The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the SouthwestSparks, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest
Sparks, W. H. (William Henry)
Georgia -- History -- 1775-1865; Southwest, Old -- History; United States -- Biography
Captain McIntosh, of the navy, was another of this distinguished
family. He had no superior in the navy. So was that ardent and
accomplished officer, Colonel McIntosh, who fell at Oak Hill, in the
late war in Missouri. In truth, there has not been a day in one hundred
and thirty years, when there has not been a distinguished son of this
family to bear and transmit its name and fame to posterity. Through his
mother, to George M. Troup descended all the nobler traits of the
McIntosh family. He was educated, preparatory to entering college, at
Flatbush, Long Island. His teacher's name I have forgotten, but he was
a remarkable man, and devoted himself to the instruction of the youth
intrusted to his care. He seems to have had a peculiar talent for
inspiring a high order of ambition in his pupils, and of training them
to a deportment and devotion to principle which would lead them to
distinguished conduct through life. Governor Troup, in speaking to the
writer of his early life and of his school-days on Long Island, said:
"There were twenty-one of us at this school fitting for college, and,
in after life, nineteen of us met in Congress, the representatives of
fourteen States."
Troup, after leaving this school, went to Princeton, and graduated at
Nassau Hall, in his nineteenth year. Returning to Savannah, he read
law; but possessing ample fortune, he never practised his profession.
His talents were of an order to attract attention. James Jackson, and
most of the leading men of the day, turned to him as a man of great
promise. The Republican party of Savannah nominated him to represent
the county of Chatham, in the Legislature of the State, before he was
twenty-one years of age. Being constitutionally ineligible, he, of
course, declined; but as soon as he became eligible, he was returned,
and, for some years, continued to represent the county. From the
Legislature he was transferred to Congress, where he at once became
distinguished, not only for talent, but a lofty honor and most polished
bearing. While a member of Congress, he married a Virginia lady, who
was the mother of his three children. Soon after the birth of her third
child, there was discovered aberration of mind in Mrs. Troup, which
terminated in complete alienation. This was a fatal blow to the
happiness of her husband. She was tenderly beloved by him; and his
acute sensibility and high nervous temperament became so much affected
as not only to fill him with grief, but to make all his remaining life
one of melancholy and sorrow. He had been elected to the United States
Senate, but, in consequence of this terrible blow, and the constant
care of his afflicted lady, to which he devoted himself, he lost his
health, and resigned. He retired to his home, and to the sad duties of
afflicted love.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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