Two Wars: An Autobiography of General Samuel G. French: Mexican War; War between the States, a Diary; Reconstruction Period, His Experience; Incidents, Reminiscences, etc.French, Samuel Gibbs
History
Two Wars: An Autobiography of General Samuel G. French: Mexican War; War between the States, a Diary; Reconstruction Period, His Experience; Incidents, Reminiscences, etc.
French, Samuel Gibbs
Mexican War, 1846-1848; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); Sherman's March to the Sea; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Personal narratives, Confederate
My first recollection of seeing a real Yankee was connected with a
clock. At home there stood in the hall an eight-day clock, nearly
eight feet high, and it is to-day in the city of Woodbury, N. J., in
possession of my sister, Mrs. John G. Whitall. On its face are the
words, "Hollingshead, Woodstown, N. J., 1776." I infer that it might
have commenced recording time about the hour that the liberty bell in
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, on a certain fourth of July rang out
the Bible proclamation of liberty to all the land, and the "inhabitants
thereof."[2] It is a clock of some repute. It has Arabic numerals to
express the hours. The pendulum was adjusted in length to the latitude,
and vibrated every second and recorded it. It marked the day of the
month, and the month itself, and a picture of a round-faced female
would peep up from behind the scenes just as the moon rose, and veiled
her face when she set. In the absence of the moon a ship sailed slowly
on.
It had another accomplishment: an alarm that was worse than a Chinese
gong. I should think that handsome clock, which has been recording time
now for one hundred and nineteen years, would have sufficed; but no!
One bright May morning, when all the fruit trees were in bloom, and the
white-faced bumblebees were buzzing around, and the air was redolent
with perfume, a wagon stopped at the gate, and a tall, lean individual
came to the door and wished to see the mistress of the house. Said he
was "a stranger in these parts, that his load was too heavy for his
horse, and that he had clocks and other notions." Father was not in,
so my mother gave him permission to leave a clock until such time as he
would call for it. So he brought in an eight-day clock about three feet
high and adjusted it on the mantel in the dining room. It was rather
ornamental, and instead of the common, everyday figures such as were
in the multiplication table, it had an I for one, and II for two, and
so on, which was the Roman style; and then when it struck the hours,
instead of ringing a bell, the hammer fell on a coil of wire, producing
a cathedral sound that died away far off.
We all soon got used to the clock, and some three months after when the
man called to take his clock away mother said she was attached to it
and would keep it. It was all a Yankee trick to sell the clock, for he
disposed of many others in the same way. The Yankee clock has ticked
its last tick, but the old eight-day clock may outlive the nation whose
hours from its birth it has, by seconds, recorded. All _your life_ you
have heard the people of this country north of the slave States called
Yankees, and the people south Confederates, which is not true, but only
an incident of the war.
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