National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-03-15
SENATOR PINCHBACK.

The True Story Of. His Remarkable Career.
Correspondence of the Cincinnati Commercial
The papers publish every day some story
concerning Governor Pinchback, mostly false,
but usually containing the grain of truth
which gives it the power to float. A biograph-
ical sketch, copied into your columns from the
New York Sun, is so utterly false that feel
compelled to ask space for a few words Of
truth concerning a gentleman who is at this
moment occupying so large a space in the
public mind. l am personally cognlzant OF
many points of interest in the life of Mr..
Pinchback, he having spent his youth and
early manhood in our city; but to make sure
of my facts called upon his sister, who re-
sides with her husband in the western part of
the city, and compared her information with
my own knowledge. To start at the begin
ming, she informs me that Governor Pinchback
never was a slave. His mother was always a
free woman, and by the laws of the South the
child followed the condition of the mother.
Mrs. Steward, his mother, is still living. Her
home is in Sidney, Ohio, though she is spend
ing the winter at the home of her son in New
Orleans. His father was named John Piuch-
back. He lived at first in Georgia, afterward
in Mississippi, near Natchez. By Mrs. Stew
ard he was the father of fifteen children, to
whom he was a tender and loving parent. He
sent Pinckney and his brother Napoleon 3.
Steward to this city about 1915, where they
were educated in the Cincinnati High school,
an academy established by the late Hiram s.
Gilmore, and largely sustained by his munif-
cence. When Mr.. Pinchback died, his will,
which he had made in favor of his colored
children, was destroyed, and they were left to
fight the world as best they might. They were
already in the North, and here their mother
still remains.
The name of the subject of this sketch is
Pinckney Bolton Steward Pinchback. The
family was generally known by the mothers
name, Steward, until after the war, when
Governor Pinchback assumed his fathers
name.
All the story of the San writer about that
game of poker is the merest romance. Gov
ernor Pinchback was in the North in the first
years of the war, and instead of assisting
blockade-runners, cotton spectators, &C., was,
to my certain knowledge, engaged in raising
troops for the Federal army.
The arrest which is so much dwelt upon by
the enemies of Mr.. Pinchback, was caused by
an offence certainly regarded as venial in his
section of the country. He quarreled with a
man, and, in the fight which ensued, cut him.
Had he been a white man, the deed would
have made him q hero and secured him seat
in Congress. AS soon as circumstances per-
mitted, under the call of General Butler, he
raised company Of troops and entered the
service of the Government, his rank being
that of captain. The story of his matrimo-
NAL engagement is as fanciful as the rest.
His wife, an accomplished and refined lady,
was Miss Nina Barton. Her father was also
a white man. These chiyalric Southerners have
way Of denouncing amalgamation at the
North, where it rarely takes place unless under
legal forms, and OF cherishing 1t at the South,
where it takes place under illegal forms. Mrs.
Pinchback, although classed as a colored wo-
man, is rather whittier and purer blooded than
the average Louisianian. If 1t be true that
some of the social magnates of Washington
are trembling lest the success Of Governor
Pinchback IN his contest for the Senatorial seat
should be followed by a demand on the part of
Mrs. Pinchback for social recognition, they
may calm their fears. That accomplished
lady, while she will certainly demand all that
is due her, will be the last woman in the coun-
try to force herself into society where she is
not wanted. Her friends, and she has many,
feel outraged by the persistent dragging of her
name into the papers In the efforts to prejudice
the case of her husband. By the laws of war
women and children of combatants are spared.
Are the rules of politics more savage than
those of war. PHO.
CINCINNATI, March IL, 1875