The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-05-03
By H. M. Wiltse.

/ by L.. M. w
We shorten our lives and add
many fold to the worries of them by
conventional superstitious account
| ing for the years that mark their
span. 1t is false measure and a
foolish tradition; especially when
contemplated in the light of a sup
posed scriptural limitation which
was but figure of speech, written
without the least reference, in the
world, to Our calendar. If we would
measure the time we have lived and
estimate our expectations somewhat
after the manner of mercury or spir-
it in thermometer, there would be
more sense in the reckoning. Then,
| instead of saying he is seventy or
he is ninety years old, we should
say he is 70 degrees vigorous, or he
is 80 degrees active in mind and
body.
n Thus one would ay that Col.
Charles Nicholas Gibbs is 80 to 95
| degrees, physically and mentally. If
stranger undertook to measure his
years by seeing him walk along the
street or hearing him talk, he would
not seem a bit absurd by saying he
is seventy-ffve years old. In point of
fact, however, he is exactly ninety
to-day, for he was born the 29th of
March, 1928. His birthplace was a
house which Gen. Hoods forces de-
stroyed in the great Nashville battle.
1t is now within corporate Nash
vile, but was some distance out
when the infant Gibbs, heir-appar-
ent to his Christian name above
given, used it for his birthday cele-
bration.
His father was a lawyer of repute,
and the first banker of our capital
city. There is at the Gibbs home
here a $40 bill, No. / of it's SERIES
which was the first one of that de-
nomination issued by the bank of
which George Washington Gibbs was
head He was a native Of North
Carolina, and his wife, before mar
riage Lee Ann Dibbrell, was Ken
lucky born.
Young Charles attended school not
over-zealously until he had reached
the age of g.. Then he took a very
important step, actuated, doubtless,
by an impulse which has ever been
have a place in the sun, nearer to
Natures heart. He eloped with his
old black nanny, and they went to
the country, over in Obion County,
about where Union City now oc-
cupies. He fitted from attraction to
attraction, interest to interest, as
humming bird spritefully watts itself
from flower to flower. He took some
further schooling, part at Jackson,
and at the age of 19 began the prac
tice of law, some accommodating
friend taking care of the age re-
quirements, somehow.
He was elected Mayor of Jackson
before majority, and President Fill
more appointed him United States
Attorney in 1849. Daniel Webster's
signature of his commission is
valued keepsake. He held the Office
four years, and continued law prac-
tice until threatened failure of voice
suggested retirement for time, and
he diverted himself with farming,
sawmilling and railroad contracting.
When civil war Issues took definite
shape, he was so ardently for the
Union that he purchased an outfit
and established Union paper, which
he conducted and made a very
strenuous champion so long as he
could keep it going, then yielded to
what seemed the logic of events and
Joined the Confederate cause, becom-
ing a member of Gen. Frank Cheat
hams staff. He had been offered the
colonelcy of regiment, but declined
on account of defective arm and
badly crippled hand, due to early ac-
cident. This misfortune is so little
apparent under ordinary conditions,
that friend of his who has known
him quite intimately forty years,
learned of it for the first time with
in the present month. And yet Col.
Gibbs attaches much importance to
that defective member, aside from
the fact that it deprived him of i'm
portant rank and function during
the war. OF his career in that great
episode, he speaks somewhat dep
recatingly, saying that he "was of
very little service"
After the war he resumed law
practice and pursued it actively un-
til 1873, when he was chosen Sec
retary of State for Tennessee, which
position he retained dur
ing various administrations, until
1881. In his politically active days
he was one OF the best known and |
most popular men inSTennessee, and
so in the middle and west
ern divisions. His popularity had |
been twice evidenced before he be-
came Secretary of State, by his be- |
ing twice elected delegate to the con-
conventions. In 1859 he |
was elected to be member of a con-
vention which never convened, and |
therefore he pleads not guilty to any
charge of having voted wrong on |
any question that did not come be-
fore that body. But he was a mill |