Marse Henry: an Autobiography, Complete

Part 1

Produced by Curtis A. Weyant, David Widger and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

“Marse Henry”

An Autobiography

by Henry Watterson

Illustrated

To My Friend Alexander Konta With Affectionate Salutation

“Mansfield,” 1919

A mound of earth a little higher graded: Perhaps upon a stone a chiselled name: A dab of printer’s ink soon blurred and faded— And then oblivion—that—that is fame!

—Henry Watterson

Contents

Chapter the First

I Am Born and Begin to Take Notice—John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson—James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce—Jack Dade and “Beau Hickman”—Old Times in Washington

Chapter the Second

Slavery the Trouble-Maker—Break-Up of the Whig Party and Rise of the Republican—The Key—Sickle’s Tragedy—Brooks and Sumner—Life at Washington in the Fifties

Chapter the Third

The Inauguration of Lincoln—I Quit Washington and Return to Tennessee—A Run-a-bout with Forest—Through the Federal Lines and a Dangerous Adventure—Good Luck at Memphis

Chapter the Fourth

I Go to London—Am Introduced to a Notable Set—Huxley, Spencer, Mill and Tyndall—Artemus Ward Comes to Town—The Savage Club

Chapter the Fifth

Mark Twain—The Original of Colonel Mulberry Sellers—The “Earl of Durham”—Some Noctes Ambrosianæ—A Joke on Murat Halstead

Chapter the Sixth

Houston and Wigfall of Texas—Stephen A. Douglas—The Twaddle about Puritans and Cavaliers—Andrew Johnson and John C. Breckenridge

Chapter the Seventh

An Old Newspaper Rookery—Reactionary Sectionalism in Cincinnati and Louisville—The Courier-Journal

Chapter the Eighth

Feminism and Woman Suffrage—The Adventures in Politics and Society—A Real Heroine

Chapter the Ninth

Dr. Norvin Green—Joseph Pulitzer—Chester A. Arthur—General Grant—The Case of Fitz-John Porter

Part 2

Chapter the Tenth

Of Liars and Lying—Woman Suffrage and Feminism—The Professional Female—Parties, Politics, and Politicians in America

Chapter the Eleventh

Andrew Johnson—The Liberal Convention in 1872—Carl Schurz—The “Quadrilateral”—Sam Bowles, Horace White and Murat Halstead—A Queer Composite of Incongruities

Chapter the Twelfth

The Ideal in Public Life—Politicians, Statesmen and Philosophers—The Disputed Presidency in 1876—The Persona and Character of Mr. Tilden—His Election and Exclusion by a Partisan Tribunal

Chapter the Thirteenth

Charles Eames and Charles Sumner-Schurzand Lamar—I Go to Congress—A Heroic Kentuckian—Stephen Foster and His Songs—Music and Theodore Thomas

Chapter the Fourteenth

Henry Adams and the Adams Family—John Hay and Frank Mason—The Three Mousquetaires of Culture—Paris—“The Frenchman”—The South of France

Chapter the Fifteenth

Still the Gay Capital of France—Its Environs—Walewska and De Morny—Thackeray in Paris—A Pension Adventure

Chapter the Sixteenth

Monte Carlo—The European Shrine of Sport and Fashion—Apocryphal Gambling Stories—Leopold, King of the Belgians—An Able and Picturesque Man of Business

Chapter the Seventeenth

A Parisian Pension—The Widow of Walewska—Napoleon’s Daughter-in-Law—The Changeless—A Moral and Orderly City

Chapter the Eighteenth

The Grover Cleveland Period—President Arthur and Mr. Blaine—John Chamberlin—The Decrees of Destiny

Chapter the Nineteenth

Mr. Cleveland in the White House—Mr. Bayard in the Department of State—Queer Appointments to Office—The One-Party Power—The End of North and South Sectionalism

Chapter the Twentieth

The Real Grover Cleveland—Two Clevelands Before and After Marriage—A Correspondence and a Break of Personal Relations

Chapter the Twenty-First

Stephen Foster, the Song-Writer—A Friend Comes to the Rescu His Originality—“My Old Kentucky Home” and the “Old Folks at Home”—General Sherman and “Marching Through Georgia”

Chapter the Twenty-Second

Theodore Roosevelt—His Problematic Character—He Offers Me an Appointment—His Bonhomie and Chivalry—Proud of His Rebel Kin

Chapter the Twenty-Third

The Actor and the Journalist—The Newspaper and the State—Joseph Jefferson—His Personal and Artistic Career—Modest Character and Religious Belief

Part 3

Chapter the Twenty-Fourth

The Writing of Memoirs—Some Characteristics of Carl Shurz—Sam Bowles—Horace White and the Mugwumps

Chapter the Twenty-Fifth

Every Trade Has Its Tricks—I Play One on William McKinley—Far Away Party Politics and Political Issues

Chapter the Twenty-Sixth

A Libel on Mr. Cleveland—His Fondness for Cards—Some Poker Stories—The “Senate Game”—Tom Ochiltree, Senator Allison and General Schenck

Chapter the Twenty-Seventh

The Profession of Journalism—Newspapers and Editors in America—Bennett, Greeley and Raymond—Forney and Dana—The Education of a Journalist

