Part I. St. John’s Church, Ashwood, Tennessee.
By JOHN TROTWOOD MOORE
In “The Banner of the Cross,” a Philadelphia paper, a writer, whose name is unknown, wrote, in 1842, the first description of the now famous chapel, St. John’s Church, on the pike leading from Columbia, Tenn., to Mt. Pleasant.
“It was my privilege,” says the writer, “in the month of January, 1834, to listen to the details of the progress of the Church in Tennessee from the lips of Bishop Otey, who had just been consecrated. I did not think then that in God’s providence I should ever witness in person the results of the Bishop’s labors in the then far-off country. But yesterday (September 4, 1842), which was a bright, beautiful Sabbath, I witnessed a scene gladdening to a church-man’s heart, and knowing your interest in all that concerns the Church in the Southwest, I have thought a sketch of it might be interesting.
“In this country, upon the road leading from Columbia to Mt. Pleasant, and about six miles from the former place, in a grove of majestic and towering oaks, may be seen a neat brick church of simple Gothic architecture; its interior plain and appropriate and capable of seating five hundred persons.
“It has been just completed and is the result of the joint liberality of Bishop Polk and three of his brothers, who, with a spirit worthy of commendation and imitation, have devoted a portion of the wealth with which God has blessed them to his service.
“Without aid from abroad, these gentlemen have erected and paid for this edifice and presented it, together with a plot of about six acres of land, to the diocese. The lot has been selected from an eligible portion of the bishop’s plantation, within a few hundred yards of whose mansion the church stands. It has been erected for the convenience of the few families in the neighborhood who, with a large number of negroes on their plantations, will make quite a congregation. For the latter class the bishop has been in the habit, for a long time, of holding regular services in his own house. They will now have an opportunity of worshiping in a temple which they may almost call their own.”
After referring to the services in the church on the day of its consecration, the writer continues:
“There is yet one thing which I must not forget to notice. I have said that on the adjoining plantations there are negroes for whose spiritual good this church was in part erected. By the time the white congregation was seated in the body of the church, the door, the vestibule, the gallery and staircase were crowded with blacks. Even the vestry room was filled with them, an old man sitting within the doorway, almost at the very feet of the clergy. A happier group I have seldom seen. Some of them had prayer books in their hands, but, for their general benefit in singing, the psalms were given out in the old-fashioned way—two lines at a time—and, I am sure, during the singing the loudest psalms of praise came from the sable groups.
“When the whites had commenced, a cordial invitation from the bishop was given to the blacks to come forward. At the same time he explained in a few words what was required of them in worthily partaking of that sacrament.
“Then quite a great number came, with much reverence and devotion, to that feast precious alike to bond and free. Ah! could some of our friends have witnessed that scene, how it would have silenced a suspicion that a slaveholder values not the soul of his slave. Thus does the enlarged benevolence of these men embrace a class hitherto too much neglected, a class which, in our good city of brotherly love, are suffered to grovel in ignorance, degradation and sin:
“Here will they learn to worship God in spirit and in truth; here be taught to pray with the heart and with the understanding also; and here, when death has arrested their course upon earth, will they find a resting place under the tall old oaks in their own churchyard; for the lot upon which the church is built has, for some time, been set apart for the purpose.”
As intimated above, the church was built by the then bishop, after Gen. Leonidas Polk and his brothers, upon their own estate, for the accommodation of the communicants around them and their slaves. The description above presents a feature of slavery which was common throughout the South, and shows how zealously the master looked after the spiritual welfare of his slaves.
View of St. John’s from the Pike.
The Polk family—not the President, James K. Polk—who lived in Columbia, six miles away, and was a relative of the Ashwood Polks, but the Polks at Ashwood—lived in true baronial style. The most distinguished of that family was Bishop Leonidas Polk, who, while bishop, was the moving spirit in the erection of the chapel, copying after the rural chapels of England. Leonidas Polk was educated at West Point for a soldier, and graduated in 1827, but so strong was the other side of his character that he resigned his commission in the army and entered the ministry. This was a sore disappointment to his father, the old Revolutionary soldier, Col. Wm. Polk, causing him to write to his son that the step was the spoiling of a good soldier for a poor preacher.
