Kentucky in American Letters, 1784-1912. Vol. 2 of 2

by John Wilson Townsend

Joseph Alexander Altsheler, the most prolific historical novelist Kentucky has produced, was born at Three Springs, Kentucky, April 29, 1862. He was educated at Liberty College, Glasgow, Kentucky, and at Vanderbilt University. His father's death compelled him to leave Vanderbilt without his degree, and he entered journalism at Louisville, Kentucky. Mr. Altsheler was on the Louisville Evening Post for a year, when he went with The Courier-Journal, with which paper his remained for seven years. During his years on The Courier-Journal he filled almost every position except editor-in-chief. He later went to New York, and, since 1892, has been editor of the tri-weekly edition of The World. Mr. Altsheler was married, in 1888, to Miss Sara Boles of Glasgow, Kentucky, and they have an attractive home in New York. He began his literary career with a pair of "shilling shockers," entitled The Rainbow of Gold (New York, 1895), and The Hidden Mine (New York, 1896), neither of which did more than start him upon his real work. The full list of his tales hitherto is: The Sun of Saratoga (New York, 1897); A Soldier of Manhattan (New York, 1897); A Herald of the West (New York, 1898); The Last Rebel (Philadelphia, 1899); In Circling Camps (New York, 1900), a story of the Civil War and his best work so far; In Hostile Red (New York, 1900), the basis of which was first published in Lippincott's Magazine as "A Knight of Philadelphia;" The Wilderness Road (New York, 1901); My Captive (New York, 1902); Guthrie of the Times (New York, 1904), a Kentucky newspaper story of success, one of Mr. Altsheler's finest tales; The Candidate (New York, 1905), a political romance. The year 1906 witnessed no book from the author's hand, but in the following year he began the publication of a series of books for boys, as well as several other novels. His six stories for young readers are: The Young Trailers (New York, 1907); The Forest Runners (New York, 1908); The Free Rangers (New York, 1909); The Riflemen of the Ohio (New York, 1910); The Scouts of the Valley (New York, 1911); and The Border Watch (New York, 1912). "All the six volumes deal with the fortunes and adventures of two boys, Henry Ware and Paul Cotter, and their friends, Shif'less Sol Hyde, Silent Tom Ross and Long Jim Hart, in the early days of Kentucky." Mr. Altsheler's latest historical novels are: The Recovery (New York, 1908); The Last of the Chiefs (New York, 1909); The Horsemen of the Plains (New York, 1910); and The Quest of the Four (New York, 1911). He is at the present time engaged upon a trilogy dealing with the Texan struggle for independence against Mexico, the first of which has recently appeared, The Texan Star (New York, 1912). This tale, with the other two that are to be issued in 1913, to be entitled, The Texan Scouts, and The Texan Triumph, are written chiefly for the young. He will also publish in 1913 a story to be called Apache Gold. "Joseph A. Altsheler has made a fictional tour of American history," one of his keenest critics has well said; and his work has been linked with James Fenimore Cooper's by no less a judge of literary productions than the late Richard Henry Stoddard.

Bibliography. The Independent (August 9, 1900); The Book Buyer (September, 1900); The Bookman (February, 1903).

THE CALL OF THE DRUM[34]

[From In Circling Camps (New York, 1900)]

Then I listened to the call of the drum.

Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the first cannon shot there set this war drum to beating in every village; it was never silent; its steady roll day after day was calling men up to the cannon mouth; it was persistent, unsatisfied, always crying for more.

Its beat was heard throughout a vast area, over regions whose people knew of each other as part of the same nation but had never met, calling above this line to the North, calling below it to the South, summoning up the legions for a struggle in which old jealousies and old quarrels, breeding since the birth of the Union, were to be settled.

The drum beat its martial note in the great cities of the Atlantic, calling the men away from the forges and the shops and the wharves—clerks, moulders, longshoremen, the same call for all; it passed on, and its steady beat resounded among the hills and mountains of the North, calling to the long-limbed farmer boys to drop the plough and take up the rifle, sending them on to join the moulders, and clerks, and longshoremen, and putting upon all one stamp, the stamp of the soldier, food for the cannon—and this food supply was to be the largest of its time, though few yet dreamed it.

The roll of the drum went on, through the fields, along the rivers, by the shores of the Great Lakes, out upon the plains, where the American yet fought with the Indian for a foothold, and into the interminable forests whose shades hid the pioneers; over levels and acres and curves of thousands of miles, calling up the deep-chested Western farmers, men of iron muscles and no pleasures, to whom unbroken hardship was the natural course of life, and sending them to join their Eastern brethren at the cannon mouth.

It was an insistent drum, beating through all the day and night, over the mountains, through the sunless woods and on the burnt prairies, never resting, never weary. The opportunity was the greatest of the time, and the drum did not neglect a moment; it was without conscience, and had no use for mercy, calling, always calling.