 throwed all their letters and papers into a store-box 
 in front of the office and they sent a black boy up 
 to get em in a bag and take em to a sort of post- 
 office where they was distributed. The niggers 
 complained to .the Department ^nd the P. has, 
 
The Rhode Island Election. 243 
 
 ordered this business to stop, insistin that the law 
 does not recognise color in the postel service. Ogie 
 threatens to resign if he has to wait on niggers. I 
 wrote him to-day to hire a nigger boy that can read 
 and write to help him handle the nigger mail. If he 
 reads and writes well he ll be great assistance to 
 Ogle, who was too sick and too fond of huntin when 
 a boy to go to school. Nice Democrat P. O. man 
 agement we have here in Washington under big- 
 bellied Bissell, who doesn t know no more about the 
 needs and feelins of the South than a Jew-billed 
 cockytoo. 
 
 K * # 
 
 I have no heart to discuss the Brackenridge case 
 for the sufferens of that good man distress me. He 
 is bound to come out clear and whole and better 
 than he ever was. I hear that his sad experience 
 has indooced the members of the House to organize 
 a Society for the Protection of Aged Congressmen 
 from Syrens. Judge Holman, of Indianny, is Presi 
 dent. Between the persecution of this great South 
 erner, Brackenridge, and the fact that Cleveland has 
 appointed a dirty, greasy, hoss-lipped nigger from 
 Kansas as Recorder of Deeds in this city makes me 
 feel like pronouncin a funeral oration over the Dem 
 ocrat party or enlistin in General Coxey s army of 
 decayed gentlemen. But the Democrat party is like 
 Canady thistles it can not be put down. It is as 
 blessed as the man that setteth on a red-hot stove 
 and who shall rise again. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 
 P. S. A letter from Plantagenet says his two- 
 year olc} that he traded out of Gen. Hempstea<J 
 
244 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 son when he was drunk is a great hopper and he s 
 goin to enter him for the Sour Mash Cup at the 
 Tuskeegee races this fall. He calls the colt Center 
 Shot. I know his strain and it is good. He s by 
 Brass Cartridge and he by Self-Cocker, out of Rapid 
 Fire. We generally manage to have a good runnin 
 hoss on our plantation. 
 
SAD CASE OF COL. BRECKENRIDGE. 
 
 THE MAJOR HEARS THE FORENSIC ADDRESS OF A 
 GREAT KENTUCKY BARRISTER THE VERDICT 
 PAINS HIM HOW TWO SOUTHERN VETERANS OB 
 TAINED A DRINK SENATOR HILL S ATTITUDE DE 
 PLORED. 
 
 HOMINY HALL. 
 WASHINGTON, D. C, April 14. 
 
 I made a sharp point of bein on hand last Tues 
 day to hear Colonel Phil. Thompson s oration in the 
 Brackenridge case. It was refreshin to hear him do 
 up that Pollard girl in old Kaintucky style. Lem 
 Tolliver, who was with me, said it was the first 
 thing he d heard in months to make him feel at 
 home. Colonel Phil, stood up like a man and not 
 only denounced the nasty woman with Southern 
 ferver, but he throwed Colonel Brackenridge right 
 onto the manhood of the jury. He come right out 
 and said that every real man had been in just such 
 scrapes and he made it clear that it was the duty of 
 all genuine men to stand together in matters of this 
 kind. I heard some men sayin after the speech 
 that Colonel Phil, oughtn t to have said that it was 
 better for a young woman to take up with a nice, 
 intellectooal statesman of distincktion than to 
 marry a common, ornery clodhopper. But that s 
 sound Kaintuck doctrine and I d like to see it put in 
 the next Democrat platform in that State. The 
 dressin down that Phil, give that brazen Pollard 
 will last her for some time. I hear this woman, who 
 is a disgrace to the Blue Grass State, has a big 
 
 (245) 
 