But the old gentleman, who himself had joined Washington’s army at the age of eighteen years and had fought all through the Revolutionary War, being thrice wounded and gaining the title of Colonel and the reputation of being one of the ablest soldiers of his day, was greatly mistaken in this choice of his soldier-preacher son. Not only did Leonidas Polk become one of the great pioneer preachers of his day, but, as Dr. Wm. M. Polk says in his biography of him: “It might have touched the feelings of the veteran if he could have known that Leonidas would one day buckle on the sword—that he would lead more men in the field than his father had ever seen arrayed in battle, and that he would die at last a soldier’s death in the field of honor, fighting for what he deemed to be the cause of right and liberty.”
Speaking of Col. Wm. Polk, the same historian tells this amusing incident of the old soldier:
“When Lafayette returned to America in 1824 and made his memorable tour through the States, Colonel Polk was one of the commissioners appointed to do the honors of the State of North Carolina to his old comrades in arms.
“An eye-witness has left an amusing account of some incidents of the reception of Lafayette on his passage through North Carolina. Col. William Polk has been requested by Governor Burton to provide a cavalry escort for the illustrious visitor, and a troop of excellently drilled and handsomely uniformed volunteers was formed from the Militia of Mecklenburg and Cabarrus escort, under command of General Daniel, and met Lafayette near the Virginia line. There was much hand-shaking and speech-making.”
“But,” as the narrator writes, “Lafayette spoke but little English and understood less. He had retained a few phrases, which he would utter, generally in an effective manner, but sometimes ludicrously mal a propos.”
“Thanks, my dear friend! Great country! Happy man! Ah, I remember!” were nearly his whole vocabulary. He was received at the borders of each State by appointed commissioners, and when he had been escorted through it he was safely delivered to the commissioners of the next commonwealth. At Halifax the cortege was met by General Daniel, who had stationed a company of soldiers by the roadside, flanked by the ladies, who were assembled to do honor to the guest of the State. It had been arranged that the ladies were to wave their handkerchiefs as soon as Lafayette came into sight, and when General Daniel exclaimed “Welcome, Lafayette!” the whole company was to repeat the welcome after him. Unluckily, the ladies, misunderstanding the programme, waited too long, and were reminded of their duty by a stentorian command of, “Flirt, ladies, flirt! flirt, I say!” from the general, who walked down the line to meet the Marquis. Equally misunderstanding their part, the soldiers, instead of shouting, “Welcome, Lafayette,” in unison at the close of the general’s address, repeated the sentence, one by one, and in varying tones.
“Now a deep voice would exclaim: ‘Welcome, Lafayette!’ then perhaps the next man in a shrill tenor would squeak: ‘Welcome, Lafayette!’ and so on down the line. Daniel, frantic at the burlesque of his order, vainly attempted to correct it, but as he unfortunately stammered when he was excited, his ‘Say it all to-to-together!’ could not overtake the running fire of ‘Welcome, Lafayette!’ which continued all along the line. ‘Great country! Great country!’ replied Lafayette, turning to Colonel Polk, who was vainly trying not to smile. Observing and recognizing an old acquaintance, Lafayette greeted him with great effusion: ‘Ah, my friend; so glad to see you once more! Have you prospered and had good fortune these years?”
“‘Yes, General, yes; but I have had the great misfortune to lose my wife since I saw you.’
“Catching only the ‘Yes, General,’ and the word ‘wife,’ Lafayette supposed he was informing him of his marriage, and patting him affectionately upon the shoulder, he exclaimed: ‘Happy man! Happy man!’ nor could be made to understand that his observation was not a happy one.
“After replying to the address of welcome, which had been delivered by Colonel Polk from the steps of the Capitol, Lafayette, with all the dramatic action of a Frenchman, turned to Polk and before the old soldier knew what he was about, threw his arms about his neck and attempted to kiss him on the cheek. Colonel Polk straightened himself up to his full height of six feet four, and instinctively threw his head back to escape the caress; but Lafayette, who was a dapper little fellow, tiptoed and hung on to the grim giant, while a shout of laughter burst from the spectators and was with some difficulty turned into a cheer.
