doubt whether either exception could be made. He said that
if anything had happened to Lee, Walthall would have succeeded
to the chief command of the Confederate forces. General Walthall
seemed to me the perfect type of the gentleman in character
and speech. He was modest, courteous and eager to be of service
to his friends or his country. The description of the young
Knight given us by Chaucer, the morning star of English poetry,
still abides as the best definition of the gentleman.

Curteis he was, lowly and serviceable.

His colleague, Mr. Williams of Mississippi, after Walthall's
death, described the Southern gentleman of our time in a sentence
which deserves to stand by the side of Chaucer's:

"The ideal gentleman was always honest; spoke the truth;
faced his enemy; fought him, if necessary; never quarrelled
with him nor talked about him; rode well; shot well; used
chaste and correct English; insulted no man--bore no insult
from any; was studiously kind to his inferiors, especially
to his slaves; cordial and hospitable to his equals; courteous
to his superiors, if he acknowledged any; he scorned a demagogue,
but loved his people."

I do not undertake to draw his portraiture. I suppose that
whoever does that must describe a great soldier and a great
lawyer, as well as a great Senator. I only state what I saw
of him in the Senate Chamber. It was said of him by an eminent
Republican Senator, his associate on the Committee on Military
Affairs, that in dealing with questions which affected the
right of Union soldiers, or growing out of service to the
Union during the Civil War, no stranger could have discovered
on which side of that great war he had ranged himself.

CHAPTER XVII
CUSHMAN KELLOGG DAVIS

I reprint here a paper read before the American Antiquarian
Society shortly after Mr. Davis's death.

Cushman Kellogg Davis was born at Henderson, Jefferson County,
New York, June 16, 1838, and died at St. Paul, Minnesota,
November 27, 1900. On his mother's side he was descended
from Robert Cushman and Mary Allerton, the last survivor of
the company which came over in the Mayflower. He was graduated
at the University of Michigan in 1857, and admitted to the
Bar shortly before the breaking out of the Civil War. He
enlisted at the beginning of the War and served as First Lieutenant
of Company B, Eighth Wisconsin Regiment, until 1864, when
he was compelled by physical infirmity to resign his commissi