Clarksville chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1857-1865, 1860-01-27
Eloquence of the late w. T.
taf Haskell.

nhSk01l,
A correspondent Of the Columbus Miss,
Democrat, furnishes the following interes
ting communication concerning two Of the
most gifted orators that ever lived in the
South
II is but justice to the memory of Col
Haskell to say that the warmest impulses
of his noble nature we're always directed
TO the South and to Southern interests
not that he loved the Northern Caesar less,
but that he loved the Southern Rome more
1t was the long cherished and often-ex-
pressed wish of his heart to canvass
several other of the States adjoining his
own.
He desired to meet the people of the
South face to face, that'he might exchange
those friendly greetings, that can only be
felt and appreciated in personal interviews.
All we'll do know, chivalric brother
hood of Mississippi, the reception which
his burning eloquence would have secured
for him in your generous and impulsive
natures. | have seen vast multitudes
coming forth to meet him when travelling
through Tennessee. 1t seemed like the
spontaneous ovatiohs given to the grand
march of conquering hero, returning
fresh from the crimson fields of his coun-
try's glory.
You, Mississippians, who have heard
the lamented Prentiss, when, like an in
spired improvisatore, he was pouring ftrth
his grand extempore--epic poems, Cfor
such was his wonderful style)--you that
have seen and heard him, when his face
was absolutely transfgured and radiant
with intellectual light, when by the irresis-
tible power of his daring flights you seem
ed as if you were being lifted bodily from
your seats and borne with him on the swift
wings of his eagle imagination to the very
sun To such of you, l repeat, as have
feasted upon the intellectual banquets
spread out before you by the prodigal
genious of Sergeant S. Prentiss, just
and adequate conception has been given
of his great contemporary and rival, VIM
II. Haskell.
1t required no previous training of the
mind, no plodding research after hidden
resources, for these great natural orators
to speak they only wished for an elcvat-
ed noble subject to call them forth, and
then their thoughts, prompt and vivid as
the live lightning, at once gloriously con-
centrated, and embodied, sprang, without
any prelude or flourish of trumpets, like
Minerva, the Goddess Of War, full armed
from the teeming brain of Jovel
| | have seen Haskell, when fully aroused
to some great effort, approaching nearer
to the matchless oratory of Mr.. Prentiss
than any other speaker 1 ever had the
! pleasure of listening to. Yes, / imagine
that | see Haskell now, in the midst of a
thousand upturned faces, when all were
pressing eagerly upon him, closer and
closer, as if determined not to lose the
fantest word that might fall from his fervid
/ lips. Such was the breathless interest
manifested when on certain occasion he
was describing the night portion of the
bombardment of Vera Cruz 1t required
no effort of my imagination at all to hear
the distant boom of cannon, the crash of
shattering and falling timbers, the cries of
alarm, the shrieks of women and children
in the far-of beleagured city-the blazing
and flashing of bomb-shells as they stream :
cd through the midnight air, passing and
] ~ Sp"SoAhS SdSh ObhCA buCu TdDlu sue
cession that they formed literal network
of fire, over the doomed castle of San
Juan de Ulloa-exploding sometimes in
d.air, falling in thousand brilliant
corruscations, making the sublime and
awful scene for miles away both seaward
and landward look like poets idea of the
final doom, or rather as if some dread,
Internal prototype of the grim old monster
Vesuvius had burst without moments
warning up from his central fires, to des-
troy the contending armies in a cataract
of molten lava
Oh, how my heart glowed in earnest
sympathy with the great orator, when as
suming as he did, the delightful task of
rejecting back the grateful feeling of the
whole country uron Winfield Scott, the
master spirit of military prowess, on that
memorable occasion, from the fact that the
heretofofe impregnable old fortress Of San
Juan, that for years had frowned q grim
and bristing cannon defiance to all former
foes, was now made to shake and tremble
from turret to foundation stone, and
finally to surrender amid that furious iron
blast Of genuine American thunder
The history of that magnificent bonn
bardment is still fresh in our memories,
but the description, of the stupendous
scene as given by Col Haskell, in one of
his great harangues to the people of Ten
nessee, impressed upon the minds of all
who heard it, an idea of his descriptive
powers in eloquence, that will never be
forgotten.
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SOUTHERN Agents OF NoRrnEaS HoUsEs.--.tp At