“Of Col. William Polk’s influence in the State of Tennessee, Governor Swain, of North Carolina, has said: ‘He was the contemporary and personal friend and associate of Andrew Jackson, not less heroic in war and quite as sagacious and more successful in private life.”
“It is known that Colonel Polk greatly advanced the interests and enhanced the wealth of the hero of New Orleans by information furnished him from his field notes as a surveyor, and in directing Jackson in his selections of valuable tracts of land in the State of Tennessee; that to Samuel Polk, the father of the President, he gave the agency of renting the most fertile section of that State; and selling his (William Polk’s) immense and valuable estate in lands in that, as first President of the Bank of North Carolina, he made Jacob Johnson, the father of President Andrew Johnson, its first porter, so that of the three native North Carolinians who entered the White House through the gates of Tennessee all are alike indebted for benefactions and for promotions to a more favorable position in life to the same individual, William Polk—a man whose insight into character rarely admitted of the selection and never of the retention of an unworthy agent.”
At the outbreak of the war, Leonidas Polk was appointed Major General by Jefferson Davis and became one of the great generals of the Confederacy. He was killed by a cannon ball, on Pine Mountain, near Marietta, Ga., June 14, 1864.
Continuing the subject of the slave-owners’ interest in the spiritual welfare of his slaves, Miss Beauchamp, who was governess in Bishop Polk’s family, tells this amusing story:
“The Bishop, who would at times be away for weeks on visitations through his diocese, always brought on his return joy and pleasure to the household. He would amuse us for days with a recital of his adventures in the border regions of Louisiana and with the people he would meet there. On one occasion, having been up Red River, where an Episcopal clergyman was seldom seen, he was called in to baptize a sturdy, four-year-old youngster, who defiantly resisted sacrament unless his black Fidus Achates, Jim, would receive it at the same time. ‘Well,’ said the Bishop, ‘bring in Jim and I will make a Christian of him, too.’ Accordingly, Jim, being instructed by his mistress, was brought into the parlor; the pair went through the ceremony with perfect propriety and were dismissed to their play. Meanwhile, the friends and neighbors who had called to assist at the baptism and pay their respects to the Bishop, sat in solemn state, awaiting the announcement of dinner. Smallpox had been lurking in the country. Every one was excited on the subject of vaccination, and discussions as to whether it had taken on this or that subject had been the order of the day for more than a week. Suddenly the circle was astounded by the reappearance of Jim, who exclaimed, almost breathless with excitement: ‘Mistes! mistes! you must have Marse Tom baptized over ag’in; it never tuck that ar time. He’s out yonder cussin’ the steers wusser’n ever, and says he ain’t gwinter stop for nobody.’ The ice melted at once, and the stiffness of the circle vanished as the Bishop turned to his hostess and said: ‘A commentary on the doctrine of baptismal regeneration, my dear madam.’
“Every Sunday afternoon all the negroes on the plantation came up to the house and were taught by Mrs. Polk, her daughters and myself in different classes. Singing entered largely into the exercises, many of the negroes having a taste for music, and some of them excellent voices. The ceremonies of marriage and baptism were always performed by the Bishop himself and the names chosen by the negroes were sometimes very amusing. Many of them could not read, and they showed their appreciation of Greek mythology and Shakespeare by the number of Minervas and Ophelias among them. One Sunday twenty-five little negro infants were taken into the Bishop’s arms and christened. Though the scene was a very impressive and interesting one, yet some of the names were so droll to my ears that I could scarcely preserve a becoming gravity. One was named ‘Crystal Palace,’ another, ‘Vanity Fair,’ etc. But when a little creature, black as Erebus and squalling with its mouth extending to enormous size, was taken into the Bishop’s arms to be named ‘Prince Albert’ it was impossible for me to resist longer, and a heavy fit of coughing, gotten up for the occasion, saved me from a reproving look from the Bishop.’”
The Cemetery at St. John’s, Where Generals Cleburne, Strahl and Granbury Were Buried.
