Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1891-02-01
Notice of New Southern Novel.

To ule Editor OF me D1Spdtcn:
Confederate private soldier, desperately
wounded in one of the cavalry battles under
Stuart, has made an important contri bu-
ton to southern literature. In Yankee
Doodle Dixie" which has just appeared,
Mr.. j. V. Rivals has combined together q
clear and liberal statement of the immedi-
ate causes of the late civil war, and O true
portraitureo Of the feelings and sentiments
of our southern men and women during
that period. =.
In President Davis's elaborate history Of
tho 8nfederacy and in Stephenss War
Between the States" the causes of the war
and the arguments upon the constitutional
questions involved have been exhaustively
disclosed and discussed, but, although
valuable to the future historian and states
man, they cannot from their size or style
make any impress upon this busy age,
which wants something to amuse as well
as TO instruct. The great merit OF this
work is that the author has interviewer the
causes of the war with well-told and in
teresting romance, and while we are in
structed by the one we are deeply interest
ed in the other. While one will tell OF
those causes which induced the southern
people to engage IN the struggle tie other
will show the feelings and passions which
moved the hearts of the men and women
of the southern States and nerved and sus-
tanned them in the unequal strife.
In no other work can be found clearer
and more condensed history of the seces-
sion movement from the time when IL was
not disputed by our statesmen from Jeher-
son and Webster to the time when 1t was
denied by Lincoln and Douglas. But par
ticularly does he give prominence to one
than any other which has been singularly
overlooked by all who have written on the
subject. IL was the invasion and con-
spiracy of John Brown.
This was the moving cause which con-
solidated and combined all tho southern
people, however they might have been
hitherto opposed to secession. 1t was not
because Abraham Lincoln had been elected
President. He was no more opposed to
slavery than Pierce, who said "he loathed
slavery" or Anti-Slavery Fillmore, for
whom both parties in the South had voted
| tor and supported. Was il for territorial
expansion. when there was land enough in
States in which both parties acknowledged
| they could not interfere, to have worked
| all the slaves in the South for upwards of
| q century There was o deeper and more
potent cause. which the historians have
| strangely overlooked and which Mr.. Ryals
has brought fully out. 1t was the general
| feeling of insecurity in the homes OF the
southern people. When Fremont ran for
! thepresidency against Buchanan. on the eve
of the election there were rumors of servile
instruction in many parts of Virginia,
Tennessee. and other southern States.
Two years after, John Brown, fresh from
| the border. was in Kansas. and his mas
sacre at Ossawattome Greek commenced
his famous conspiracy. His fanaticism was
oaly equalled by his folly in believing that
| with his few followers and the negroes
armed with his pixies he could by the mas
sacre Of the whites eman;ipate three mil
lions ofslayes. But It wasn't his attempt
that excited the South. II was the general
display of sympathy with him and his aims
all over the North that showed the southern
people that they were slowly nearing a
bloody guilt Then when President OF
northern people alone ouaccount OF his
anti-slavery opinions and feelings they al
most unanimously declared that they
J would remain With The unfriandlx aanlaaa