Chapter the Twenty-Eighth

Bullies and Braggarts—Some Kentucky Illustrations—The Old Galt House—The Throckmortons—A Famous Sugeon—“Old Hell’s Delight”

Chapter the Twenty-Ninth

About Political Conventions, State and National—“Old Ben Butler”—His Appearance as a Trouble-Maker in the Democratic National Convention of 1892—Tarifa and the Tariff—Spain as a Frightful Example

Chapter the Thirtieth

The Makers of the Republic—Lincoln, Jefferson, Clay and Webster—The Proposed League of Nations—The Wilsonian Incertitude—The “New Freedom”

Chapter the Thirty-First

The Age of Miracles—A Story of Franklin Pierce—Simon Suggs Billy Sunday—Jefferson Davis and Aaron Burr—Certain Constitutional Shortcomings

Chapter the Thirty-Second

A War Episode—I Meet my Fater—I Marry and Make a Home—The Ups and Downs of Life Lead to a Happy Old Age

Illustrations

Henry Watterson (About 1908) Henry Clay—Painted at Ashland by Dodge for The Hon. Andrew Ewing of Tennessee—The Original Hangs in Mr. Watterson’s Library at “Mansfield” W. P. Hardee, Lieutenant General C.S.A. John Bell of Tennessee—In 1860 Presidential Candidate “Union Party”—“Bell and Everett” Ticket Artemus Ward General Leonidas Polk—Lieutenant General C.S.A.—Killed in Georgia June 14, 1864—P.E. Bishop of Louisiana Mr. Watterson’s Editorial Staff in 1868 When the Three Daily Newspapers of Louisville Were United into the Courier-Journal. Mr. George D. Prentice and Mr. Watterson Are in the Center Abraham Lincoln in 1861. From a Photograph by M. B. Brady Mrs. Lincoln in 1861 Henry Watterson—Fifty Years Ago Henry Woodfire Grady—One of Mr. Watterson’s “Boys” Mr. Watterson’s Library at “Mansfield” A Corner of “Mansfield”—Home of Mr. Watterson Henry Watterson (Photograph Taken in Florida) Henry Watterson. From a painting by Louis Mark in the Manhattan Club, New York

“MARSE HENRY”

Chapter the First

I Am Born and Begin to Take Notice—John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson—James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce—Jack Dade and “Beau Hickman”—Old Times in Washington

I am asked to jot down a few autobiographic odds and ends from such data of record and memory as I may retain. I have been something of a student of life; an observer of men and women and affairs; an appraiser of their character, their conduct, and, on occasion, of their motives. Thus, a kind of instinct, which bred a tendency and grew to a habit, has led me into many and diverse companies, the lowest not always the meanest.

Circumstance has rather favored than hindered this bent. I was born in a party camp and grew to manhood on a political battlefield. I have lived through stirring times and in the thick of events. In a vein colloquial and reminiscential, not ambitious, let me recall some impressions which these have left upon the mind of one who long ago reached and turned the corner of the Scriptural limitation; who, approaching fourscore, does not yet feel painfully the frost of age beneath the ravage of time’s defacing waves. Assuredly they have not obliterated his sense either of vision or vista. Mindful of the adjuration of Burns,

Keep something to yourself, Ye scarcely tell to ony,

I shall yet hold little in reserve, having no state secrets or mysteries of the soul to reveal.

It is not my purpose to be or to seem oracular. I shall not write after the manner of Rousseau, whose Confessions had been better honored in the breach than the observance, and in any event whose sincerity will bear question; nor have I tales to tell after the manner of Paul Barras, whose Memoirs have earned him an immortality of infamy. Neither shall I emulate the grandiose volubility and self-complacent posing of Metternich and Talleyrand, whose pretentious volumes rest for the most part unopened upon dusty shelves. I aspire to none of the honors of the historian. It shall be my aim as far as may be to avoid the garrulity of the raconteur and to restrain the exaggerations of the ego. But neither fear of the charge of self-exploitation nor the specter of a modesty oft too obtrusive to be real shall deter me from a proper freedom of narration, where, though in the main but a humble chronicler, I must needs appear upon the scene and speak of myself; for I at least have not always been a dummy and have sometimes in a way helped to make history.

Part 4

In my early life—as it were, my salad days—I aspired to becoming what old Simon Cameron called “one of those damned literary fellows” and Thomas Carlyle less profanely described as “a leeterary celeebrity.” But some malign fate always sat upon my ambitions in this regard. It was easy to become The National Gambler in Nast’s cartoons, and yet easier The National Drunkard through the medium of the everlasting mint-julep joke; but the phantom of the laurel crown would never linger upon my fair young brow.

Though I wrote verses for the early issues of Harper’s Weekly—happily no one can now prove them on me, for even at that jejune period I had the prudence to use an anonym—the Harpers, luckily for me, declined to publish a volume of my poems. I went to London, carrying with me “the great American novel.” It was actually accepted by my ever too partial friend, Alexander Macmillan. But, rest his dear old soul, he died and his successors refused to see the transcendent merit of that performance, a view which my own maturing sense of belles-lettres values subsequently came to verify.

When George Harvey arrived at the front I “’ad ’opes.” But, Lord, that cast-iron man had never any bookish bowels of compassion—or political either for the matter of that!—so that finally I gave up fiction and resigned myself to the humble category of the crushed tragi-comedians of literature, who inevitably drift into journalism.

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