One of the most beautiful and touching scenes is quoted further from the same book, and related by the Bishop’s wife, on page 176.
After describing the visitation of cholera in the winter of 1849-50, and the Bishop’s almost fatal illness from it, together with almost all his family and the death of nearly a hundred of the servants of himself and friends, Mrs. Polk relates this touching incident:
“As soon as the Bishop was able—indeed, at the risk of a relapse—he was at the bedside of the sick and the dying. The last case of cholera occurred on the 7th of June, when a very fine servant, named Wright, by trade a blacksmith, was attacked. His master had been reading and praying with him. Wright raised his head and said: ‘Master, lift me up.’ ‘I am afraid to, Wright,’ the Bishop said—‘the doctors say it might be fatal.’ ‘I am dying now, master; lift me up.’ The Bishop raised him, when Wright suddenly threw his arms around his master’s neck and exclaimed: ‘Now, master, I can die in peace; I do love you so I have often wanted to hug you, and now let me die resting here on your heart and you praying for me!’ His wish was complied with and soon he was at rest.”
St. John’s Church received its most sacred and consecrated fame during the war. When Hood’s army invaded Tennessee after the fight around Atlanta, in November, 1864, the route of the army lay along this pike in the march to Nashville. The army had been marching over the poor lands of the barrens, the hills of Georgia and the barrens of the Highland Run, and when it entered Middle Tennessee, in the garden spot of which sat this little church, Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne, who had won great fame as a dashing fighter, raised his hat to the restful beauty and quietness of St. John’s and remarked: “If I am killed in the coming battle, I would like to be buried yonder.” In a few days occurred the bloody battle of Franklin, in which not only Cleburne, but Generals Gist, Strahl, Granbury and Adams—five of the greatest field officers of Hood’s army, were killed, and all except Generals Adams and Gist, were buried in the beautiful cemetery at St. John’s. Years afterward, one by one, their remains were exhumed and carried, with fitting honors, to their former homes, where monuments had been erected to their memories. General Adams was killed on the breastworks, his horse falling half over, and he himself over in the enemy’s lines supported and soothed by one of the officers who mourned the mortal wound, saying that he was too brave a man to die. Cleburne fell leading his men up to the breastworks.
The communion silver for St. John’s was given by Mrs. Sarah H. Polk, the widow of the old Revolutionary soldier, and the mother of Gen. Leonidas Polk. It was beautiful and massive. The war left St. John’s desolate, the Federal army burned the beautiful and imposing mansion of the fighting bishop, the communicants were scattered and for nearly half a century the picturesque chapel has, with occasional services in it, alone stood silent sentinel over its great dead a monument of an heroic age.
The account of how the communion silver was saved during the war is a story told by one of the ladies of the Polk family, and so generally interesting that it is related here, as it illustrates so perfectly the peculiar superstitious nature of the negro:
One of the most faithful negroes belonging to Col. Geo. W. Polk was a negro named Wiley, who had been in the family as a trusty and faithful servant for so many years that Colonel Polk thought he could trust his life in Wiley’s hands. Another negro was old John, a very old negro, who was gardener, and too old to do much more than keep up the flower garden and the walks of the estate. Word was brought to Colonel Polk that some Federals stationed in Columbia, six miles away, intended to make a midnight raid on St. John’s and secure the silver service at the church. Perhaps it was Wiley himself who brought the information, and that the raid, or rather the theft, would occur that night. It did not take Colonel Polk long to act. Soon after dark, taking Wiley and a small express, he went to the old church and secured the silver. Silently he and the negro went out in the dark carrying the silver in a large cedar box and taking off the top of one of the old square box-tombs, he hid it there and placed the top slab back in its place.
Trusting Wiley implicitly, he did not believe the silver would ever be found.
Several days passed, and Colonel Polk felt that all was secure. But one morning as he walked early in the garden he saw old John, the gardener, looking at him furtively and in a peculiar way. Wiley was also around, and the old negro showed plainly that he wished to say something to his master that he did not wish Wiley to hear. Knowing the negro nature as he did—that they never came out openly and said what they thought—and that the furtive glances which old John gave him now and then meant more than words, the Colonel waited until Wiley had left, and purposely entered into conversation with the old negro. He did not want to flush his game, as he would have done by a direct question, so he patiently waited until the old negro should speak in his own way, for he knew that the old negro has something important to tell him in his own negro way.
