University of Virginia Library

REMINISCENSES OF A. B. CHANDLER

"About nine miles southwest of Bowling Green is Woodlawn,
the present home of Dr. E. C. Cobb. This farm was owned by my
grandfather, Benjamin Coleman, in 1843, and here I was born
August 16, 1843, and lived her four years until my father, John
Chandler, bought Elson Green, two miles north of Page's Bridge.
At Elson Green I lived during my boyhood days until my father
sold in 1863, and loaned the proceeds to the Confederate Government.
He was a Whig and voted for Bell and Everett for President
and Vice-President in 1860. He was, however, an ardent secessionist,
and believing that if the United States Government could
liberate the slaves contrary to the constitution, it could also
confiscate our lands, and, therefore, he would risk all he had in
the success of the Confederate cause. He did so and lost all.

"In my boyhood days up to 1858, I went to school in the `old
field schools,' as they were called, schools taught by a single
teacher, in a log cabin of one room, built convenient for the
neighborhood and by the patrons of the school, of pine logs
chinked and daubed, with daubed wood chimneys, with one
window and plain blank benches with no backs, generally made
out of a slab from a saw-mill log. My teachers of those days,
whose memory I recall with great pleasure, were Henry A. Ware,
Henry C. Peatross and Wm. G. Taliaferro, father of our present
W. G. Taliaferro. These were all fine men of old Virginia stock,
intelligent, faithful and efficient. I wish I had space to give a
short biographical sketch of each. While these schools were
located as conviently as possible, I had to walk from two to five
miles twice daily to reach them. Mosquitoes were superabundent
in the bottoms of Caroline, and unmercifully innoculated us with

malaria, though we did not know that malaria came from this
source. Malaria, more than any other thing, interferred with the
educational progress of that day. These schools were good
schools, the teachers earnest and unremitting in their labors.
The school hours were from 8:00 A. M. to 4:00 P. M., with one
hour for recess at noon. The discipline was exacting, and, on
occasion, the hickory was not spared. Children were taught
spelling, reading, writing, arithmetic, geometry, algebra, history,
and some Latin. In the fifties the weather was much more severe
than in later years. It was but the usual thing to see the highways
so covered with snow and ice that they were used for continuous
sleighing for months at a time. In 1856 and 1857 we
had two snows five or six feet deep, and in one of these years the
public did not use the highways for months; not until spring
weather melted the snow. In some cuts the snow was ten feet
deep. The period of which I am writing was the period of slavery
and the South's highest civilization. In no period of time, in
no country of earth, did civilization and culture reach that of the
South as it was immediately preceding our war between the
States. I make no apology for African slavery; I am sorry it
ever existed in Virginia. I never owned a slave, but my father
owned many. This culture, I have spoken of, however, was
based largely upon slavery. Every owner of a large plantation
was lord of all he surveyed. He had ample leisure for reading the
best literature of the day, and so had his family. The ladies of
the house had only to direct the management of the household,
with an ample supply of highly-trained servants. The young
men spent their leisure time in neighborhood social gatherings
and shooting partridges, frequently a single huntsman killing
twenty or more birds a day. There were large neighborhood
dinings, held first at one mansion and then at another, at which
all the familes of the neighborhood gathered, and the tables groaned
under the superabundance of all things tempting the appetite
of man. The sons and daughters of this class of whom I am now
writing were sent, after finishing their `old field school' training,
to the very best colleges and universities to properly equip them
to maintain their station in life. The sons either succeeded their
fathers as owners of the old homestead or filled the learned
professions, generally law and medicine.

"Upon the principle of suggestio falsi suppressio veri (a
suggestion of falsehood is suppression of truth), I trust the present

generation of Caroline may not be shocked when I record that,
at these neighborhood feasts not only were there abundant solids,
but there were placed on the sideboards an abundance of crushed
loaf sugar and ice, mint, and several varieties of old Bourbon
and rye. A peculiarity of our people of that generation was
that, whenever one citizen became offended with another they
rarely adjusted their differences at that time, but adjourned the
matter until the next court day, then when they met they would
fight it out on the court green. I remember witnessing a man
on the court green going up to another very upright and peaceful
citizen, and putting his fist under his nose, gave the nose a very
severe punch upward. The citizen punched did not resent the
very severe intrusion on his nose, which brought the blood, but
simply took out his large bandanna handkerchief and wiped off
the blood. Thus culture and degredation, virtue and vice seem
to move on together through the ages. * * * 

"I arrived home at my grandmother's in June, 1865, too late
to do more than to sow some wild oats during the remainder of
that year. The next year, 1866, I rented land and made a crop,
sold the crop in the fall, sold my horse (all I had saved from the
war), and borrowed $100.00 from a friend and started in the fall
for Washington and Lee University to study law under Judge
Brockenbrough, who had a private law school in Lexington,
which was absorbed by the university that year. In June, 1867,
I came home to Caroline with my diploma, certifying that I was
a Bachelor of Law, and I did more than this, I also brought
home with me in the same year my wife. Studying law and
desperately loving at the same time do not usually run smoothly
together. I succeeded in both simply because the love disease
did not violently seize me until near the end of my collegiate
term. This brings me to the fall of 1867, when I came to Bowling
Green to live and start the battle of life.

