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WATTERSON AND TWAIN AS REBELS
ADDRESS AT THE CELEBRATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S 92D BIRTHDAY
ANNIVERSARY, CARNEGIE HALL, FEBRUARY 11, 1901, TO RAISE FUNDS
FOR THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY AT CUMBERLAND GAP, TENN.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,--The remainder of my duties as presiding chairman
here this evening are but two--only two. One of them is easy, and the
other difficult. That is to say, I must introduce the orator, and then
keep still and give him a chance. The name of Henry Watterson carries
with it its own explanation. It is like an electric light on top of
Madison Square Garden; you touch the button and the light flashes up out
of the darkness. You mention the name of Henry Watterson, and your minds
are at once illuminated with the splendid radiance of his fame and
achievements. A journalist, a soldier, an orator, a statesman, a rebel.
Yes, he was a rebel; and, better still, now he is a reconstructed rebel.
It is a curious circumstance, a circumstance brought about without any
collusion or prearrangement, that he and I, both of whom were rebels
related by blood to each other, should be brought here together this
evening bearing a tribute in our hands and bowing our heads in reverence
to that noble soul who for three years we tried to destroy. I don't know
as the fact has ever been mentioned before, but it is a fact,
nevertheless. Colonel Watterson and I were both rebels, and we are blood
relations. I was a second lieutenant in a Confederate company for a
while--oh, I could have stayed on if I had wanted to. I made myself
felt, I left tracks all around the country. I could have stayed on, but
it was such weather. I never saw such weather to be out-of-doors in, in
all my life.
The Colonel commanded a regiment, and did his part, I suppose, to destroy
the Union. He did not succeed, yet if he had obeyed me he would have
done so. I had a plan, and I fully intended to drive General Grant into
the Pacific Ocean--if I could get transportation. I told Colonel
Watterson about it. I told him what he had to do. What I wanted him to
do was to surround the Eastern army and wait until I came up. But he was
insubordinate; he stuck on some quibble of military etiquette about a
second lieutenant giving orders to a colonel or something like that. And
what was the consequence? The Union was preserved. This is the first
time I believe that that secret has ever been revealed.
No one outside of the family circle, I think, knew it before; but there
the facts are. Watterson saved the Union; yes, he saved the Union. And
yet there he sits, and not a step has been taken or a movement made
toward granting him a pension. That is the way things are done. It is a
case where some blushing ought to be done. You ought to blush, and I
ought to blush, and he--well, he's a little out of practice now.
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