to the Cyclopaedia of American Biography, I find that Webster had
all the vices that are supposed to have signalized the Cavalier, and
Calhoun all the virtues that are claimed for the Puritan. During twenty
years three statesmen of Puritan origin were the chosen party leaders of
Cavalier Mississippi: Robert J. Walker, born and reared in Pennsylvania;
John A. Quitman, born and reared in New York, and Sargent S. Prentiss,
born and reared in the good old State of Maine. That sturdy Puritan,
John Slidell, never saw Louisiana until he was old enough to vote and
to fight; native here--an alumnus of Columbia College--but sprung from
New England ancestors. Albert Sidney Johnston, the most resplendent of
modern Cavaliers--from tip to toe a type of the species--the very rose
and expectancy of the young Confederacy--did not have a drop of Southern
blood in his veins; Yankee on both sides of the house, though born in
Kentucky a little while after his father and mother arrived there from
Connecticut. The Ambassador who serves our Government near the French
Republic was a gallant Confederate soldier and is a representative
southern statesman; but he owns the estate in Massachusetts where his
father was born, and where his father's fathers lived through many
generations.

And the Cavaliers, who missed their stirrups, somehow, and got into
Yankee saddles? The woods were full of them. If Custer was not a
Cavalier, Rupert was a Puritan. And Sherwood and Wadsworth and Kearny,
and McPherson and their dashing companions and followers! The one
typical Puritan soldier of the war--mark you!--was a Southern, and not a
Northern, soldier; Stonewall Jackson, of the Virginia line. And, if we
should care to pursue the subject farther back, what about Ethan Allen
and John Stark and Mad Anthony Wayne--Cavaliers each and every one?
Indeed, from Israel Putnam to "Buffalo Bill," it seems to me the
Puritans have had rather the best of it in turning out Cavaliers. So the
least said about the Puritan and the Cavalier--except as blessed
memories or horrid examples--the better for historic accuracy.

If you wish to get at the bottom facts, I don't mind telling you--in
confidence--that it was we Scotch-Irish who vanquished both of you--some
of us in peace--others of us in war--supplying the missing link of
adaptability--the needed ingredient of common sense--the conservative
principle of creed and action, to which this generation of Americans
owes its intelle