Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-07-15
Grand Fourth July Excursion.
The Regatta at Point Clear.
LETTER FROM GEORGE WASHINGTON BRICKS

MOBILE, July 6, 1861 the Editors Of
the Nashville Union and American. Having
seen on the list of arrivals at one of the Sell
ma hotels the names Of Mr.. and Mrs "SYI-
YTsTER ADoLPHUs FANTADLING," took it
fer granted chat they had gone home for the
season, and determined to go over % Point
Clear on the Fourth Of July and see the
Regatta which was advertised to come off
there on that day.
Point Clear is a place Of fashionable re-
sort on the opposite side Of the Bay from
this city, and is about thirty miles distant.
1t Is delightful place TO go to this hot wealth
er, if you happen to have money enough 10
pay for the delight, which the proprietor is
not expected to furnish gratis The swell
tering brow always finds there delicious
| breeze from the Gulfof Mexico, whose green
pillows, capped with snowy foam, are con
] stantly rolling and tumbling in, and at night
/ the weary senses are lulled to soft and dreamy
| slumbers by the murmur Of the waves upon
/ the sandy shore. The hotel stands within
| fifty yards of the beach, and from its long
! shady pOrticoes the visitor has a magnif-
| cent view Of the Bay, with its feet of flying
/ sail-boats in the foreground, and here and
/ there a steamer with its cloud of smoke, or
/ a ship with Its cloud of canvas standing out
/ against the clear sky upon the rim of the
| horizon. You can imagine how delightful
/ it is, after rising from a dinner table, whose
wines would charm even our excellent friend
RIYA, to sit upon one of those porticOes,
with a cigar between your teeth and your
feet resting upon the "bannisters," and look
abroad upon the charming scene. The low
er, the lunatic and the poet, who are of i'm
agnatlon all compact can never tire oft
To 90 from the foot of Dauphin street TO
the landing in front of the Point Clear Hotel,
costs you just fifty cents exclusive of
drinks
l was sorry it was the Fourth of July. l
used to feel some little patriotic pride in that
once Glorious Occasion but that pride has
been pretty much all absorbed by the cares
of life, and have cheerfuliy turned over my
share in the Day We Celebrate to my Afri-
can fellow-citizens and their social and
political prOteges, the Puritans and others,
wko fought for the Union" because fight
ing for the Union afforded such a fine field
for picking up things That is your Adolf
tionist's idea of a fght-following in the q.
wake Of the army and gathering up embrOid-
cred petticoats and silver spoons.
While such men, and you have some of
them In Tennessee, are permitted to damn
the name of patriotism by calling them
selves patriots, and to claim a share in the
memories and associations of the Fourth of
July, the public are respectfully requested
to consider my hands thoroughly washed and
rinsed of it. The Fourth of August will do
me lust as we'll
am no rebel" | never was rebel"
l scOrn and spit upon the very word. The
mani speak exclusively of the small-sized
man-who bestOws upon me that title, had
better leave town before / come down from
breakfast.
Your Tennessee Radicals constantly speak
Of Southern gentlemen as "rebels" and
"traitors." The bare thought of what South
ern gentlemen think of them, fairly pakes
my hair stand on end
was not a "rebel;n but was as much of
a revolutionist as / knew how to be. I did
not rebel against the Government 1t was
the Government that rebelled against me.
When this was done / attempted, in con-
nection with number of others, to get up
government Of my own. And if l had
had little more help, or if the rebelliOus
Government had had little less help, /
would have succeeded. l have always been
devilish sorry l did not
There are several newspapers of the cOun- |
try that will be glad to hear me say this,
for it is ell the evidence they want that the |
people Of South Alabama are more intensely |
"disloyaP and more bitterly hostile to the |
Government" than ever. 1t is a way they |
have of installing a single person for the |
whole end Of State. | don't know what |
the rest of the people down here think of |
our late Confederate States business. When |
| say | am sorry It fell through, | speak |
only for myself. | have sometimes been !
told by men who got tired of the thing as
soon as they found out it was likely to cost |
them something, that if the Southern Con- |
federacy had been permanently established, |
we would have had the worst government |
in the world. | used to say that if it should !
fall through we would have the worst gov
eminent in the world They still cling to
their opinion. My opinion still clings to me. |
Mr.. JOHNSON, | must say, is doing all he |
can to divest me of it; but if there Is q worse |
Government on earth than that which is be-
ing dished up to us by Congress, II is not |
laid down on any Of the maps.
When the war first started | heard a
Southern Confederate speech made by man
who is now so radically loyal" that he an
nounces me aad the rest of us as a parcel of
traitors, and is feverishly anxious to see Mr..
DAVIS hung In that speech he told me, as
an inducement to volunteer, that
Freedoms battles once begun
Bcqueathed By bleeding sire TO son.
Though bafied oft are ever wOn.'
didn't know much about the law in tes-
tamentary cases Of that sort, and / thought
he was telling me the truth. ! accordingly
took stock in those battles, with the deter
mination to hand them down to my son-or
rather my nephew, for ] didn't have any
son--believing at the time that it would be
an amusing if not a very profitable inheri
lance to him. [ need hardly say that
having failed to have the will properly at
tested, the High Court Of Fate pronounced
il null and void. The battles which | be-
gun for Freedom were bafled once too often.
Just such men as the man who made that
speech have rendered the word loyal a
very stencil in the nostrils Of all true, honest
patriots. If to be "loyal y one has to be
like them, / would much prefer to be
a dog and bay the moon. They call
themselves Union men, thus making the
word Union" smell to Heaven, too. If
somebody will publish new edition of
WORCESTER, or WEBSTER Unabridged, with
the words "Union," Yankee and "loyal"
religiously excluded from its pages, | will
enter into a ten-thousand dollar bond to
buy my dictionaries of him exclusively.
They sound in my ear just as a large mouth
full Of "sickly" watermelon tastes in my
throat taste the very twenty years recol-
lection of which never fails to make me, in
the words Of the Latin bard, Sie-seRd,tor-
MaginRis. If were a Northern mar, and the
Hottest monarch who sways the rod of
earthly empire were to call me a Yankee"
/ would seize him by his hoary locks, drag
him from his throne, and cram his crown
and scepter down his throat Not poniard
of peer nor prayer Of princess could shield
him from my walked wrath. All Northern
men, mind you, are not Yankees; many
Southern men are. And these last are the
most hateful Of all. The fool who trusts
one Of them with the least interest Of the
Government, OF with FIVE dollar bill, as
far as an infant can kick the State House at
Nashville, will lose it as sure as fate
But this is not the nearest route 70 Point
Clear. The steamer Reindeer rings her last
bell, and we 20 aboard.
didn't start with much money. l make
il a point never to start anywhere with
much. do this to keep myself from always
staying at home. ] never felt but once in
NY life that had as much money as want
ed That was on the day when l consented
TO be satisfied that Gen. LEE had actually
surrendered. Il was about two months alter
first heard Of il. / declined all impOrtu-
mites to believe it any sooner. On that