246 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 brother. Why he don t call Phil, out or why Brack- 
 enridge s fightin son Deshay haint shot him is 
 more than I can understand but you can bet there ll 
 be music when this trial is over. I don t suppose 
 there is a prominent statesman in this town that 
 hasn t been in a dozen tangle ups with designin 
 women and yet everybody s heavin stones at Brack- 
 enridge. The taller-faced Yankees are all tickled 
 because they think that this business has injured 
 the Colonel. It hasn t hurt a hair on his head and 
 I ll bet he will be in the Senate before five years. 
 Southern people don t lay much stress on matters of 
 this kind. They expect it among high-toned, intel- 
 lectooal gentlemen in publick life and they are right 
 to do so. I ve had some experience myself in a 
 small way and I know that a man always stands to 
 get the worst of it. I was the first man to shake 
 Phil. Thompson s hand after he got through his 
 speech and we went across the street and took a 
 drink. His address has put him at the front of the 
 bar and it is at the front of the bar that I usually see 
 
 him. 
 
 * * * 
 
 We ve had here in Washington since last August 
 two remarkable gentlemen, Colonel Darius Hawkins, 
 from Mississippi, and Major Tecumsey Dodger, from 
 Arkansaw. They both come on here to get counsel- 
 ships, and have long been familiar in the ranks of the 
 army of the Unemployed. They knowed each other 
 in Kirby Smith s command, and they have been seen 
 together, walking about arm in arm every day for 
 nine months. They was fairly well dressed when 
 they got here, but day by day, as their hopes have 
 sunk and their funds have got lower and lower, they 
 have become seedier and shabbier. They used to be 
 good customers at my lunch table when my poker 
 
Sad Case of Col. Breckenridge. 247 
 
 parlor was in blast. It has been real pitiful to see 
 em of late, slowly walkin about the streets, with their 
 arms locked together for mutooal support like the 
 United-we-stand pictur on the seal of Kaintucky, 
 peepin into saloons to see if there was anybody in 
 side that would treat. They always talked gravely 
 together, these victims of old traitor Cleveland, and 
 the dignity they put on got pathetiker and patheti- 
 ker as their shoes wore out. I was in at Shoemaker s 
 the other afternoon and I witnessed a scene that 
 touched me deeply. The Colonel and the Major 
 come slowly in and seein no show to be treated got 
 off in a corner of the front room and fisht around in 
 their pockets for some change. Together they man 
 aged to scrape up pennies enough for a fifteen-cent 
 drink. The Colonel took the pot, and drawin on his 
 lile thread glove he advanced to the bar with the 
 Major on one arm and his cane under the other. 
 Leanin careless like up agin the rail he said rather 
 proud : " Have a drink, Majah ? " " No, I thank 
 ye, Colonel, little too early in the mawnin for me." 
 " Well, give me some of your best whiskey," said the 
 Colonel to the bar-keeper, at the same time layin 
 down his collection of pennies. The bottle and the 
 glass was passed to him and pourin out a tumblerfull 
 he swallowed about half the contents and smacked 
 his lips. " By gracious," he said to the Major, " you ve 
 made a mistake in not joinin me ; that s glorious 
 whiskey ; best I ve found in town ; just taste it." 
 Passing the glass to the Major the old man took it 
 and drained the last drop. " Right you are, Colonel. 
 That s a fine article of licker, sah." Then they 
 locked arms and majestickally strode out together. 
 The bar-keeper simply looked at em and whistlin 
 softly said, " Well, that s new." These heart-rendin 
 scenes I am witness to about a dozen times a day. 
 
248 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 I only wisht old Cleveland knowed what it was to 
 have to work for a drink that way. Perhaps he d 
 have some compassion in his bouls. 
 * * * 
 