“Marster,” said the old man at last, “I had sich a quare dream las’ night, I thort I’d tell you, and maybe you could ’terprit it for de ole man. It’s hung onto me all day an’ pestered me so I can’t wuck, an’ I can’t do nothin’ till I tells you. I feels sho’ it means old John is gwineter go soon, fur I seed two angels as plain as I ever seed anybody, but I can’t jes zackly understan’ it all, an’ I thort maybe ef I’d tell you, you mout he’p me.”
“Go on, John,” said the Colonel; “I shall be glad to help you interpret the dream.”
“Wall, Marse George, I dreamed I wuz down at the ole church a wanderin’ among the tombs, out in the ole part, among the trees. An’ den I kinder fell into a trance, an’ den I heard a voice say: ‘John, git up an’ come wid me.’ I riz an’ looked, an’ I see a pale light shinin’ from de church winder, an’ bimeby I seed, two angels come out uv de church. One wuz er white angel an’ one wuz er black angel, an’ dey carried de corpse of er leetle chile in dey arms. Dey come out de church an’ put de coffin in er waggin an’ den dey move off solem. I foller de sperits, an’ dey carried de corpse of dat leetle chile to er ole tomb an’ tuck offen de top an dey put de leetle dead chile in de ole tomb an’ den dey vanished. It seem lak a long time went by—mebbe two nights—an’ den I seed, way in de night, ’twix’ midnight an’ day, other sperits ride inter de ole church yard—soldier sperits, mounted on steeds—an’ dey rid up to de tomb an’ broke it open an’ tuck de corpse of de leetle chile an’ went away. Now, Marse George, dat’s pesterin’ me mighty. Whut dem soldier sperits wanter pester de body uv dat leetle chile fur?”
The Colonel saw at once the application of the dream, and that it was the negro way of warning him without letting Wiley know that the warning had ever been given. He reassured the old darky, who walked off to his work satisfied. That night Colonel Polk went alone to the old tomb and took out the silver, burying it in his garden. About midnight, Wiley led the Federals to the tomb, only to find the silver gone. But Wiley never came home again. Knowing that his secret was out, he ran off with the soldiers.
For many years, as remarked above, St. John’s held the remains of Generals Cleburne, Strahl and Granbury, three of the five generals who fell around the breastworks of Franklin. But one by one, as the years went by, the remains of these brave men were removed and carried to their native States—Cleburne to Arkansas, Granbury to Texas—and finally, after nearly forty years of rest among the trees and under the beautiful bluegrass of St. John’s the gallant young soldier, Strahl, was taken to his old home in West Tennessee. Above them all, the people of their native soil have erected suitable monuments.
Only a few years ago were the ashes of Strahl removed. A brave, handsome young fellow he had been, daring as a soldier and true and self-poised, one of the recognized great soldiers of Hood’s ill-fated army. He led his men up to the side of the Federal entrenchments and down in the trenches. With those who had not been killed or wounded, he stood, and “keep firing” was the word he passed up and down the thin line, hugging one side of the breastwork while their enemies held the other, not six feet away. Mr. Cunningham, editor of The Confederate Veteran, who stood near the general, tells it: “The trench was filled with the dead and the dying. Standing with one foot on the bodies of my comrades and the other on the bank, I rested my rifle upon the top of the breastwork and kept firing at the enemy on the other side. The line had been so thinned that only a solitary fellow soldier stood near me, and now he was shot and fell heavily against me and tumbled over in the mass of dead men. This left me alone, and I asked General Strahl, who had stood for a long while in the trenches and passed up loaded guns to men above: ‘What shall I do, General?’ ‘Keep firing,’ came back, and almost with the word the general himself was shot, and while being carried to the rear was struck again and instantly killed.”
