"De darky in de ole camp ground
Dat loudest sing and shout
Am gwine to rob a hen-roost
Befo' de week am out."
The summer home of Senator Vance during the later years of his life was in his native county of Buncombe, about twenty miles from Asheville, where for some days I was his guest, many years ago. Leaving the cars at the nearest station and following the trail for a dozen miles, I found the Senator snugly ensconced in his comfortable home at the top of the mountain. He was alone, his family being "down in the settlements," as he told me. An old negro man to whom Vance once belonged, as he assured me, was housekeeper, cook, and butler, besides being the incumbent of various other offices of usefulness and dignity.
The first inquiry from Vance as, drenched with rain, I entered his abode and approached a blazing fire, was, "Are you dry?" It would only gratify an idle curiosity to tell how the first moments of this memorable visit passed. Suffice it to say that old-time Southern hospitality was at its best, and so continued till the morning of the fifth day, when I descended in company with my host to the accustomed haunts of busy men.
The days and evenings passed with Vance at the cheerful fireside of his mountain home still live in my memory. He literally "unfolded himself," and it was indeed worth while to listen to his description of the quaint times and customs with which he was familiar in the long ago, to hear of the men he had known and of the stormy events of which he had been a part.
His public life reached back to a time anterior to the war. He was in Congress when its Representatives assembled in the Old Hall, now the "Valhalla" of the nation. Events once of deep significance were recalled from the mists of a long past; men who had strutted their brief hour upon the stage and then gone out with the tide were made to live again. Incidents once fraught with deep consequence but now relegated to the by-paths of history, were again in visible presence, as if touched by the enchanter's wand.
The scenes, of which he was the sad and silent witness, attendant upon the withdrawal of his colleagues and associates from both chambers of the Capitol, and the appeal to the sword—precursors of the chapter of blood yet to be written—were never more graphically depicted by mortal tongue.
I distinctly recall, even at this lapse of time, some of the incidents he related. When first he was a candidate for Congress, far back in the fifties, his district embraced a large portion of the territory of the entire western part of his State. Fully to appreciate what follows, it must be remembered that at that time there was in the backwoods country, and in the out-of-the-way places, far off from the great highways, much of antagonism between the various religious denominations. At times much of the sermons of the rural preachers consisted of denunciations of other churches. By a perusal of the autobiography of the Rev. Peter Cartwright, it will be seen that western North Carolina was only in line with other portions of the great moral vineyard. The doctrines peculiar to the particular denomination were preached generally with great earnestness and power. "Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love," was too seldom heard in the rural congregations. In too many, indeed, Christian charity, even in a modified form, was an unknown quantity.
Under the conditions mentioned, to say that seekers of public place obeyed the Apostolic injunction to be "all things to all men" is only to say that they were—candidates.
It so fell out that our candidate for Congress at the time mentioned was quietly threading his way on horseback to meet his appointment. Far out from the county seat, in a wild and sparsely populated locality, at a sudden turn in the road he found himself in the immediate presence of a worshipping congregation in God's first temple. It was what is known in mountain parlance as a "protracted meeting." The hour was noon, and the little flock had just been called from labor to refreshment. The cloth was spread in the shade of a large tree, and liberally supplied with ham, fried chicken, salt-rising bread, corn dodgers, cucumber pickles, and other wholesome edibles. When Vance appeared upon the scene, the leader of the little flock at once greeted him with cordial invitation to "light and take a bite with us." The candidate accepted the invitation, and fastening his horse to a convenient tree, approached the assembled worshippers, introducing himself as "Zeb Vance, Whig candidate for Congress." The thought uppermost in his soul as he shook hands all around and accepted the proffered hospitality was, "What denomination is this? Methodist? Baptist? What?" As soon as this inquiry could be satisfactorily answered, he was, of course, ready to join; his "letter" was ready to be handed in. But as he quickly scanned the faces about him, he could get no gleam of light upon the all-important question. Suddenly his meditations were ended, the abstract giving way to the concrete, by the aforementioned leader abruptly inquiring, "Mr. Vance, what persuasion are you of?"
The hour had struck. The dreaded inquiry must be answered satisfactorily and at once. That Vance was equal to the emergency will be seen from the sequel.