Virginia free press. (Charlestown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1832-1916, 1865-09-28
Bill Arp Addresses Artemus Ward
From the Louisville Sunday Journal
ROVE. Ga. Sept. /, 1865.

~
reesun | write to you in pertikler, are bekaus
YOU areabout the only man know IN all 0oo
country" so-caHed For sum several weeks
hav been wantin tn say sumthin for sum
several wears we rebs. so-cdlled, but now late Oh
said county deceased, hav been tryin nifty hard
10 do sumthin. We didn't quite do II, and now
It's very painful. l assure you, to dry up all OF
a sudden and make out like we wasn't thar'
Nv frend I want to say sumthin. / suppose
there is no law agin thinkin, but thinkin don't
help me- 1t don't let down my thermonleeer; = !;
| must explode myself generally so as TO Ice Ieel
better. You see I'm tryin to harmonic lm
irwin to soften down my feelnS. I'm lndeaNo-
ring to subiugate myself to the level oi surroun-
ding circumstances, S0-cGted. But can no II
until am allowed to say somethin. want TO
quarrel with somebody and then make TRENDS
! i amt no giant-killer. amt no Norwegian
bar. / amt no boar-constrkter, Dut IL De
hornswaggled if the talkin and the writln ana
the slanderin has got to be all done on one SIDE
anv longer. Some ofyour folks have got to dry
mn or turn our folks loose. It's blamed out
RAGE. sO-cdlled Amt your editors got nuthln
else 10 do but to peck at us, and lmD at us,
and crow over us? Is every man what Kan
write paragraf to consider us as bars IN cage,
and be always a iobbin at us to hear us growl!
Now Won see. my friend, that's what's dlsharmo-
nious, and do you Jest tell EN-, one and all,
pluribus unum, So-called, that if they don't stop
it at once or turn us loose to say what we please,
why we rebs. SO-caNed, have unanimously and
Jointly and severally lyresolved dtO-to-to-thnk
very hard of tiff not harder.
That's the way to talk it. amt agwlne to
commit myself know when to put ON the
brakes. l amt agwine to say all think like
Mr.. Etheridge, or Mr. Adde17ig, so-cd1ted Nary
time. No. sir. But I'll Jest tell you, Artemus,
and YOU may tell it to your chow: If we amt
allowd to express our sentiments, we can take
it cut in hatin and hatin runs heavy in my
family. shure. / hated man so bad once that
all the hair cum off my head, and the man
drowned himself in hog-waller that night. !
kould do it agin, but YOU see I'm tryin to har-
monize. to acquiesce, to becum kahn and Sc
reen.
Now suppose that, poetikally speakin,
ain Dixie's fall,
We snned ALL"
But talkin the way see it, big feller and
little feller SO-cGlled, got into tite, and they
fout and fout and fout a long time, and every
body all around KEEP hollerin hands off but KEEP
helpn the big feller, until finally the little fell
Ter caved in and hallered enuf. He made bull
ly ite | tell you, Selah. Well, what did the
big feler do? take him by the hand and help
him up. and brush the dirt off his clothes p
Nary time No, sur But he kicked him arter
he was down, and throwd mud on him, and
drug him about and rubbed sand in his eyes,.
and now he's gwine about hunting up his poor
little property Wants to contiskate it, So-cdlled.
Blame my jaket if it aint enuf to make your
head swim.
But I'm good Union man-so-cal3ed. Iaint
agwine to ite no more. Ishan't vote for the
next war. faint no gurrilla. I've done TUX
the oath. and I'm gwine to keep it, but as for
nv bein subiugated, and humilyated, and ANAL
gamated. and enervated, as Mr.. Chase says, 1t
amt so-nary time. | amt ashamed of nuthln
neither-aint repentn-aint akin for no one
horse. short-winded pardon. Nobody needn't
be playin priest around me- | amt got TWEEN
! tv thousand dollars. Wish | had; I'd give 1t
/ to these poor widers and orfns. I'd fatten my
own numerous and interestin offspring in about
| two minits and half. They shouldent eat
| roots and drink branch water any longer. Poor
unfortunate things tocum intothssubloonary
world at sich time. There's four or fve OF
em that never saw sirkus nor monkey show
never had apocket-knife, nor piece of cheese
nor a reesin. There is Bull Run Arp, and Har-
per's Ferry Arp. and Chikahominy Arp that
never seed the pikters in spelling book. tell
you, my friend, we are the poorest people on
the face Of the earth-but we are poor and
proud We made bully fte Selah and the
whole Amerikin nation ought to feel proud of
/ it. 1t shows what Amerikins can do when they
think they are imposed n-''SO-called." Didn't
our four fathers fite, bleed, and die about a lit
| tie tax on tea, when not one in thousand
! drunk it? Bekaus they sukseeded wasent it
glory? But if they hadent | suppose itgwould
! have Eeen treason, and they would have been
bowin and scrapin round King George for par
don. So it goes, Artemus, and to my mind, if
the whole thing was stewed down, it would
make about half pint of humbug. We had
| good men, great men, Christian men, who thot
we was right, and many of em have gone to
the undiscovered country, and have got par
don as is pardon. When | die, I'm nifty will
lin to risk myself under the shadow of their
wings, whether the climate be hot or cold. So
mote it be- Selah
Well, maybe I've said enuf But don't feel
easy yit. I'm a good Union man, sertin and
shure. I've had my breeches died JlUe, and
I've got blue bucket, and often feel bl,e, and
about twice in a while go to the doggery and
cit bue, and then l look up at the bue serulean
heavens and sing the melancholy choryus I the
Blue-tailed Fly. I'm doingmy durndest to har-
monize, and think could sucSeed if it wasent
for some things When / see black-guard
going thestreets with gun on his shoul-
der, why right then, for few miutes, hate
the whole Yanky nation. Jerusalem, how my
blood biles. The institution what was handed
down to us by the heavenly kingdom of Massa-
sets now put over us with powder and ball |!
Harmonic the devil Amt we human beings?
Aintweg got eyes andears and feeling and think
in? Why the whole Of Afriky has come to town,
women and children and babies and balloons
and ALL A man can tell how fur it is TO the
city by the smell better than the mile-post.- =
They won't work for us and they won't work
for themselves, and they'll perish to death this
winter as shore as the devil is a hog, so-caUed.
They are now baskin in the summer sun, liv-
/ e. !