The Savannah morning news., 1900-07-29

right, as were the speeches. Sam Jones
was at his best, and Gov. Mount of In
dana. whose opera house speech was
splendid again capt.vated his hearers
Gordon and Shaw fired the hearts of the
old soldiers by their speeches, and Gen.
Willard Warner poured the oil of reconeIl-
iation on the troubled waiers, for he be-
came reconciled to the South thirty years
ago, and that ended it with him.
There were many touching scenes grow
ing out of the meeting of the generals
who fought on opposite sides. like Stew
art and Wood and French and Howard.
When l introduced Gen. French to Gen.
Howard the latter was delighted, and in
CHEEKY voice and with a cordial smile. re-
marked, General, I'm glad to meet you;
l tried hard in 1864 10 meet you and make
your acquaintance up about Allatoona but
failed" To this Gen. French replied,
well. I wish you had" Both laughed
heartily and then, with hands still clasped.
they began an interesting talk about their
movements during that memorable cam
paigu Gen. French It will De remember
ed, commanded the Confederates, ard
Gen. John NJ. Corse, the Union forces, a
the battle of Allatoona. French called ON
Corse to surrender in order to stop the
needless effuson of blood" Corse replied,
Let her effuse"-or words to that effect.
and then turned in and whipped French.
Sherman signalled Force to hold the fort,
as reinforcements would be sent him. This
gave origin to the familiar song
Hold the fort for 1 am coming"
With the closing of the reunion came the
sudden death of the venerable Judge Rob
crt p. Trippe so long a conspicuous fig
ure in the public affairs of Georgia. My
first acquaintance with him dated back
many years, and was the result of my in
designations of the Old public records in
regard 10 votes of thanks and swords
of honor given soldiers by the state. At
ter the Mexican War an omnibus resolu-
ton was introduced in the Legislature to
give thanks to some and swords 10 others
words and swords--of che brave Georgia
officers who had distinguished themselves
in the army and navy in the Mexican
War Although the resolution was fav-
orably reported back by the Military
Committee, on motion of Judge Trippe,
the swords were stricken out and only
vote Of thanks given. Also, the names
of Gen f. L. Thomas and Gen. George
''Tige" Anderson were added to the list
of officers. My first visit to Judge Trippe
was to ascertain why he made this mo-
ton. but he could only say that it must
have been to prevent injustice being done
to any of those heroes. The safest course
seemed to be 90 treat them all alike. The
statement that the Judge was the last sur
vivor of the Confederate Congress is not
correct 1 think Hon. Hiram p Bell is
still alive in Georgia and Gen. T. N.
Waul out in Texas and Hon. j. l.. NJ.
Curry of Alabama, now commissioner of
the Peabody educational fund, and Hon.
John H. Reagan of Texas and Judge
Roger A Pryor of Virginia
l refer, of course. to all three of the
Congresses, Mr.. Curry, having been in
the provisional and the first Congress.
Col. Hiram P. Bell was in the second Con-
gress, and Judge Trippe in the first, which
followed the Provisional Congress. His
associates in the House were Hines Holt
Augustus R. Wright (of Rome, Lucius
j. Gartrell. William w. Clark, Daniel W.
Lewis, Hardy Strickland, Ches. j. Mum
nerlyn, Julian Hartridge, Porter Ingram
The last named filled the vacanE caused
by the resignation of Hines Holt. Other
similar changes occurred in the delega-
ton. Porter Ingram was Vermonter,
but, like Chief Justice Warner, he was
universally popular, and was @ delegate
from Columbus, Ca, to the last Consti-
tutional Convention. In that body were
four distinguished men-all now dead
whom we used to call the "Carpetbag"
members for fun. They were Judge Will
lam NJ. Reese, originally of Pennsylva-
MA Col. William T. Thompson of Ohio,
Col. Porter Ingram of Vermont, and eX-
Congressman Hugh Buchanan of Scot
land. No one in Georgia ever mistrusted
| that Judge Reese was of Northern birth,
| and the whole four appeared to be typl-
cal Southern gentlemen. Sidney Herbert.