urder of
his father, the family was left in poverty. When he went to Washington,
the county seat of Wilkes County, to read law with Mr. Matthews, the
clothes he wore were in such a condition that he was compelled to
confine himself to the office in the daytime. He was very poor and
very bright. Old people who knew him when a boy, described him to Judge
Garnett Andrews as "a sallow, piney-woods-looking lad." "Piney-woods
people" was the local name for the tackies, the clay eaters, the
no-accounts, that had settled about on the poorer lands in that section
of Georgia, and given themselves over to thriftlessness for good and
all. But young Dooly had that within him which made him superior to the
conditions and limitations of poverty. Apart from his remarkable gift of
humor, he had a native brilliancy of mind that gave him an easy mastery
over the principles of law that he found in the books. He was admitted
to the bar in 1798, and was immediately successful as a lawyer. His
education had been limited to that which he found in the "old field
schools," and in that day they were not of the best; but such a mind as
his needed only the rudiments, the rest came as by instinct.

[Illustration: Judge Dooly 250]

Judge Dooly was not a student while practicing at the bar. He had
thoroughly mastered the principles, the groundwork, of the law; and his
mind, as logical as it was brilliant, fitted these principles to every
case he had charge of. His love of humor, and his fondness for the
society of those who preferred fun and frolic, placed many temptations
in his way, and some of these he did not always resist; but the faults
he had were the faults of the time in which he lived, the faults of the
society in which he was brought up and by which he was surrounded. Judge
Dooly has been described by a contemporary as having a large head,
with a bold, high forehead, heavy eyebrows, prominent nose, a small
compressed mouth, and large, vivid, sparkling eyes, which, when the
spirit of humor had possession of him, illuminated his countenance as if
an electric battery were in play.

On one occasion, Judge Dooly had been challenged by Judge Tait,--the
same Judge Tait who had made himself so obnoxious to General John
Clarke. Judge Tait had a wooden leg; and Judge Dooly, in replying to the
challenge, referred to this fact, and said he did not think they could
fight on equal terms. He hoped his refusal would not be interpreted as a
reflection on