Posted on 08/19/2003 6:14:00 AM PDT by stainlessbanner
The death of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Oct. 12, 1870, prompted a host of public meetings and gatherings and an outpouring of feelings about a hero of the era.
In Kentucky, one of the largest gatherings took place in Louisville where two speakers were chosen to give the main talks.
One was an obvious selection: John Cabell Breckinridge, a former U.S. vice president and senator, fellow Confederate general and former Confederate Secretary of War.
The other speaker, however, was not so obvious in the years immediately following the war when feelings still ran high.
He had been a strong Union supporter during the Civil War. He had proudly proclaimed himself an abolitionist. As a state legislator, he had authored a resolution calling for the state to "expel the invaders" when Confederate troops entered the commonwealth in September 1861. Moreover, he served as adjutant general for the commonwealth during the war in charge of Home Guard defenses against rebel troops.
His name was John W. Finnell.
Finnell's speech honoring Lee showed an abiding respect for the South's most distinguished general that could only help heal the war's scars and underscored that even enemies remain brothers in arms.
Finnell was born in Winchester on Dec. 24, 1821, the son of Nimrod L. Finnell, a printer by trade.
He graduated from Transylvania University while still a teen-ager, learned the printing business and then switched to law and politics.
He served in the state House of Representatives as representative from Nicholas County in 1845 and 1846. As a young, up-and-coming member of the Whig Party, he caught the eye of Gov. John J. Crittenden who in 1848 made him secretary of state. Finnell was only 27 years old.
By the 1850s, Finnell had moved to Covington where he opened a law office and married Elizabeth Tureman, whom he had met while living in Nicolas County.
The year 1861 proved pivotal for Finnell. He again sought a seat in the state House of Representatives but this time from Kenton County. He ran and won as a pro-Union supporter.
Of more importance, on Oct.12, 1861 as the hostilities began their sixth month, Finnell was appointed by Gov. Beriah MaGoffin to be state adjutant general.
The appointment put him in charge of state military operations, including the organization and use of Home Guards, made up usually of Union supporters too young or too old for regular military service.
The Louisville Journal, some months after his appointment, praised Magoffin's choice of Finnell as the "happiest possible one'' and called Finnell "a patriot of unimpeachable purity, a ready and accomplished man of affairs, a gentleman and a Kentuckian without reproach.''
Finnell gained local support when he announced plans to purchase underclothing for the Home Guard from Covington suppliers, with the Ladies Soldier's Relief Society overseeing the operations. The writer noted the work would be timely for poor, unemployed women in Covington.
Among Finnell's first orders were to merge Home Guard units that had lost members to either the Union or Confederate armies to restore their strength, arrest Union deserters and restrict the use of alcohol by his troops.
Finnell served as state adjutant general until September 1863, when his benefactor, Gov. Magoffin, resigned and James Fisher Robinson was appointed to complete his term.
Finnell's speech honoring Lee came just five years after the war's end.
He called the Confederate general a tower of strength, whose life was not diminished by defeat.
He termed Lee a Christian gentleman, who turned to teaching after the war and who embarked on that new career with the same enthusiasm he had shown as a soldier.
Finally, Finnell said Lee was not a man of one section of the country or of one time, but rather a man who belonged to all of the country and all ages.
The study of Northern Kentucky history is an avocation of staff writer Jim Reis, who covers suburban Kenton County for The Kentucky Post.
See #1722 and my reply here. He's economizing on his posts. Must be a shortage of words somewhere.
Didn't happen.
Walt
Davis continued resistance to the lawful authority long after there was no point to it. He also wanted to continue to resist after Johnston and others told him it was absolutely hopeless.
The fact that he had to be run down in women's clothes ought to tell you something.
Walt
A while back you posted a quotation from the good doctor in which he stated, in reference to Lincoln's speeches between 1854-60, that the "central message of these speeches showed Lincoln to be a 'one-issue' man -- the issue being slavery."
Do you remember the book from which this came and the page number where it may be found? Also - if you have a copy of the full quote could I ask you to share it once again? Thanks in advance.
Walt
Ya think?