 That worthless young Cadmus Pettigrew, who 
 married dear Miss Georgiana Virginia Toombs, and 
 who has been camped here in Hominy Hall ever 
 sense, has not only not paid a cent of board, but he 
 has been invitin a lot of scabby young Southern 
 clerks in to dinner every day just to show off. The 
 poor old widow spoke to me about the cussed impo 
 sition and ast me to speak to the ninnyhammer about 
 it. As I am not interested in seein this boardin 
 house collapse, I took him into the parlor yesterday 
 and remonstrated with him. He got frisky and be 
 gun to cuss me for interferin in family affairs. I slapt 
 his face and he started to pull his gun. I knockt him 
 down and kickt him out into the street, and do you 
 believe, I had all I could do to keep his wife from 
 tarin my little fringe of hair off the back of my neck. 
 This lovely girl that uset to write poetry about me 
 raved like a she tiger, and it busied her ma mighty 
 sharply to keep her from hittin me with a yaller spit- 
 tune. The old woman was quite angry with me, too, 
 and its no sure thing that I won t have to leave the 
 house myself. Judge Fairfax Carter is intercedin 
 for me, and he has considerable influence with the 
 old lady, though he is behind one hundred dollars on 
 board. This unfortunate brawl has upset the dignity 
 of the Hall very much. This afternoon young Petti- 
 grew sent me a challenge by one of his young cub 
 clerks, and I would have pulled his snout if it hadn t 
 been that I always respeck the Code. I told the sec 
 ond that I would submit the matter to a Court of 
 Honour, and if they don t accept I ll slap both of 
 their jaws the first time I meet them. I want no 
 
Sad Case of Col. Breckenridge. 249 
 
 bigad nonsense. It s bad enough to put up with 
 hard grub without bein insulted for doin just right. 
 We have had liver for breakfast three straight 
 mornins, and that s a dreadful bad sign. 
 * # # 
 
 I went up to the Senate to hear Dave Hill s speech 
 and was sorry for it. Nothin that I have heard since 
 I ve been in Washington has so pained and shocked 
 me. As he went on to criticize the Income tax and 
 throw cold water on the whole Wilson bill I could 
 hardly restrain myself from throwin Senatorial court 
 esy to the devil, and denouncin the New York Sena 
 tor from my seat in the gallery. I never was so 
 Jehovally mad in the whole course of my natural 
 life. My first impulse was to accost Mr. Hill as he 
 passed out of the Senate and publicly twist his years, 
 but when he pitched into Mr. Falstaff up in the 
 White House, I softened at oncet and decided to 
 spare him the hewmiliation that I had stored up for 
 him. I am glad to know that I am not the only man 
 who felt wronged and insulted by this shameful 
 speech. I heard that a very distinguished Southern 
 Congressman, whose name I withhold for the present, 
 is so thoroughly outraged that he has carefully laid 
 his plans to pick a quarrel with Senator Hill with a 
 view to bodily chastizin him for his utterances. 
 There is no doubt that David has earned a good 
 lickin for this unfriendly attitude toward the South, 
 and he will have to move softly or he will get it. Our 
 boys are not in a mood to stand any foolishness. This 
 split in the Senate is bad for us. I feel like repeatin 
 a story that Senator George Vest tells on an old chap 
 in his State. This old rooster, President of a bank 
 up at Lexington, and the hardest old Democrat in 
 the State, was travellin in a stage coach when it was 
 held up by Jesse and Frank James. When he was 
 
250 The Major in Washington City. 
 
 standin in the road with the other passengers, holdin 
 his hands up to heaven, Jesse proceeded to help his- 
 self to the fine watch that the Odd Fellows had pre 
 sented him with. With tears in his eyes, the old man 
 said to the bandits: "Boys, your gwyne too far. 
 This thing has got to stop, or begawd the Dim- 
 mycrats will lose this State." I merely hint this to 
 Dave from a Democrat standpoint. 
 
 I have the news from Brier Root to-day that Dris- 
 coll and the boys, at my sudgestion, has organized an 
 Adlai Stevenson Club. This is the first club to or 
 ganize in behalf of Ad. and it s a large point in my 
 favor. I ll go up and tell the V. P. about it and in 
 the event of his election to the Presidency you bet 
 your socks it ll be a likely rooster that gets in a claim 
 ahead of mine. Through the kindness of one of our 
 Southern Congressmen I have just been appointed 
 agent in this city for the Louisiana Lottery, now 
 moved to South America by way of Florida. I have 
 to do business on the dead sneak but if I hustle I 
 can make a hundred a month easy on commission. 
 This, with the little money that is comin to me for 
 the Stevenson movement, sets me up in Easy street 
 again, for I want to say that it s an unprosperous 
 week that I don t catch onto enough at poker to keep 
 the linin in my stummack. 
 