This was the brave young soldier who had lain for nearly forty years in his grave, and whom we were going to disinter and send back his ashes to his old home. It was a raw March day, some three years ago, when the committee from his State came for his remains, and as I stood by the grave and saw the muddy soil upturned beneath which, many years ago, had been laid the form of a handsome, brave and gallant man, cut down in the hey-day of his life and hope, I could but wonder at the changes the forty years had made. These men, who gave their lives for the cause, believing as truly as did their sires of old, that they were fighting for the right of self-government, could they awake to-day would wonder at the turn in the tide of affairs. A nation, the greatest in the world—the leader of thought and action, the champion of the defenseless and the power that stands for the real advancement of humanity; a people so thoroughly reunited that many of the very men who fought by the side of this one, who died, had fought since in the old uniform, under the old flag against the foes of their country. And, strangest of all, not one of the two things that this brave life died for would be accepted by his sons if given them to-day—the institution of slavery and the right of a State to secede.
These, if offered to the South to-day, would be unanimously rejected. Alas, what is our boasted wisdom but the wisdom of babes? And our bravery, what more than that of the unthinking school-boy who fights for a ring of marbles which he afterward throws at the birds?
Here once was a man—free, blessed, brave and handsome.—“Seeking the bubble reputation, even at the cannon’s mouth.”
Now, behold, we have gone down to where his body had been laid away, and, instead of a form, there is a dark line of mold where the coffin had been, part of the sole of a cavalry boot, a few bones and a skull.
“Behold this ruin! ’Twas a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full.
This narrow cell was life’s retreat,
This space was Thought’s mysterious seat.
What beauteous visions filled this spot!
What dreams of pleasures long forgot!
Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear,
Have left me trace of record here.
Beneath this mouldering canopy
Once shone the bright and busy eye—
But start not at its dismal void—
If social love that eye employed,
If with no lawless fire it gleamed,
But through the dews of kindness beamed.
That eye shall be forever bright
When sun and stars are sunk in night.
Within this hollow cavern hung
The ready, swift and tuneful tongue;
If Falsehood’s honey it disdained,
And, when it could not praise, was chained;
If bold in Virtue’s cause it spoke,
Yet gentle concord never broke,
This silent tongue shall plead for thee
When time unveils Eternity.”
Stooping, one of his old soldiers bent reverently to lift the skull of his general, and place it in the handsome casket intended for its final resting place. But it clung to the earth, and on looking we see that a beautiful rose bush that had been growing all the years at his head had sent its roots down, completely filling the skull and drawing nourishment from the mind that had once led conquering lines into battle.
’Tis sentiment only that counts at last. What more beautiful thought than that from the brain of the brave should come the perfume of the rose? Or, as Tennyson, In Memoriam:
“’Tis well—’tis something we may stand
Where he in English soil was laid,
And from his ashes may be made
The violets of his native land.”
The American nation, being young and foolish—a fighter, a doer, a seeker of dollars in the strenuous race called living—does not, in this century cherish as it will centuries hence, such a historical pile as the beautiful old chapel. For a sum, right now there are those who pass it dally who would tear it down to build a stolid stable for their asses. There are others who pass it without a thought, save, perhaps, that ’twere a pity so much good brick should go to waste. There are others who would like to remodel it, turn it into a dwelling, with Queen Anne shingles and a portico in front. In England, such piles as these are their inspiration and their pride—sermons in stones, history in walls, battles in bricks and mortar. It is these that cement the Englishman’s love for his country, its institutions, its laws. It is these which make him love to call it home. We are in the reckless, wild oat stage of money daring, of wealth producing, of gaudiness and strutting display. There is no place among us now for the poet and the scholar, the musician, the dreamer, the preacher. But the time is fast coming when all this will be changed—when to be unread is to be unbred—to be rich is to be rotten. In that day this quaint, epoch-making, history-shingled chapel, this pile of soul-nobleness, this monument to right on the battlefield of might, will outshine all the gilded domes which vulgar wealth has erected as a monument to vanity in the plains of plenty.
Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
And back of the flour, the mill,
And back of the mill is the wheat and the shower,
And the sun—and the Father’s will.
M. D. Babcock.