"[A] tall-well dressed, black man stood and strode to the rail. There followed a pregnant pause. According to one witness, "Its effects upon the communicants was startling, and for several moments they retained their seats in solemn silence and did not move, being deeply chagrined at this attempt to inaugurate the 'new regime' to offend and humiliate them...". Then another person rose from the pew and walked down the aisle to the chancel rail. He knelt near the black man and so redeemed the circumstance. This grace- bringer, of course was Lee. Soon after he knelt, the rest of the congregation followed his example and shuffled in turn to the rail...Lee's actions were far more eloquent than anything he spoke or wrote."
Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee: A Biography, W.W. Norton & Company Ltd, 1995, p. 372.
Thanks. I'll pull it up at the library. Do you know the page number or chapter?
General Grant National Memorial
Riverside Drive at West 122nd Street
Manhattan
Why Go To Grant's Tomb?The best reason to go to Grant's Tomb is to say that you have been there and have seen it. Since the memorial is free and open seven days a week, it is relatively convenient. So if you have a couple of hours to kill while you are in the city and have some interest in Grant, we recommend that you take a trip over to the northern section of Riverside Park and look around. While in the neighborhood, be sure to stop by Columbia University, Riverside Church, and The Cathedral of St. John The Divine.
Some years back it was a bit of a scandal that Grant's place was a night time hangout for drug dealers and such and that it had become sort of a big public urinal.
I believe you have never been in the military and it is a matter beyond your ability to comprehend. Of course, I would never presume that such a trivial point would stop you from exercising your right to mental defecation.
Consider that two boxers get in the ring and try to beat each other's brains out for 12 rounds. And consider, as frequently happens, when the fighting is over they throw their arms around one another and show their respect for the person who was trying to punch them senseless.
The soldiers on both sides could easily understand and respect the other for fighting with valor and bravery.
Go defecate on the political whores, such as Lincoln et al, who prostituted every law in the land for political purposes.
Few respect politicans or those who pimp for them.
"[A] tall-well dressed, black man stood and strode to the rail. There followed a pregnant pause. According to one witness, "Its effects upon the communicants was startling, and for several moments they retained their seats in solemn silence and did not move, being deeply chagrined at this attempt to inaugurate the 'new regime' to offend and humiliate them...". Then another person rose from the pew and walked down the aisle to the chancel rail. He knelt near the black man and so redeemed the circumstance. This grace- bringer, of course was Lee. Soon after he knelt, the rest of the congregation followed his example and shuffled in turn to the rail...Lee's actions were far more eloquent than anything he spoke or wrote." Emory M. Thomas, Robert E. Lee: A Biography, W.W. Norton & Company Ltd, 1995, p. 372.
I don't think, I know.
Just because something appears in a book does not make it true.
I have -three- biographies of Lee in which the story does not appear:
"The Making of Robert E. Lee", by Micheael Fellman, "Lee Considered" by Alan Nolan, and "The Generals" by Nancy Scott Anderson and Dwight Anderson.
Walt
Now that's an odd statement to originate from none other than Mr. "It appears on the ACW moderated newsgroup and therefore must be true" himself!
What a piece of errant demagoguery! For a thousand years, before the Communists and Nazis reversed the trend, men of character, faith and honorable principles, accorded their battlefield foes respect--the exception being only when they violated the standards of men of honor. You, apparently prefer a regression to total barbarism. Your fanaticsm hardly makes the Republican Party sound appealing to the uncommitted.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Were you there?
That refutes everything he every posted ;o)
Were you there?
Implicit in your school yard taunt is the implication that you -were- there?
Were you?
Walt
Implicit in your school yard response is the implication that UNLESS you were there, it didn't happen. I guess the founding of our country didn't take place, the DoI, the Revolutionary War, WWI etc.
A lie. By Waltian standards if I have a book that does no so state then the account must be a lie. But for further credence try this:
'The controversy that was to rage over whether Davis had worn a disguise was further complicated by the testimony of another Federal observer who had encountered the Confederate President during the confused moments of his capture. Captain James H. Parker, who claimed that he recognized Davis at first glance, denied that the captive had sought a cowardly way to escape: "I defy any person to find a single officer or soldier who was present at the capture ... who will say upon honour that he was disguised in women's clothes ... His wife ... behaved like a lady, and he as a gentleman, though manifestly chagrined at being taken into custody." And Parker, as he said, was qualified to judge: "I am a Yankee, full of Yankee prejudices, but I think it wicked to lie about him."'
Burke Davis, The Long Surrender, New York: Random House, 1985, p. 145.
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