The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1878-06-05
BIOGRAPHICAL "REMINISCENCES.
Extracts from n Letter of FX.Sens
afOr FOOGe.

To the Editor of the New Y ork Times:
[ claim the right of noticing, very briefly,
in your influential and wide circulating
journal, an article which appeared in your
number of the 20Jh inst, in which [ find
mVself VerV diScOurteouSly and uuiuStly
alluded to. / do not propose to waste words
about a matter of almost egregious trivial
ity, and am content with correcting few
of the very numerous errors into which the
writer of the article in question has fallen
in reference to my character, my attributes
and public career
l. / was only seVenty-four years old last
February, God help nay many infirmities! y
and it is therefore not true, this writer
asserts, that | shall be seventy eight years
old next September.
2 lt is not true that | ever fought a duel,
as the writer asserts, with the celebrated !.
:. Prentiss near the city of Natchez. My
two most unwise and reprehenSible duels
with Mr.. PTentiss were fought on the Lou
isiana shore near Vicksburg, and | ever it
to be the grosSezt irjustice to this high
bred and chivalric man to impute to him the
soothing and backyard ridicule which this
writer describes him as having so needless
ly and indecorously INDUCED on that occa-
sion. l am proud to subjoin that between
Mr.. Prentiss and ySelf the closes intimacy
and the most loving friendship had unbrok-
emily suOsisted for many years previous TO
his lamented and nntimely decease.
4, This same writer describes me as hav-
ing been born in Virginia and of having
there graduated. SO far from this being
true, never took a degree of any kind at
any college or university whatever, what
little knowledge either of SCIENCE or OF
scholarship l have mastered having been
the result of sci t-culture under exceedingly
un favorable circumstances.
5 This reckless scribler says, also, that
-sthev used to say at Yieksburg, where he
I'll lived before the war, that he Il could
not stand ten,feet from the Prentiss House
and hit it more than once in twenty times"
[ confess, and am not ashamed to confess,
that was never possessed OF much sklIi as
a mar ksman; yet the statement which L
am now noticing must be grossly false in
every particular. since | did not live, as sta
ted, in Vicksburg ''just before the war,
but in Jackson; and since every Intelligent
citizen of Yicksburg must have known that
in 1873 in duel with Col. Osmun Claiborne,
three of my shots took effect, and the fifth dis
abled my antagonist and ended the contest.
g. This writer says further that have
been wrangIing ali my life, and that | am
reported to be now as eholeric as ever. To
that have only TO say that my nature Is
not at all phlegmatic; that my life, upon
the whole, has been more or less tempestu-
Gus. | had hoped that in my latter years L
was about as serene and complaisaEt as or
binary citizens, though / am not ashamed
to ack knowledge (let my enemies make the
most of it, that the maxim upon which
have acted through my whole career has
been: Never I'd OlteT SFdtuttOuS tucAtt "
anv man, however humble, and never pa
tiently submit 10 a serious personal indig-
nifty.
s. Let the public judge whether / am
really so chOleric aud ill-natured as this
most silly scribbler charges, when ! am
able to add with the most absolute sincerity
that even his insulting rudeness has nok
made me in the least degree angry, that |
am able to make the most kindly and liberal
allowance for his laundering ignorance, and
| that / deeply commiserate his drivRllng stu=
pidity and his want of good breeding and
refinement. ] have the honor TO be your
obedfeut servant. HI. ). k00TE-
Washington, May ~, 1878.