"Before proceeding from this date I wish to go back to the
fifties and call attention to the fact that, in a few of those years
there were in Caroline and Virginia, literally millions of wild
pigeons in the fall. They were so numerous that they went
in great flocks, and darkened the sky in their flight. They fed
on acrons, and thousands upon thousands of them were shot
and trapped. They were a little smaller than our domestic
pigeons, and of solid slate color. They have now almost disappeared,
there being only a few in one county in New Jersey,

and an effort is being made to protect these by law. The robin,
too, was very numerous in those days. The highways were lined
with cedars full of berries, and thousands of robins during the
entire winter were in these trees, and thousands were shot. This
bird, while it continues to be with us, is now very scarce and we
see but few of them, and these only in the spring of the year. It
is wonderful how various species of both animals and birds disappear
altogether from age to age and other species take their place.
Man yet remains, although many races have degenerated and been
blotted out, while other races have advanced and developed in
body and soul nearer their Creator. It all depends upon the
degree of success they attained in living up to and practising
the tenets of life as laid in Christ's Sermon on the Mount.

"The period of time from 1867 into the seventies was the period
of reconstructing the South. We were fought by the North
on the theory that we could not secede from the Union, but when
we were `frazzled out,' then we were considered out of the union
and had to be brought back. The negroes were given the right
of suffrage by constitutional amendment, and the Southern States
were forced to ratify this amendment as a condition precedent
to their re-admission to the Union. A constitutional convention
was called in Virginia, while it was Military District No. 1, ruled
by Gen. Canby of the Federal army. This convention sat in Richmond,
composed largely of `gentlemen' of pure African descent,
half breeds, carpetbaggers and scalawags, which framed a constitution
disfranchising a very large portion of the best white
people of the State for participating in the rebellion. General
Grant was President and permitted the people to vote for the
constitution, and at the same time vote against the clause of
the same which disfranchised our white people. At the same time
that we voted on the constitution we voted for a governor and
members of the legislature. This was in 1869, and politics were
at red heat. The whites were linked up solidly on one side and the
blacks on the other. The result of the election was that the
constitution was ratified with the disfranchising clause stricken
out. Caroline elected Capt. J. M. Hudgin and Maj. R. O.
Peatross to the House of Delegates by 170 majority over Tukey
and Crockett, the latter colored. Thus we got back into the
union. The political contest between the whites and blacks kept
up many years, and all kinds of means and devices were employed
to keep the State from negro domination. Frederick S. Tukey,

a Massachusetts Yankee, was sent to Caroline as head of the
Freedmen's bureau. He was personally a kind dispositioned man,
but a South hater, and while the whites tried to conciliate the
blacks and induce them to vote with us, since their interests
were identified with ours, Tukey invariably told them to first
find out how the whites were going to vote and then they must
vote directly opposite. The blacks, with their new acquired
freedom, and the belief instilled into them that the South was
responsible for their slavery, and that they owed their freedom
to the North, were easily led and consolidated against the whites.
Some few of them always voted with the whites but if it was
discovered they were ostracised and otherwise ill treated by their
color. The people of Virginia and the South saw that their civilization
was in peril, that under no circumstances could they afford
to see ignorant black men holding positions as magistrates,
legislators and judges, and hence every means was resorted to
to prevent these catastrophies.

"I was young and full of spizzerinktum, hence soon found
myself deep in politics. Whether the end justified the means I
need not at this late day discuss. It was so deemed by our
people, and no means available were omitted to have the offices of
the State filled by white people. The colored people on election
day would choose a ticket holder, and he put all the ballots intended
for the negroes in a bag folded, and each voter was instructed
to get his ballot from this ticket holder. On a certain
occasion two gentlemen, the night before election, met in an
office in Bowling Green to determine what had better be done
to make safe the election of the next day. They got hold of a
colored man, whom they thought they could trust, and paid
him to take $5.00 to a distant precinct, and fifty Democratic
ballots, and to give both the five dollars and the fifty ballots to
the negro ticket holder of that precinct for use the next day.
The scheme worked and this far-off precinct, which usually gave
75 Republican majority gave 50 Democratic majority. The
negroes were greatly puzzled; they knew something had happened
but just how the thing was done they did not know.

