Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-08-20
BIGAMIsT BOWEN REDIVI-
VUS.
extraordinary Reception of the
Martyr on EdIstO Island, ~ C.-The
Darkies wild with Enthusiasm
Over Their Beloved,

Extraordinary Reception of the
Darkies wild with Enthusiasm
over Their Beloved.
From the Charleston News, Aug 10.
The belligerent Bowen has sgain as
sumed his war paint and feathers, and is
on the war path. His plan of campaign
is to lure the credulous c0lored masses to
retired groves upon the islands of the sea
by such devices as the seductive ginger
cake and the exuberant root beer, and,
having exhibited to them such dainties, TO
nfiict upon them speeches from imprO-
Vised and rustic platforms, wherein he
lays his hand upon his heart, aud begs to
know if they, his audience, whom he is
glad to see and proud to call his brethren,
can believe Of him, who thus addresses
them, the scandalous snd wicked
tales that are spread broad
cast by these malicious emissaries
of the Evil One, by which he begs
to be understood as meaning the Demo-
Gratis, whose hearts are deceitful shove
all things and desperately wicked
Whereupou his dusky audience, with
lively sense of ginger cake to come, re-
spond with shouts of ''Hear, hear" SKI
vi" HBress &c lamb and in divers 9th
er incOherent ard irrelevant manners, ex-
press their hearty reverence for the gen
tie Bowen, and their high appreciation
Of the bovine barbecue. 4 love feast of
this character took place last Saturday
night al the camp ground on EdistO Is
land. Il is described with gushing en-
thusiasm by some of its attendants, and
from a. accounts il must have been a
sort of cross between Il c0lOred camp
meeting and Voudou incarnation. The
ambitious Bowen eXdOrted and expOstu-
lated, bersted and besought and pumped
the excitement in his shouting audience
up to fever heat. He argued and they
applauded, he gesiiculsted and they
rOared, he danced aud they pros
trated themselves in COnvulsiOns Of
delight, until the audience re-
solved itself into 9 nTOmiscunus,
squirming, perspiriag mass of Od)rifsr-
Gus enthusiasm. Men shouted and women
howled, the little picksninnies lost their
ginger cskes by being crushed to Nubian
jellies in the seethiug mass; the ssturna~
Ian echoes resouHded from the trees and
scared the solemn owls down from their
resting places, who cjrc,Cd around the
scene and gazed with big eyed wonder.
Next rush was made for Bowen by the
ELUSIVE shades, who refused to be paci.
fed except by shaking hands with their
new apostle. They hustled him off of
the platform, and, stretching their num-
bers out into two long lines, the shaking
of hands began. The martyred orator
passed dOwa the center, his arms on either
side working up and down, as seized by
the dusky gauutle', and looking like the
levers of an errstic pump. Cd
blind men, toOthless and tOt'e r-
ing, came and put their hands
upon him because they "wanted
to see this man Bowen" women jOstled
out OF the liue by the stronger men,
reached their hands through the rank,
plucked tie hem of B)wen's garments,
and shouted with rapture, 81 touched
'uml l touched 'um and mothers brought 1
sgains5 their new found Moses, and took
them away to lay on their sick babies. in
fact, the dusky mass did everything that
gushing idiots could do under the srOng-
est stimulant of excitement and then the
cakes aud beer superveDing, they devOured
them with eager syidity, until, with the
disappearance of the last ginger cake, and
the squeezing of the last beer bottle, they
ended their degiCus ways back to their
various dens, making night hideous as
they passed with crazy shouts of Bowen
for Governor! Oh, let my people CO."