The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1920-01-02

man., of leader of men; and in it's
tone and style the gentlemen whom
he had invited to become members
of his political family-each of whom
thought himself a bigger man than
his chief-might have the voice and
seen the hand of one born to rule.
| Whether they did or not. they very
soon ascertained the fact. From the
hour Abraham Lincoln crossed the
threshold of the White House to the
hour he went thence to his death,
there was not a moment when he did
not dominate the political and mill
tary situation and his official sHbordi-
mates. The idea that he was overtop-
ped at any time by anybody is con.
tradicted by all that actually happen
ed"
When War Came
When the war broke, Colonel Wat.
terson found himself in the position
of many an honest youngster Of
Southern birth
Il could not wholly believe with
either extreme. I had repretrated no
wrong, but in my small way had done
my best for the Union and against
secession. / would go back to my
literary ambitions and let the storm
blow over. It could not last very
long; the odds against the South,
were too great. Vain hope! AS well
expect a chip on the surface of the
ocean to lie quiet as a lad of twenty
one in those days to keep out OF one
or the other camp. On reaching home
found myself alone. The boys were
all gone to the front. The girls were
well, they we're all crazy. My ma
tive country was about to be invaded.
PropinQuity. So, casting opinions to
the winds, in | went on feeling. And
that is how / became a rebel, case
of First endure and then embrace
because soon got to be a pretty good
rebel and went the limit, changing my
coat as it were, though not my better
Judgment, for with gray jacket on
my back and ready to do or die, l re-
!! tanned my belief that secession was
treason, that disunion was the hight
of folly and that the South was bound
! to go down in the unequal strife"
OF sectional delusion the author
says
SectionaIism
There was never a more absurd
theory than that, begCs of sectional
aims and the sectional spirit, which
proposed a geographic alignment of
Cavalier and Puritan. When section
alism had brought kindred people
to blows over the institution of Afri.
can slavery there were Puritans who
fought on the Southern side and Cava.
/ liers who fought on the Northern side.
What was Stonewall Jackson but a
Puritan? What were Custer. Stone
man and Kearny but Cavaliers?
/! Wadsworth was as absolute an aristo-
crat as Hampton.
"Climate, which has something TO
do with temperament, has not so much
to do with character as is often imag-
ined. All of us are more or less the
creatures of environment. In the
South after a fashion the duello flour.
ished, Because it had not flourished
in the North there rose nation that
the Northerners would not fight. It
proved to those who thought it a cost
ly mistake
On flndrew Johnson
Gne d. the many men of promin.
ence wh6 i've anew for us in Colonel
Watterson's pages is Andrew John
som
Il knew him from my childhood.
Thrice that I can recall I saw him
weep; never did see. him laugh.
Life had been very serious, albeit
very successful, to him. OF unknown
partentage. the wife he had married
! before he was one and twenty had
taught him to read Yet at six and
twenty he was IN the Tennessee Gen
eral Assembly and at four and thirty
in Congress
"There was from first to last not 2
little about him to baffle conjecture
II should call him cross betwes
lack Cade and Aaron Burr. His 81
pathies were easily stirred BY re-
ldistr\ \ss. But, he We cor
ling Ii 49,
WAS
Hs