The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-06-03

tos has found fresh proof as to thu details of Mir. Davis's capture. Equally too. has the wisdom been verehied O Mir. Lincoln's aphorism: But you can fool all of the people all the timer Long existent and indurated doub
 at the molehiil of actuality, the neces
 sfty of holding to. made mountains of
 before an inhamed and mortified North
 ern sentiment But the curiosity o
 the present day was not tittillable or
 this musty and forgotten canard. In cIdentafly, the Find" of the "disguise' in an old drawer of the War Depart. ment in the current year, produced nc smallest ripple. The American public is a veritable Rip Van Wrinkle ir knowing Ven I get enough"
 These precious articles were eff re- call detais of the paragraphtc state. men) the woman's waterproof gar- ment, hoop- skirt and shawl in which Mr. Davis was attempting to escapel'
 In his recent able book upon Jeffer- son Davis, Dr. Dodd has accepted the disguise story, and instanced what proof 1t is based upon. His fairness
 and his plain sympathy with the higher traits of his great subjects na-
 ture, make me wonder that he had not
 gone a trifle deeper into analysis of cause and effect. Unintentionally, he leaves the captured man in the ab- 1ect pose of q detected wrong -doer
 skuiking from his captors in the slouch and apparel of Pantaloon. l.
 This Is not Dr. Dodd's error. but the error of essity-manufactured hia-
 tory. of which the assassination com plicity of Davis, Mallory, Clay and others was but a fungus. These last charges. one and all. broke their own backs" by the overweight of the im- possible: and even Andrew Johnson was forced to coerce the malignity of Stanton. and the chicanery of Holt. by the quiet second thought of all the people not foolable all the time.
 The thought and culture of the North for decades past have accepted what seem to be the simple facts of the in- cident; disproved as 1t stands nake ed before history. by one scinti1la of "jury evidence" So the great jury of opinion acquitted a man of playing in dire rage and desperation-the role of a mountebank.
 No one who has studied the grave dignity and truth of MT. Davis's nature, as shown by his long and open public life; no one who realizes his quiet con- stancy and endurance, under heaped-up obloquy and mistreatment-can be- lieve that such a man. even to shield himself from what such men dread more than danger-ridicule-cou have gravely enacted subsequent trick sub terfuge and posed himself as a lie in carnatel 4r
 The photograph. as captured. was prized by the loyal and devoted widow who survived him so long. The slur of its non -aceptahce Is equally upon her, if 1t be not a 'tFue picture: for she en- dorsed 1t, and 1t was furnished to me, for historical proof, by her only sur viving child.
 Those are tho clothes in which Jef. ferson Davis was captured. and the facts of Rlchpnond's loss and the req sons for 1t in history, vouched for by historians on both sides. prove 1t. so are the facts of the Presidents flight southward. with the scattered members of his cabinet, a small body guard and an encumbering mass of documents and a quarter million in specie, mostly silver. There History halts and Imag- ination, Pique. Spite and Mendacity. by turns and sometimes together--have sliped Into her niche.
 There Is no doubt that MT. Davis de- luded himself into belief that the last stand might be made in the central South. with the remnants of the armies: and that peace, If not com pelled, could be purchased on honorable terms.
 Three successive blows shattered this wild hope even fin him: the surrender of Lee the fall of Johaston's army. and the most fateful shot of all the war fired by the mad actor in the Lincoln opera box.
 Then Jefferson Davis's hopes melted like the fleeing and disbanding brig ades with whom he had dreamed of his way to the Mississippi. to join Magruder or Kirby smith; and thence, if need, to cross into Mexico.
 On the rainy. but fatal morning of May IS, 1865 near Irwinsvii1e. Ga, the Presidents guard had melted as mist Johnston had sursendered all the corps under his command, their com manders included. The only one pres ent was Gen. Samuel Wragg Ferguson of South Carolina. He had been sur rendered by the Sherman-Johnston cartel. Adjutant-General T. K. Irwin was not included: and. after Fergu- sons permission, he went to Mir. Davis and said:
 MT. Davis. have picked forty un- paroled men, who will follow me to the or to hadesl With this train the plight Is hopeless. Come with us. and leave everything and ev- erybody else and save your own life Tor them! Come with me. and I give you across the river safelyp
 Mir. Davis refused. Two days before le had insisted. against Ferguson's protest. in a detour to rejoin his wife md the other women. Now. nettled and ,nmeshed, with a price upon hIs head hat made capture mean ignominious leath. he refused the last open rent in he net: saying that If they could not fight their way through he would im- ,eril no one more. but would escape llone.
 His own written words--simple and lear ones they are and modestly Jpoken-tellN this. And by sunrise he vas a captive. helpless and with death l ,n the scaffold his predestined visa 1isi
 This obstinate man-fearless even in he last gasps of his Cause. clinglng 70 films of hope that his self reliance made eables--this man. fl !s claimed. led from capture in women's clothes!
 Forgetful of himself remembering ,nly the Cause that was his life and he have descended to l rick himself in bonnet and shawl, and | 'aper of like the Pantaloon of boxing | night? Logic denies It: judgment of | human nature scoffs at 1t. No true nan can credit it!
 The true story-the one that fm- | presses itself as true. not only upon | ,very soldier in Blue or Gray. but up- | m every student of mems natures, Is old by Mir. Davis himself. The words were written fin his age. when heat of lction had ceased to hasten his pulses. | when Hope was dead. Ambition a vraith of the past and Memory a mere 
 Tn simple words. SO simple as fo bear he conviction of an ante-mortem statement. he tells that ali was confu-