"Since I am speaking of the relationship between the races
I will say that I have always found the negro kind and friendly,
courteous and respectful, ready to lend a helping hand to one
in need, and as reliable in the performance of their engagement
as other people. Many of them are among our very best citizens.

"When I located at Bowling Green, the first of October, 1867,
to enter upon the practice of my profession (this was my purpose
but I had no clients) I stuck up my shingle. Having a wife to
support, as well as myself, I could not wait for clients. There
being no common schools at that date, I rented a portion of the
building now owned by Dr. Butler and secured patrons enough
to give me a good school and taught this for one session and a
half when I relinquished the school and gave my time to the
practice of my profession. When I came to the bar, it was a
large and eminent one. From the City of Richmond came James
Lyons, Travis Daniel, Chastain White, of Holladay, Bailey and
White, Mr. Griswold, and from Fredericksburg came John L.
Marye, Jr., with whom was associated shortly afterwards St.
Geo. R. Fitzhugh, Braxton and Wallace (Elliott M. Braxton and
Wistar Wallace), A. W. Wallace, Wm. A. Little and W. S. Barton
and occasionally others from that city. Mr. John L. Marye, the
father of John L. Mayre, Jr., was then an old man and retiring
from the practice, though he usually came down to enjoy himself
and be with the fraternity. He was a bright and jovial man,
full of anecdote and wit and could tell a good joke and enjoy
it as much as any man I ever knew, expressing his joy in hearty
laughter. The Caroline resident bar embraced John Washington,
Scott & Chandler, (F. W. Scott and W. T. Chandler), E. C.
Moncure, Walter G. Hudgin, John M. Hudgin, T. N. Welch and
R. O. Peatross. These were practicing attorneys when the
War between the States commenced. This was the Bar when
I joined it in 1867. When the new constitution for the State
became effective after the war, and the County Court was created
with a single judge, Walter G. Hudgin was elected Judge and
presided over the Court for several terms, being succeeded by
T. N. Welch when the re-adjusters (so called) in combination
with the Republicans captured the State. Welch (as Congressman
Harris said) was a `Re-adjuster in the cool.' We lived under
this motley judicial reign until this combination was overthrown
when E. C. Moncure succeeded Judge Welch as Judge of the
County Court and held the position until the County Court
was abolished. Judge John Critcher was Judge of the Circuit
Court when I came to the bar and was succeeded by Judge Wm.
S. Barton (venerrabile et clarissimo nomen), of Fredericksburg.
This order was true, except for a short period during reconstruction
when Virginia was in a military district ruled over by General

Canby, who removed Judge Critcher and appointed a man named
Thompson.

"The old bar was composed of men of exalted conceptions
of the dignity and honor of their profession and the
most genial and sociable of men. Many of the men I have
named were profound in learning and eloquent in debate. In
those days the Circuit Court, which had jurisdiction in most
civil and criminal cases, met only twice a year, and usually continued
in session from two to three weeks. Most of the attorneys
put up at the Lawn Hotel, and at nights would meet in social
intercourse, and have a most enjoyable time, telling anecdotes
and discussing the intricate problems of law. We had many
strong men at the bar. James Lyons was tall and well proportioned,
and while not quite as forceful in debate as Mr. Daniel,
was one of the most suave and polished men I ever knew. Chastain
White, with a large, bald head, was a good, all round, forceful
man, and continued to practice law in Caroline longer than any
of the Richmond lawyers. George Ridgely Dorsey, father of our
present County Treasurer, came to us from Maryland. Having
been a Confederate soldier he found a more congenial atmosphere
in Caroline than in his native State. I would name him as the
most brilliant member of the old Caroline bar. Certainly no
one of equal intellectuality has succeeded him. The ethics of
the profession were very high and scrupulously maintained. I
am sorry I can not affirm same to be true of all men who have
joined the profession since that time. Next to the ministry the
bar has the power to be of the greatest good to mankind,
but it all depends upon whether or not they use their great offices
in allaying or fomenting strife.

"In speaking of the bar I can not omit to say a word about
our most excellent sheriff of that day. A lawyer cannot prosper
very much without a good sheriff. Mr. Geo. W. Marshall was
sheriff and no one could possibly have discharged the duties of
the office better than he did. The sheriff not only attended to
the law business of the bar, but he also collected the public revenue.
Having the public revenue to collect, the sheriff was thus the
better enabled to collect money on executions by combining the
two collections. Mr. Marshall was very fine at this and, in
many instances, I have had him collect money for me when it
could not have been made by forceful proceedings. He was
exceedingly genial, sociable and polite, and a universal favorite
with the bar and the public."