Scrapbook of R.C. Carden

The scrapbook of Robert C. Carden
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handwritten on page in ink: "This was 30th May 1900" Col. R.C. Carden Decorates Confederate Graves    The following notice from a Newton, Iowa Daily paper will be of interest to the friends of Mr. R.C. Carden. Mr. Carden is visiting his son in Iowa.
    "On Tuesday morning R.C. Carden, of the 16th Tennessee, and J.F. Lucas of the 33rd Virgina-Stonewall Jackson's Confederate brigade-through the courtesy of Dr. Hammer were taken in an automobile to the Rushville cemetery, where they were met by John L. Williams, another confederate soldier, of the 58th Alabama, and the three"boys in gray" placed a floral tribute of flowers on the grave of one of their comrades, James Callison of the 27th Virgina. Afterwards they visited the grave of A.T. Hammer, of the 7th Iowa Cavalry, in the Quaker cemetery, where they paid the same tribute of love.
    In the afternoon Comrade Carden joined with the Union veterans in our city cemetery and decorated the only Confederate soldier there. The marker used was a small confederate flag, such as is used in the south on such occasions. This is one of the touching incidents of Memorial Day.
(pasted underneath...a seperate article)
A Confederate Veteran
    B.H. Cardin, who lives on the Tom ?ark place in Adamson Grove, is enjouying a visit from his father, R.C. Carden, of Manchester, Tennessee, who is here for a visit until after the 4th of July. Comrade Caren was a confederate soldier in Co. B, 16th Tennessee Infantry and served during the entire war. He is typical southern soldier and gentleman. While in town Saturday with his son, he met a number of the old "Yankee boys" against whom he bravely fought during the four years of war, and between them there was a lively exchange of friendly yarns, interesting to themselves and to the younger generation who gathered around them. We hope Comrade Carden's first visit in the north will prove one of the happiest experiences of his life. A CONFEDERATE FLAG IS USED FOR FIRST TIME    It is an interesting fact that the first rebel flag ever used in Jasper county at a memorial day service was used last week at the local cemetery. The flag was brought here by the C.R. Carden, 16th Tennessee, Infantry Co. B., C.S.A. of Manchester, Tenn. Mr. CArden in company with Dr. M.R. Hammer decorated the confederate grave of James Callison, 27th Va. Infantry, Co. E. Stonewass Brigade, C.S.A. near Kellogg in the morning of May 30th, and in the afternoon the flag was brought to Newton and used to honor the resting place of confederate soldiers who have been buried in the Newton cemetery. After the ceremonies the flag was presented to Dr. Hammer by Mr. Carden and it will be kept by him. CONFEDERATE SOLDIER REMEMBERS UNION FRIENDS WITH MONEY GIFTS    R.C. Carden, the Confederate veteran, who was a member of Company B, 16th Tennessee, who made such great friends with the old Yankee vets of this locality on his recent visit to these parts, has not forgotten his northern friends since his return to Dixie Land. In a recent letter to Dr. Hammer, Mr. Carden enclosed several gifts of money to his friends. "Tommy" Rogers is given a five dollar bill, Ira Livingston $5, Mrs. Etta Porter $2, while $10 is given to Dr. Hammer, who is to present the money to the friends at his earliest convenience.

