The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-09-22

been matter for heated controversy. But the mighty "if' is there.
 The tales that are told of this battle are numberless. One says that General Lee had a very short bit of soft lead pencil. He wrote an order with it, but
 1t was so dim that he feared it could not be read. He threw it on the ground, where 1t was picked up by a federal sol der and resulted in the occupation of Little Round Top, the key to the federal position. It is known that the occupa- ton of Little Round Top was ordered by General Warren, chief of engineers, act ing without authority, and not a moment too soon, as the Confederates were clambering up it's slope when the federals reached the summit from the other side.
 The first days fighting at the battle of Shiloh resulted in a defeat of the Fed erals, which would have been a rout if General Beauregard had not ceased fight Ing in the face of the protests of his off, cers and men. He was in command be- cause General Albert Sidney Johnston had been killed in the battle. If fighting had been pushed that afternoon Grant s army would have been destroyed before the endorsements came up. and the name of Ulysses s. Grant would not now stand at the head of the list of soldiers of the United States Johnston was wounded in the leg and his death was from loss of blood If he had needed the entreates of his surgeon and submitted to treatment when he was first wounded he would have lived. The wound was insignificant, but from it poured blood until his high jack-boot was filled and he reeled from his saddle, dead.
 The people of the United States have shown their admiration for war heroes by eevating more than one of them to the presidency-Jackson, William Henry Harrison, Tyler, Grant and Roosevelt The desire to become a popular war hero has kept at least one man out of the highest office in the land. If Benjamin F. Butler had not deemed himself a great soldier and indispensable in the field, he would have been nominated for vice. president with Lincoln in 1864 instead of Andrew Jackson The possibilities ex- pressed in that particular If" are un- bounded and immeasurable.
 If Henry Clay had not so earnestly es- poused the cause of the war party in congress In 1872 that yas, in all probabfl- ity, would not have been fought at the time it was. That 1t was fought brought into the national arena the great war hero, Andrew Jackson, who four times prevented the election of Clay to the presidency An Indian war made a hero of William Henry Harrison. At the time when Whlg victory was almost certain, a group of machine politicians headed by Thurlow Wood. side-tracked the great Whig leader and nominated Harrison who had been voted for four years be- fore when defeat was absolutely sure. The war with Mexico brought Zachary Taylor into the public eye and once again a war hero pushed Clay aside. In seven presidential campaigns Clay was an aspi- rant for that high office. Three times he was the leader of his party. He was the greatest orator and the most popular man of his day, but he died a dlsappoint- ed man.
 If he had not made the mistake of writ ing two letters to Stephen F. Miller of Tuscaloosa, Ala, in July, 1S44, 1t is quite certain that he would have prevented the detection of northern Whlgs, which made Polk president, added Texas to the Union and caused the Mexican war, which gave us the great territory of Cal ifornla. In those letters Clay attempted to trim his sails to cross currents of wind on the slavery question and made a mis- erable failure of 1t.
 Yet, if Clay had not been a commls- sioner the issue of secession would have presented itself much earlier than 1t did and on another question than slavery. The question of the restriction of slavery added a moral issue to a political ono and made the war for the preservation of the Union a holy war to the people of the North. If the break had come on the embargo act In Madison's term, on the tariff in Jaclson's term, the separa- tion might have been accomplished. The principle of protection to home industries, Henry C1ay's American system" The South was restive under their operation, and finally South Carolina called a state convention and declared them null and void Troops were raised and the state made every preparation for war. Excite ment was high Andrew Jackson. the president, swore by the Eternal that the Union must and shall be preserved. ' He threatened to hang Calhoun for trea- son.
 Henry Clay hated Jackson and loved the protective tariff. His only point in common with Calhoun, the nullifcatiou leader. was his hatred of Jackson. He cast his tariff views to the wind and ob- tained the passage of a compromise tar Tiff bill reducing the duties 20 per cent He won Calhoun to his side from theJ be- ginning, and Calhoun persuaded South Carolina to put away it's guns. Clay had saved the Union once before by the Mis- souri compromise of 1920 Once after ward, by the compromise of 1850, he post poned the day of reckoning for a decade But the Great Pacificator'' yielded so much in his efforts at conciliation and compromise that his own ambition was thwarted. If Clay had been moved by ambition alone and had not given up one jot or little of his convictions-then the history of the United States would have been quite another story.
 TOmorrow-The Fuel We ITse