Yours fraternally,
John H. Aughey.
To Mr. William Jackman,
Amsterdam, Jefferson Co., Ohio.
CHAPTER VIII.
NOTORIOUS REBELS.—UNION OFFICERS.
Colonel Jefferson Davis—His Speech at Holly Springs, Mississippi—His Opposition to Yankee Teachers and Ministers—A bid for the Presidency—His Ambition—Burr, Arnold, Davis—General Beauregard—Headquarters at Rienzi—Colonel Elliott’s Raid—Beauregard’s Consternation—Personal description—His illness—Popularity waning—Rev. Dr. Palmer of New Orleans—His influence—The Cincinnati Letter—His Personal Appearance—His Denunciations of General Butler—His Radicalism—Rev. Dr. Waddell of La Grange, Tennessee—His Prejudices against the North—President of Memphis Synodical College—His Talents prostituted—Union Officers—General Nelson—General Sherman.
COLONEL JEFFERSON DAVIS.
In 1856 I heard Colonel Jefferson Davis deliver an address at Holly Springs, Mississippi. The Colonel is about a medium height, of slender frame, his nose aquiline, his hair dark, his manners polite. He is no orator. His speech was principally a tirade of abuse against the North, bitterly inveighing against the emigrant aid societies which had well-nigh put Kansas upon the list of free States. He advised the people to employ no more Yankee teachers. He had been educated in the North, and he regarded it as the greatest misfortune of his life. Soon after Colonel Davis visited New England, where he eulogized that section in an extravagant manner. He was pleased with everything he saw; even “Noah Webster’s Yankee spelling-book” received a share of the Colonel’s fulsome flattery. On his return to the South, “a change came o’er the spirit of his dream,” and his bile and bitterness against Yankee-land returned in all its pristine vigour. The Colonel was making a bid for the Presidency; but New England was not so easily gulled; his flimsy professions of friendship were too transparent to hide the hate which lay beneath, and his aspirations were doomed to disappointment.
Though Colonel Davis is often called Mississippi’s pet, yet he is not regarded as a truthful man, and his reports and messages are received with considerable abatement by “the chivalry.” His ambition knows no bounds. He would rather “reign in hell than serve in heaven.”