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A Letter From R.C. Carden

Newton, Iowa, May 25, 1911

To The Times:
    I have written you two letters from here and I suppose that they have found the waist basket, as I don't even receive The Times--only one copy that my daughter sent me. In this will only touch on how they (the old yankee soldiers and the people generally treat an old Rebel here.) I have met quite a lot of them and they seem very glad to see me and give me the glad hand shake, and introduce me to all others that may come along. I especially want to speak of a Dr. Hannon, in Newton, who was born in Tennessee. I was very much surprised to hear him speak, his sentiments as a Southerner. He said in the presence of a Northern Soldier, that if he had been old enough he would have went south and joined the C.S.A. He phoned me to come to town and when I got there he just took charge of me, stayed with me, stayed all night with him, and he would not permit me to pay my bill at the restaurant. He and myself and another Rebel are to decorate two old Rebel graves next Tuesday. He took and introduced me to a very nice and intelligent northern lady at her home and we had a very pleasant time, and she had me to call again, which I did. I gave her the Southern view of the South and the negroi and she seemed to be surprised as to how the negro was treated in the South in slave time and other matters, and the way Judge Lynch holds court in the South and a lot of Northern States. I promised her that I would call again. I will mention another circumstance that ??? in the restaurant. A young buck negro walked in with his hat on, took his seat and ordered what he wanted, talked to women waiters and they would talk to him very pleasantly. He could probably show the South some things and be shown just a few things. I may write more if I see this in print. R.C. Carden
Old Confed at Home.        R.C. Carden, who spent several weeks in this city and vicinity with his two sons, is now at his home in Manchester, Tennessee, and in a letter to his friend, Dr. Hammer, sends lots of good words to many Newton people, especially the "old Yankee soldiers," who helped make his first Northern visit so pleasant. He says his home friends now call him a yankee. He urges the doctor to visit him during the Tennessee state fair this fall, and it would be just like him to go. Mr. Carden is a typical southern gentleman and soldier and it wasn't hard for him to make friends among the "Yankees" during his recent visit.
    Mr. Carden, since his return home, has remembered a number of his Yankee friends here with bills of Confederate money, the writer getting a $5 bill issued Sept. 2, 1861.

If you don't want to miss any of the old Rebel's story you should get your name on our list. And if you want to take advantage of our 30 day offer you'll have to hurry.

B.H. Carden and family are enjoying a visit with his father, R.C. Carden, from the South. Mr. Carden was a member of the 16th Tennessee and served three years in the rebel army and carries scars received when he was fighting for the South.

Dr. Hammer Has Returned From Southern Trip

Dr. M.R. Hammer returned Sunday night from Tennessee, where he has been visiting and hobnobbing with the confederate veterans for the past two or three weeks. Dr. Hammer states that he has had a royal time and was completely carried away by the hospitality of the southerners. He visited most of the time with his friend, R.C. Carden, the confederate veteran who visited this city last Decoration day. Mr. Hammer paid a visit to the battlefield of Chicanaugua in Georgia, and also looked over the old battlefield of Lookout mountain. He says he is feeling ten years younger, all on account of that visit to Dixie Land.

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Memorial To Federal Dead
    Impressive Sunday Services
Under the Auspices of
the G.A.R.    A memorial service in honor of the Federal dead was held at Odd Fellows Hall, Seventh Avenue and Jefferson Street, yesterday afternoon under the auspices of George H. Thomas Post G.A.R. Commander C.G. Matthews called the meeting to order and Rev. A.S. Allen, pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church, offered prayer.
    Maj. A.S. Wills briefly addressed the meeting and explained that Gov. Hooper had hoped to be present to speak to the veterans, but being sick he had on the advice of his physicians, gone to the mountains for a much needed rest. Gen. Thrust?? he said, had intended to address the old soldiers, but the indifferent state of his health forbade his braving the intense heat to be present. Mr. Lawrence of Indiana told of his war experience. He was too young to be a participant in the strife, but told graphically of having seen Gen. John Morgan and his men on their raid through Indiana and Ohio. He said his family furnished two soldiers to the Federal army and one to the Confederates. The one who wore the gray became Morgan's orderly.
    Rev. A.A. Allen said he was the son of a Confederate soldier. He said the Confederates had not fought against the United States Government because they hated that government or because they desired to break it up, but they fought for a constitutional principle. He said he had five uncles in the Confederate ranks and not one of them lived to return home.
    Maj. Wills said two of the grandest men developed by the war were Robert E. Lee and George H. Thomas, both Virginians.
    Mr. Torrey, who followed Morgan and after his capture in Ohio the plume of Forrest, was present and expressed gratification at the disappearance of all sectional feeling, and told how the Southern people had come to revere the old Stars and Stripes ith as much fervor as did the people of the North.
    It was announced that the graves at the National Cemetery would be decorated Tuesday afternoon on which occasion Gov. Hanley of Indiana will make the principal address -----------------    "One of the most pleasant incidents of our trip was a dinner at the Delmont, at Newton, given by Dr. M.R. Hammer, the guests being R.C. Carden, of Co. B, 16th Tennessee, an old rebel soldier who fought exactly opposite the writer all the summer of 1864 and helped capture our battery at Atlanta, Tommy rogers, city editor of the Newton Record, a member of the 22nd Iowa, and your humbnle servant. It was a jolly bunch and the two "Yanks" were held level by the old "Johnny". We couldn't tell him any lies for he was right on the ground." Confederate Evacuates.    R.C. Carden, the old Confederate veteran who had been visiting for over two months with his sons, B.H. Carden in Adamson Grove and Jack Carden of Reasnor, left Sunday for his home at Manchester, Tennessee. This was the first time Comrade Carden had been north of "Mason and Dixon line", and he found the Yankees a pretty good sort of people, especially the Union Veterans, among whom he made many friends. We think he would love to come back some day, anbd we would love to have him.

Beauregard and Jackson
Advocated War To Knife
Beauregard and Jackson Advocated War to Knife--Confederate
General Says That He and Old Stonewall Approved
of Such Method in Retaliation--Old Letter Written to Gen. James D. Porter Unearthed.

    Recently Mr. Robert Quarles, in charge of the arcives at the State Capitol, came upon an autograph letter written in 1875 by Gen. G.T. Beauregard to Gov. James D. Porter in answer to one Gov. Porter had written him inquiring as to the truth of a statement made by Gen. Frank Sherman to the effect that Gen. Beauregard had, during the civil war, advocated raising the black flag. Gen. Beauregard's letter of reply, while dated at New Orleans was mailed at Havana, Cuba, and is as follows:
    "New Orleans, La. April 23, 1875--
Dear Sir: Your favor of the 18th inst. has been received, inclosing the form of an invitation adopted by a general meeting of the soldiers, sailors, and citizens of Chicago, to be sent 'to all who recognize the American flag as an emblem of nationality, undivided and undivisible, to attend a grand reunion of all the soldiers and sailors of the United States, to be held at Chicago May 12, 13 and 14, 1875,' and inquiring how much truth there is in the remarks of a certain General Frank Sherman who objected to the invitation being sent to me, as 'he was not in favor of extending an invitation to a man who had said he was in favor of shooting all prisoners taken under the American flag.' I had hoped that the passions and enmities occasioned by the late war were replaced by kindlier feelings, but it seems that there are hearts still rancorous enough to be ever anxious to stir again into a flame the dying embers of the war.
    In this section of our country such exhibitions of animosity are confined furthest from the enemy, gathering up the spoils in the wake of the contending armies. Is not this General Frank Sherman one of those despicable characters?
    Not from any regard for such windy declamation nor the man mean enough to sink to such base pandering to popular passion, but out of respect to myself and to that cause whose high and holy purpose history will some day vindicate, I will very briefly and frankly state the position I took in regard to the conduct of the late civil war, as concerned Federal prisoners.
    After the battle of the First Manassas, when it was reported that the Federal Government refused to recognize Confederate prisoners as 'prisoners of war,' that Christian hero and able soldier, Gen. Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, and myself advocated that the Confederate Government should then proclaim a 'war to the knife,' neither asking nor granting quarter. We moreover thought that the war would thereby come sooner to an end, with less destruction, finally, of life and property. We thought, also, that such a mode of warfare would inspire greater terror in the armed invaders of our soil and reduce greatly the number of army followers, bummers, etc. who are ever the curse of all armed invasions.
    Subsequently, when the Federals had penetrated certain portions of the South and developed a system of warfare so diametrically opposed to the one practiced by the Confederates when theuy invaded Maryland and Pennsylvania under their great commander Gen. R.E. Lee and I saw the emaciated forms and wretched condition of our returned Southern prisoners, I again advocated the hoisting of the black flag, willing at any time to forfeit my life in the deadly struggle.
    Notwithstanding these views, I always treated my prisoners with humanity and proper consideration. I had the fortune of taking many thousands of them at Manassas, Shiloh, Charleston, Petersburg, most of whom are, I suppose, still alive and can (and certainly would) testify to the fact.
    After the fall of Fort Sumter, in April, 1861, I granted to the garrison the same considerate terms which I had offered before the attack.
    Through my intercession the Federal surgeons and ministers of the gospel, taken at Manassas, were released, without exchange, by the Confederate Government. The day after that battle one of the Federal officers (whose friends I knew in New York) applied to me for a small loan for himself and friends, which I furnished at once from my private funds. It was faithfully returned.
    Shortly after the battle of Shiloh I sent under a cartel a certain number of able-bodied Federal prisoners to Gen. Halleck, who, several weeks after, returned an equal number of convalescents from St. Louis to Fort Pillow; the officer in command there refused to receive them, because several of them were just from a smallpox hospital. Gen. Halleck failed afterward to make good the exchange.
    At Charleston, I authorized Admiral Dahlgren to send supplies of clothing, etc. to the prisoners we had taken from him; these supplies were scrupulously issued to them.
    At Bermuda Hundreds, in May, 1864, when passing in front of a large body of Federal prisoners, who had gallantly defended a position which I considered indispensable to us, I took off my hat to them and they answered this salutation with cheers.
    Terribly as I desired the effects of the war to fall on all armed invaders of our country, I wanted exempted from them the non-combatants, that is the old men, women and children, and wished, also, that private property, not contraband of war and not needed by the contending armies in the field, should be entirely protected from seizure or destruction. Such would have been my course had I penetrated with an army into Federal territory, unless it were in strict retalation for material departures by the Federal forces from this civilized code of carrying on the way. I remain, dear sir, yours most truly, G.T. Beauregard.
    "To His Excellency, Gov. James D. Porter. Nashville, Tenn."
    "Note--In their operation in Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia and the inexcuseable burning of Atlanta and Columbia as well as the destructive march of Gen. ??? through Georgia and South Carolina, whose path was marked by smoking ruins and blackened chimneys to the suggestion of Gen. Halleck to destroy Charleston and sprinkle salt on its site that not even grass should grow thereon, to which Gen. S. (Sheridan) replied that no salt would be needed as one of his most reliable corps formed the right wing of his army, and that it always did its work thoroughly; to the devastating march of Gen. Sheridan through the Shenandoah Valley, relaive to which he reported to the General-in Chief of the United States armies that "a crow flying over the country would have to carry its own rations" but he did not say what became of the old men, women and children who then lived in that fertile valley.
    "With regard to the mortality of prisoners on both sides, the Washington Union (Radical) of October, 1868, contained the following article: "In reply to a resolution of the House of Representatives, calling upon the Secretary of War for the number of prisoners of either side held, and that died during the war, he makes the following report: Number of Union prisoners, South. 260,940; died 22,590. Number of Confederate prisoners, North. 200,000, died 26,435. That is two of the latter out of every 15. Comment is here unnecessary inview of the condition and resources of those two sections of country."

THE GROWING SOUTH

    Mr. William T. Ellis, whose name is familiar to readers of the Banner through his frequent contributions to this paper, recently made a tour of the South in which Nashville was included. The result of the tour is an illustrated article in The Continent of January 25, a weekly magazine published in Philadelphia.
    Mr. Ellis presents a glowing picture of Southern progress. "The old South," he says, "has become New America. The rapidity of the changes that are under way south of Mason and Dixon's line, and their radical character, are beyond the understanding of anyone who has not recently traveled over a considerable area and observed the altered condidions with his own eyes." Describing the change that has come in Southern conditions, he says:
    "The new cities are the surest sign of the change. In the days that are now forever gone, the cities of the South were little more than great market towns and the seat of the courts. The real life of the people centered in the country. The most devoted admirer of the glories of the ante-bellum social system points to the plantation, and not to the city, for his illustrations of the graces and charms of the life of that day. With radical modifications, that same social order persists in spots today. There are still noble mansions, in the center of estates, which embody and display the bounteous type of Southern hospitatlity and society which many books preserve as a fragrant memory. To recite the naturalness, genuiness and unstintedness of Southern hospitality, whether in the "big house" at the end of a long avenue of stately trees or in the primitive cabin of the mountaineer, is to pen a commonplace. Nowhere else on earth can it be matched. This is deeply to be regretted that travelers from abroad almost never see this aspect of American life."
    Of the South that has changed from the old habit of the plantation life to the best of urban conditions, Mr. Ellis says:
    "As for the New South, it is Young America at its best. It
"Turns a keen untroubled face Home to the instant need of things."
    The chains of poverty, which have manacled the South for nearly fifty years, have at last been broken. The young men are making money, a great deal of money. With the most modern skill and equipment they are taking up the gigantic task of exploiting the South's varied resources. They know how. In breadth of conception that makes the conservative North their pupils, they enter upon the promotion of their public enterprises. Public spirit is in the air. Less visionary than the premature "boomers" of Western communities, they display equal enthusiasm and energy. The cities they are making are real cities, of skyscrapers, fine streets and modern homes. A trifling evidence of the general prosperity and alertness everywhere in the South is the fact that in all but one of the dozen cities I have recently visited I was driven about in automobiles--even the preachers and editors own automobiles--and the fact that a journalist was in town looking things over was discovered by the newspapers. I should not like to tell how often I was given the opportunity to meet representative men at luncheons and dinners. Part of this is the innate hospitality of the South, a part of it is alertness to help visitors see the people of the city under the most favorable auspices.
    "The splendid Americanism of these Southern cities overwhelm one. To this point I shall return in a later article; but it is worthy of note in this introductory statement. It is the American type that one sees upon the streets. The business men are Americans. Their fair and generous spirit is typical of the genius of the nation. The swing and assurance and up-to-the-minute air, which marks the type everywhere is improved by idealism, a care for culture, a real interest in public questions, and a sincere spirit of democracy, which lead an observer to predict great service to the state when once the New South has found its gait.
    Specific mention is made of a number of Southern cities. Of Nashville the writer says:
    To speak in the future tense of the city that possesses the Hermitage seems not well; yet Nashville may say with the poet,
"Grow old along with me;
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made"
    An advantageous situation has marked Nashville as a city of destiny; early specializing upon educational work, it has long held undisputed claim to the title "The Athens of the South," and thousands of men and women throughout the land turn in memory to the heights of Nashville whenever they sing "Alma Mater." I could write of the great office buildings, and the new hotel, and the State Capitol, and the great railway station and the Southern Methodist and Southern Presbyterian mission headquarters, which make Nashville an international center; but I prefer to dwell upon the groups of students, charming girls from Belmont and Ward, and the five other seminaries; and the men from Vanderbilt and Peabody. It is the presence of so much fresh, young life that is a boon to any city.
    The South of today impresses all visitors with its progress and its great possibilities. But the South has only began to grow. It was mostly stagnant, out of the current of the country's growth, while the West was being developed. In the future the tide will set mostly this way.
    It is very gratifying to the South that it made such afreeable impression on a man of culture, travel and intelligence like Mr. Ellis.