Excerpts from the Published Works of Eric Buckland

From "Mosby's Keydet Rangers"

HENRY HUNTINGTON HARRISON

Memorandum for Mr. Anderson

Henry Huntington Harrison ‘67 of Miami, Florida _

Soldier, planter + pioneer _

                                           Was born May 12th 1848 at “Carter Hall,”Clarke Co. Va. lived until 1853 at “Berkley” Charles City Co, then until 1859 at “Hunting Quarter”, Sussex Co. and afterwards at “Huntington”, Clarke Co _

            Saw all of the excitement of the John Brown Raid and the War On The South.

            Was appointed, in July 1863, a Pay Cadet of the V.M.I. From Sussex Co., where his family was then refugeeing, and joined the Corps at Lexington about Aug. 1st. Attached at first to Co. A. and afterwards to Co. D.

            Member of Dialectic Lterary Society.

            Roomed in 74 and afterwards in 50, with Saunders, Breckinridge, Thompson, W. Garrett + F. James.

            Served with the Corps in its various marches through the mountains under Gen. Echols or to meet Yankee raids.

            Left the V.M.I. In Feb. 1864 to join the Confederate Army and served as a private in Co. B. 43rd Va Cavalry Battalion under Lt. Col. Mosby.

            Had his horse shot under him in the action at Hamilton, Va, March 21st,1865_ Was captured and held prisoner in Fort McHenry, Baltimore , until the general release of Confederate prisoners in June 1865-.

            Graduated in the Law School of the University of Va., July 1868 and traveled in Europe.

            Fondness for the military life and sympathy with the republican cause induced him to offer his services to the insurgent Republic of Cuba.

            In June 1869, was commissioned Captain of Cavalry in the Liberating Army of Cuba.

            Raised a company of Confederate Veterans at Richmond, Va. Which became Co. D. in the regiment of American cavalry of Col. Ryan.

            Sailed with the expedition from New York for Cuba, but was captured by the United States and confined in Fort Lafayette, New York Harbor.

            Remained nearly a year in New York, acting under the orders of the Cuban Junta, and engaged in shipping arms + munitions of war to the army in Cuba.

            In May 1870, went to Cuba as captain in the Expedition of ????? Aguero Betancourt_

            Served in Cuba, first in the Cavalry Brigade of Camaguey under Gen. Ryan, afterwards in the Department of Santa Clara under Gen. Cavado.

            Jan. 19th 1871, was lying sick unable to walk in a hospital camp in the woods near Palma Sola in Cienfuegos, when the camp was taken by the Spanish. Escaped on his hands and knees, through a hot fire, into the bushes, Crawled around in the woods for five nights + days, without anything to eat, but found only one of the Cubans, also a cripple.

            On the fifth day being nearly dead, these two encountered + surrendered to a detachment of Spanish Cavalry.

            Was held prisoner at Palmyra, Cienfuegos + Havana and threatened with death, but was finally released in July 1871 at the request of the United States.

            Returned to Va. And in 1874 settled in the “Hunting Quarter” plantation in Sussex Co. and engaged in farming.

            Married, June 3rd 1874, Margaret B. Page, of 1112 Walnut St. Philadelphia.

            Member of the Conservative County Committee of Sussex Co, and chairman of the Executive Committee 1876-9.

            Member of the House of Delegates from Sussex Co. 1877-9.

            In 1879 moved to “Huntington”, Clarke Co._

            Advocated the readjustment of the State Debt as the only possible remedy in a business way for a bankrupt treasury + impoverished people, but declined to follow Gen. Mahone into the Republican Party.

            Studied Law, but did not relish the petty contention + dirty work involved in its practice and dropped it for farming and the study of letters, which last is his favorite pursuit.

            Impaired health_ the result of early exposure in campaigning + obliged him to leave Va in 1887 and settle in South Florida, where he has been engaged in pioneering in the woods and promoting the settlement + development of the Indian River + Biscayne Bay sections.

            In 1891-2-3, Commissioner of the State of Florida and the of the Southern Counties to obtain from Congress sundry improvements to navigation on the East Coast, and in that capacity spent considerable time in Washington, New York, New Orleans.

            Is much interested in the cult of the Confederate legend and maintains that the surrender of the Confederate Armies simply transferred the contest for the maintenance of Democratic Principles from the battlefield to the ballot box - where it will be waged forever.

            Member of Miami Camp. U.C.V.

            Has written “The Charge of the Cadets”, “Chicamauga”, “The Fall of the Great Captain”, “The Last Charge at Gettysburg”, “The Writing of the Roll of Glory”, + “The South Was Right”.

                                 GEORGE EDWARD RAUM

Berkeley, California,

                                                                                                                          April 24, 1931.

Mr. M. B. Corse,

Secretary V.M.I. Alumni Association,

Lexington, Virginia.

My Dear Mr. Corse:

Yours of April 16th is at hand, and I answer as follows: My recollection is the domination over the “Rats” was discontinued at the Battle of New Market. After the Cadets went into permanent quarters at Richmond, I resigned, returned to the army and Mosby. Gene Jackson was a strict disciplinarian, and looked for results: he seemed interested in me as I kept my eyes open and my mouth shut, and after the Battle of Fredericksburg in Virginia, recommended me for a cadet at the V.M.I. I was lying on the damp ground at Guinea Station not expected to live when General Jackson died at the Chandler House only a stone’s throw away.

The abdication of the King of Spain (Alfonso) recalls an instance which amused me and may you. While in Madrid I received an invitation to the palace to be present at the Royal christening; as I was in no official capacity, whatever, I dressed in plain black or evening dress without a single decoration on. The Major-domo in a gorgeous uniform received me and placed me in the center of the throne room while around were nobility covered with decorations. I suppose some took me for the head undertaker!

You must excuse this letter, for several years ago I was run down by an automobile which partly paralyzed me, and I can neither read nor write now.

                                                                        Yours truly,

                                                                        Geo. E. Raum

EDWIN GIBSON

Lexington, Virginia

Dear Mr. Jeffrey:

            I am great indebted to you for your letter of December 8 giving the full answer to my inquiry regarding Edwin Gibson (1847-1869) of Culpeper, Virginia, who was my great-uncle.

            Your letter not only verifies the family tradition that Edwin Gibson attended VMI, bit also gives several other items of information not previously possessed by the present generation of our family. We had not known of the circumstances of his leaving school or of the letter from Murray Forbes. The tradition had been that he left the Institute to rejoin the Confederate Army. I have received information from the State Librarian of Virginia that he served as a Captain of Company K, 49th Virginia Infantry.

            His untimely death at the age of 22 occurred as the result of being bitten by a moccasin snake. He was walking through a field on the family farm at dusk one afternoon and did not observe the reptile quickly enough. This story came to me when I was a boy from several members of the family who were living in Culpeper contemporaneously with the event.

            I also wish to thank you for your courtesy in sending me copy of the Register of Former Cadets, which I am very glad to have since I have many friends and relatives who attended VMI. I served with a number of them on the Mexican Border in the 2d Virginia Infantry and in World war I in the 116th Infantry.

                                                                                    Sincerely

                                                                                                J. C. Gibson

From "Mosby Men II"

LAWRENCE STIRLING ALEXANDER

“Recollections of William Lennox Kirkland”

In his “Recollections of William Lennox Kirkland,” Lawrence Stirling Alexander’s grandson writes:

My grandfather [Lawrence Stirling Alexander] was apparently the only doctor in town and I lived with his family - my grandmother [Mary Adickes Alexander] and several of their daughters. He had served in the Civil War as a surgeon with Mosby’s Guerillas and after the war moved to Florida from Manassas, Va. He was without doubt a unique and colorful character with a penchant for drinks and strong black cigars made in the local Minorcan boiler shops. He never went out of the house without being dressed to the hilt - in black broadcloth Prince Albert, heavily starched collars and cuffs, and a top hat.

