Hampden Sydney College - Kaleidoscope Yearbook (Hampden Sydney, VA)

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forgot his questions and the crowd forgot to interrupt, swaying to and fro with him as he fell into a secession trance-frenzy and walked back and forth along the porch railing, pouring burning words into their bosoms. ln the crush, as the crowd surged back and forth with him, many were borne down, some were injured. During this campaign, he first gave currency to the phrase, the irrepressible conflict, so often used by Mr. Lincoln: and Daniel Dougherty, the Pennsylvanian of silver tongue, has since called him the Harry Hotspur of the Confederacy. The war came in '61, Yirginia seceded. He took his place with his State and his country, the Confederate States of America. He was elected to and served in the Confederate Congress, until active hostilities commenced, for which his restless spirit panted. Then he resigned his seat and went into the field as Colonel of a regiment. After the battle of lVilliamsburg he was promoted Brigadier-General for gallantry by Major-General joseph E. Johnston. who ordered the words Williamsburg and Seven Pines to be emblazoned on his regimental banner. In consequence of a misunderstanding with the Confederate XVar Department, he resigned his commission, and enlisted in the ranks in '63, There is not a nobler period in his life than this. For some eight months he served as a private soldier in the Nottoway Cavalry, Company E, Third Yirginia Regiment. as cheerfully, as dauntlessly, as when in Brigade Headquarters or Congressional Halls, shirking no duty under privilege, commanded by men whom he had been leading from their boyhood. He was detailed for duty as special courier and scout under Lee around Petersburg in '64, being familiar with every inch of the ground. On one of these missions he was taken prisoner by violation of an informal truce, such as the soldiers of the two lines often made for the interchange of newspapers and camp comforts: a dastardly deed, done because his unmistakable, striking figure, as true to description as to photograph, was recognized. He was closely confined in a casemate at Fort Lafayette, New York, for more than half a year, until liberated on parole for exchange, by Nr. Lincoln, twenty days before the surrender. That surrender came at Appomattox, April oth, 1865-hlCl'I'lOI'2.lJlC Day! And such a surrender! None can know who have not made such surrender. It can not be learned from recitals of historians or descriptions of orators. It was not a surrender of arms and Hags and the payment of an indemnity in dollars. It was the surrender of customs as old as Jamestown, that had become habits of nature, that could no more be substituted, than the foot of an amputated limb can be sub- stituted, except by false ones: the surrender of sentiments, that could no more be eradicated. than the nerve anatomy can be extracted: the surrender of principles, that could no more be unbosomed, than the heart can be taken out: the surrender I4

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He was a very active member of the Montgomery Commercial Convention of I858-COllllllGI'Cl3l in name, political in purpose-where first hints of organized resistance to the Federal Government and immediate secession took shape, and where plain resolutions for the reopening of the slave trade were introduced. The Gulf States and the gifted lVilliam L. Yancey led the movement. The reply of the border States and the conservative element in the South to Nr. Yancey was delivered by Rlr. Pryor in a masterly speech, and the resolutions were defeated. His reputation as a political writer, keen debater, and brilliant orator had become national now, and he was elected in 1859 to the House of Representatives in the United States Congress, from the Fourth tthe Petersburgl District of Virginia, to succeed the lamented lYilliam 0. Goode, of Mecklenburg, who had died in his seat. The newspapers of the State and district really nominated Mr. Pryor before the assembling of the convention. He was returned in 1860 with- out opposition. Things were strained, things were tragic, then in lVashington, with events coming thick and fast that soon split this country asunder in the earthquake throes of civil war. The Virginia delegation in the House were generally either Unionists or con- servatives waiting the action of their State. Pryor's political inclinations and con- duct were with the conservatives, till the panorama of 1860 was well unrolled. Then in the Presidential campaign of that year, which was really one of war or peace, he espoused the cause of lfireckenridge and Lane, the Southern cause, and became a fiery secessionist. He went everywhere as a stormy petrel preaching the doctrines of organized resistance, conditioned always on the assumption that Mr. Lincoln should be elected and be invested with 4' the Federal prerogative, and he excited the public mind of all lower and Southern Yirginia as no other man could have done. This campaign was his most effective public service and these speeches are the oratorical chapter of his life. The subject. the occasion, the 1111111, and the audiences met, At Nottoway Court-House, the reporter said, Never man spake like this man. In Petersburg, a Union citizen from Danville, with XVhig ancestry back to the Revolution, who had never had patience before to listen to an attack on the Union, heard him, attracted, while strolling about, by the majestic appearance of a man like an Indian, speaking from the wharf. The result was that he became an ardent secessionist, invited Pryor to Danville, where there were not l six Breckenridge men, and when he left there were not six who voted against Breckenridge. At Lawrenceville, the county-seat of Brunswick, an over- whelmingly Union county, Pryor was to speak. Three thousand men gathered to hear him. The county leader was placed on the long hotel porch just under him: the crowd stood in the street below. The plan was that the crowd should interrupt and the leader break him down by asking questions. Pryor proceeded, the leader 13

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of property and of the basis of gaining property. except by unknown and unex- perienced methods: the surrender of a social system and its substitution bv a strange order, that made a man a foreigner in his own home: the surrender of country to become defunct, never to know resuscitationg the land was left, the sky was left, but no country: the surrender of everything but religion and life: these were guaranteed, conditionally. The men walked away with the old religion to build a new life and to return to an old country: and they and their children have done it. Here ends the first chapter of his life. His career and services had been varied, brilliant, excited, conspicuous, widely noted, but not concentred. Nm-tn Burk. Now the second chapter opens, a chapter diversified and full of action still, but defined and convergent in every line. During this period he has been invited to represent once more his party in Congress from New York, and has frequently represented it in conventions, State and National. but the exigencies of his pro- fession and other purposes in life have not allowed him to enter the field of politics again. He was made LL. D. by Hampden-Sidney in 1884. The chafing champion of secession and lilrigadier of the Rebellion went in the September of '65 to New York City, the metropolis of his conquerors, with a few borrowed dollars, less than a hundred, and without a profession to practise their laws before their courts. The venture and the result find few parallels. In this chapter, the determination of the boy, if a blacksmith, to be a good one, looms up, and the eminent jurist walks through it, regnant on hostile soil. To the surprise even of his friends the political debater becomes a learned justice. the passionate Virginian an American. He set himself diligently to the study of law again, that he might be admitted to the New York bar. llleanwhile he main- tained his large family by editorial work on New York papers, and often the silver service, given by a loving constituency, little recking what they did, stood him in good stead as collateral. The privations and sufferings of himself and family, during those first five years in New York, must not be told here. The anguish of his life came to him also then in the death of his eldest son, Theodorick llland Pryor, who graduated at Princeton with the lirst honor of his class and the mathematical fellowship: was sent to Cambridge, England, where in six months he won an English scholarship, and returned home, full of honor and happiness. to die at the age of twenty. In due time, he was admitted to the practise of law by examination. Let a New York daily tell the sequel: After starting his practise, he rose speedily to I5