Weekly commercial herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1884-18??, 1886-05-07
ITO Be Continued
U. S. and c. S.
Correspondence Cincinnati Commercial Gazette
2Xfh.

correspondence NllClIliIdLl OOIlllCICldlu dLCbJt
2Sth.
The reception given to Jefferson
Davis tonight was something unparel
leled in the history of the country. l;
seemed that the people had gone wild
l have seen many events of the sort.
and have chronicled them for the
2aders Of the Commercial Gazette
but l am free to say l never saw such
apopular demonstration before. The
street leading from the station up to
the hotel was festooned with thousands
upon thousands of Chinese lanterns,
and covered with the National colors,
and drowned in red. white and blue
bunting.
The electric lights blazed overhead.
Flom the line of the curb-stones shone
the lurid colored fires and innumerable
bonfres, and from the sidewalks and
every window and roof poured a steady
stream of Roman candles, rockets and
bombs, making the roadway, a fairy
scene in its commingling of lights and
c1lors and dazzling brilliancy. Though
this magnificent combination of sur
r~oundings Mr.. Davis passed in a car
riage drawn 10y four white horses, and
a band marched in front playing Dixie.
The Union flag 1oated over him.
The tremendous crowd roared in
cheers and the never-forgotten rebel
yell, and the people appeared to be
crazy. They ran in front of the car,
42ge j; they stopped the horses ; they
pulled them aside and grabbed the
wheels of the carriage. In front
marched a company in Union blue,
carrying the National colors. and bear
ing on breast-plate and belt buckle
the letters ~. s." Let others CON-
ment upon this wonderful incongruity
as they can. 1t is mine simply to give
the facts and describe the scene.
When the carriage containing Mr..
Davis and Gen. Gordon was pulled up
in front of the Exchange hotel the vast
throng of fifteen thousand people, who
seemed not to notice that the rain was
falling and the mud deep, joined in a
general acclamatioD. Across the
Fountain Square Vas stretched a gi,
gantic piece of pyrotechnics. 1t rep
resented the eleven stars of the Con,
tederacy, and the words "Our Hero"
and when this great piece blaped forth
to the music of Dixie" and the boom
ing of the cannon that flashed against
the black and rainy sky and shook the
ground, it seemed that a great people
ad lost their senses, such were the
monstrations of joy and mad ex.
4Jemtnt.
AS Mr.. Davis who hustled through
the gayly decorated rotuDda of the eX-
change, in the crowding mass, and
hurried up the broad flower covered
s~taircases to his room, the women lin.
ing the way covered him with caresses.
He walked over flowers and into a
room in which his bed and every arti-
Gle of furniture, and even the floor,
were strewn with roses, snatched from
the boquets and baskets prepared for
him.
Along the route of two hundred
miles, from B9auvoir to Montgomery,
these scenes had been repeated, and no
man in America eve %journeyed, across
the country amid such tokens of
homage and aft ction. While the
cannon doomed and the streets We're
alive with the surging crowd ia the
fetid smoke Of the ii e works, the de-
mand for Mr.. Davis became irresiSt&-
bic.
He appeared at last, coming from the
anne room he occupied twenty five
IS ago as President of the G MED
q, and stood forth upon the bal,
-ony. .Cneer upon cheer for jeff DAyls
arose, and the lines of the military
were utterly broken and d~isorganized
by the struggling moi. When COM
parative silence Was obtained he began
TO speak.
He said: "With a heart full of emo
tion"-and that was as far as he ever
got. A band struck up "Dixie"-a
brass band can always be depended
upon TO get in its work in the wrong
plact- and after waiting IA moment.
Mr.. Davis retired with IA gesture of
Impotence, and went to his room.
When the facts were ascertained, the
desperation of the crowd was to lynch
the stupid band which had roboed
them Of the opportunity of hearing
their hero. A few moments afterward
the rain, which had drizzled all day,
began to pour in torrents, and the
crowd slowly melted away. Mr..
Davis went to his room, where a crowd
of ex C~onfederates attended him until
he expressed a wish to retire.
NsA MEETING was held in Chicago the