 * * * 
 
 I see by the little elections up North that the in 
 dignant Democrats are still continuin to rebuke and 
 punch their party for not carryin out the pledges 
 made in Checago. If we had knocked hell out of the 
 tariff, paid the Southern War Claims and started up 
 the State banks the Republican party wouldn t have 
 been heard of this year. The people wont stand 
 
Sad Case of Col. Breckenridge. 251 
 
 foolin. When they feel cheated they just rip things. 
 Our Congressmen are beginnin to see a light and it 
 ain t too late to do something, even if old Cleveland 
 has turned his back on the South which made him. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 RANDOLPH GORE HAMPTON. 
 
 (Late Major C. S. A.) 
 * * * 
 
 P. S. As I close this epistol I hear that the Brack- 
 enridge Jury has give that Jezebel woman $15,000. 
 This is sickenin. In Kaintucky or any decent South 
 ern State this critter would of been sent to jail. Well 
 Brack, will never pay a cent and we ll all turn to now 
 and re-eleckt him to Congress with an old Confeder 
 ate whoop. That ll teach the dirty Yankees who are 
 behind this persecution, a little lesson. 
 
KICKED HENRY SBYJGFS 
 
 ROMANTIC NOVELS. 
 
 Published in the United States, England, an 
 Germany. Translated in French, German 
 Italian, and Swedish. 
 
 THE LITTLE LADY OF LAGUNITA 
 PRINCE SCHAMYL S WOOING. 
 THE MASKED VENUS. 
 DELILAH OF HARLEM. 
 THE PASSING SHOW. 
 
 FOR LIFE AND Love* 
 THE ANARCHIST. 
 
 Sold by Dealers Everywhere^ 
 
 Or sent post paid on receipt of priot 
 tn CLOTH, $1.25; PAPER, 50c. 
 
 FRANK TENNYSON NEELY, 
 
 PUBLISHER, 
 
 934 Fifth Aye.. CHICAGO, 
 
==- Chicago Opera House =*=- 
 
 CORNER OF CLARK AND WASHINGTON STS. 
 MR. DAVID HENDERSON, - - - SOLE MANAGER 
 
 . , HOME OF THE . . 
 
 n/r\erieai? CTxtraua^apza Co. 
 
 [he Largest, Strongest, ani Most Popular .... 
 
 . Organization in the United States 
 
 \ SPECTACULAR m in its Most 
 
 PRESENTING 
 
 0000000X ^% Brilliant Form 
 
 EXTRAVAGANZA 
 
 Beginning About May 31st, 
 
 SURPASSING EVEN THE SUCCESSES OF THE PAST ^H 
 
 The Tale of a Wonderful Lamp. 
 
 ftBSOLUTELY IN IDVUGE 
 
 OF ANYTHING EVER 
 BEFORE SEEN. 
 
 Special Features of Startling Brilliancy and Novel Effect! 
 
 WILL EQLIPSE THEM ALL! 
 
 T S . , , MATINEES 
 
MONQN ROUTE 
 
 y & Chicago Ry. 
 
 BETWEEN 
 
 Chicago, La Fayette, 
 Louisville. 
 
 Chicago, Indianapolis, 
 Cincinnati. 
 
 H..AND ALL POINTS SOUTH... 
 
 PuHman Vestibuled Coaches and Compartment Cars 
 on Night Trains. 
 
 Parlor Chair and Dining Cars on Day Trains. 
 The Favorite Route to and from Florida Points. 
 Quick Transit and Close Connections. 
 
 FRANK J. REED, General Passenger 
 
 MONON BLOCK, 
 
 CHICAGO, ILU 
 
IfOBHIA 
 
 3i DAYS 
 
 FROM CHICAGO. 
 
 Variable 
 Route 
 
 Tourist tickets 
 allowing privi 
 leges never be 
 fore accorded, 
 can be obtained 
 with full infor 
 mation, upon 
 application at 
 City Ticket 
 Office, 
 
 2O8 
 
 CLARK ST. 
 
 CHICAGO. 
 
 All meals served 
 in Dining Cars. 
 
 Palace Drawing- 
 Room Sleeping Cars 
 and Tourist Sleepers 
 are run through to 
 San Francisco 
 without change, 
 leaving Chicago 
 ^daily via the 
 
 North-Western Line. 
 
 CHICAGO & NORTH-WESTERN BY. 
 
912911 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY