omination for the Vice-Presidency, in 1892, I attended
a barbecue at the Blue Spring, a stone's throw from my father's
old home in Kentucky. This was in the county of Christian, in the
southwestern part of the State. It is a large and wealthy county,
its tobacco product probably exceeding that of any other county in
the United States.

Christian County was the early home of men distinguished in the
field, at the bar, and in the State and National councils.
Hopkinsville, the county-seat, had been the home of Stites, the
learned Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals; of Jackson, who fell
while gallantly leading his command at the battle of Perryville;
of Morehead, an early and distinguished Governor of the Commonwealth;
of Sharp, whose legal acumen would have secured him distinction at
any bar; of McKenzie, whose wit and eloquence made him the long-time
idol and the Representative in Congress, of the famed "Pennyrile"
district; of Bristow, the accomplished Secretary of the Treasury
during the administration of President Grant; of the Henry brothers,
three of whom, from different States, were at a later day Representatives
in Congress, and one the Whig candidate against Andrew Johnson for
Governor of Tennessee.

Hon. Gustavus A. Henry, well known as the "Eagle Orator of Tennessee,"
was the Whig candidate for Governor of the State in opposition
to Andrew Johnson, at a later day President of the United States.
The latter was at the time an old-fashioned, steady-going mountain
orator with none of the brilliancy of his gifted antagonist. At
the close of a series of joint debates Johnson said: "This speech
terminates our joint debates. I have now encountered the 'Eagle
Orator' upon every stump in the State, and come out of the contest
with no flesh of mine in his claws--no blood of mine upon his beak."
To which Henry instantly replied: "The eagle--the proud bird of
freedom--never wars upon a corpse!"

A few miles from the Blue Spring, in the same county, were the
early homes of Senator Roger Q. Mills of Texas, Governor John M.
Palmer of Illinois, and Jefferson Davis of the Southern Confederacy.
Less than a score of miles to the southward, upon the banks of the
Cumberland in Tennessee, stood historic Fort Donelson; while a few
hours' journey to the northward stands the monument which marks
the birthplace of Abraham Lincoln.

Following the earliest westward trail from Iredell County, North
Carolina, across the Blue Ri