The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1909-03-04
Lincoln and the South.
Great War President Stood for
Many Of the Ideals of Char
acter Which Are Very Dear
to the South-Estim te
Placed Upon Him Today by
the Best Southern Thought.

Col. Fred \. olds. in Charlotte Observer
Raleigh, Feb. 12.-Your cores
pondent was asked recently by the
Chicago Tribune To prepare for that
paper a symposium of views OF we'll
known North Caroliniaus. who are
Confederate veterans, about Presi-
dent Abraham Lincoln, and in re-
sponse the following article was pre-
pared, based on special interviews:
Time brings wonderful changes in
the way OF sentiment and feeling and
surely none has been deeper or more
sweeping than those in the forty-four
years which have passed since the
civil war came to an end. 1t took
more than n century i'm England to
even soften the feeling after the
greatest of the civil wars, but here in
America friendship grew and bios
somed more rapidly and now the
North and the South, the East and
the West, are more united than they
have ever been in all the country's
history To look upon the carica-
lures of President Lincoln which ap-
peared in some of the papers during
the war period one would have
thought him to be the worst of men;
a fiend in fact, but it must be remem-
bered that the most cruel and vindic-
tive OF these did not appear IN the
South but on the other side of the
Mason and Dixon line. On Sunday
last, in the presence of notable con-
gregation, a leading minister at Raj
eigh began his sermon by saying:
"As the great and good Lincoln once
said," etc.
To the people of North Carolina,
the most purely American now of all
the commowealths, since only one
person in 200 is foreign-born, the
character and nature of Mr. Lincoln
is particularly appealing. He is rec
ognized as a type OF the American
of the forefathers' time, standing fol
; the straightest and finest manhood
lender, forgiving. brave, jealous. ant
patriot above all things. Such il
general is the estimate placed upol
him to-day by the best Southern
. tllouSht dHd NEpi
your correspondent has secured from
men who so thoroughly represen
that thought tell the story in th
plainest fashion.
One of the few surviving majo
generals of the Confederate army
Robert F. Hoke, of Raleigh. who
widely known in the North and Wes
as Il captain of industry by the me
of today and whose war record is {
the noblest type. General Hoke, &C
ing in at the beginning of the war a
lieutenant of infantry in the Firs
Regiment, North Carolina Volunteer,
which lost the first man in battle n
Bethel, Va, in June, 1861, saw a
Yorktown, Va, for the first tim,
Robert i. Lee, then in command {
the forces Virginia, who had come t
inspect the troops, and admired hir
profoundly, thinking him the hant
soonest man he had ever seen. Lift
did he think that in the coming year
quite soon in fact, he was to be y
near Lee and to win such high ran
himself. General Hoke saw Presider
Lincoln inaugurated. He and Nelso
A. Miles had been deskmates i'm I'll
census bureau at Washington, br
he had resigned and stopped
Washington for q day or two befol
coming to his North Carolina hom
Fortune made him the youngei
major general in the ConfederaI
army, just as it made Miles the younl
est on the Federal side In 1864 L.
and Hoke were much together ar
then it was Lee formed SO high OPT
ion Of the North Carolinian that
told President Davis and the COME
crate cabinate he wished Hoke TO
his successor in supreme command
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