            At that time there was no hospital and illness was attended at home. He used a horse and buggy to visit patients and I went with him on many occasions. The stable was in the back yard, approached from a side street. The horse, a fat plug named George, was not allowed to urinate in the stable, which was kept as clean as the dining room. How George was trained is still a mystery, but he was. I never knew of him to use the stable. After a visit to patients at dinner time or in the evening, as the rig approached the lane leading to the stable, my grandfather would stop the horse and talk to George. When he said, “Come down,” George, the horse would spread his hind legs and urinate. We could then go on to the stable after a few kind words for George.

            The nuns at the convent, you would think, would be shocked by my grandfather’s language, on the other hand, they seemed to enjoy and encourage it. He was so polite and gracious, it never seemed to offend.

HENRY CABELL "CAB" MADDUX

Attorney-General Montague is getting to be a nightly mixer in the political maelstrom at Murphy’s. He was present last night and held quite a levee in front of the hotel. Among those who greeted him last night was Mr. H. C. Maddux, popularly known as “Cab” Maddux, one of the most widely known men in the state. The colloquy, which was overheard by the group standing around, was very amusing. Mr. Maddux weighs as much as any man on the road, having at one time tipped the scales at something over 400 pounds. He has followed the race-track running his own horses, and is now a commercial traveler and one of the best posted men to be found on almost any topic. He has an inimitably breezy way of talking and a keen sense of humor. He admitted that he was a friend of Mr. Swanson’s and spoke in high terms of that gentleman. In concluding his chat with the Attorney-General, Mr. Maddux stated that he had but one favor to ask, and that Mr. Swanson had promised if elected to grant that, and that he now desired to ask the same of Mr. Montague. When asked to what he referred, he stated that he wanted a promise that he would be pardoned if he were ever sent to the penitentiary. Every body laughed, but the Attorney-General gave a serious answer to the joker’s question, stating that he would not promise anything before election.

CHARLES BROADWAY ROUSS

BAD SPELLER

But He Made Money all The Same

Charles Broadway Rouss, The

Millionaire New York

Merchant

            People who happen to be on 5^th Avenue, New York, between 7 and 8 o’clock every evening can see an old-fashioned carriage with two seats driven rapidly uptown. On the back seat sits an old gentleman comfortably placed, well wrapped up with furs and a slouch hat drawn down over his eyes. Beside him is a younger man with an open newspaper spread upon his knees and an electric lamp in his hand. His mouth is close to his companion’s ear so that the latter can hear distinctly as he reads the evening papers above the rattle of the wheels of thousands of carriages and delivery wagons over the rough stone pavement. Between 6 and 7 o’clock every morning the same sight may be witnessed by people who get out so early.

            The old gentleman in the carriage is Charles Broadway Rouss, a blind man who has the largest wholesale notion store in New York City, and that is the way he gets the news of the busy world. He says he has no time to have the newspapers read to him except while he is riding between his home and his store.

            In 1865 Mr. Rouss came to New York from Winchester, Va., with $1.80 as his capital.

            He is now one of the richest merchants in the city, and his wealth is estimated all the way from $5,000,000 to $20,000,000. Hanging in the most conspicuous place in his store, just where one who enters can read it, is a large framed card bearing this inscription:

            “He who owns and ocupies this marvel of brik, irun and granit, 18 years ago walkt the strets of New York peniles and $51,000 in det; only to prove that the capitalists of to-day were poor men 20 years ago, and that many a fello facing poverty to-day may be a capitalist a quarter of century hence. If he will. Pluk adorned with ambition, bakd by onor brite will always comand suces even without the almity dolar.”

            Mr. Rouss always spelled phonetically to save time and labor. Another sign, which discloses the fundamental rules of his business, is seen in every direction, and reads:

“Net cash

day after examination

no discount”

which means that he always pays cash for everything he buys the day that the goods are delivered and neither gives nor asks discounts. Another peculiarity of Mr. Rouss is to pay his employees every night. At the close of business, at 6 o’clock, winter and summer – and everybody is expected to work eleven hours a day – the clerks, porters and others on the pay roll go to the cashier and receive their day’s wages in an envelope, so that when Mr. Rouss closes his store at night he owes no man a dollar. He is always the first to arrive in the morning and is found daily at his desk before 7. He is always the last, except the watchman, to leave the building at night, and although he is blind and has many millions of dollars, he puts in twelve hours of solid work six days in the week.

            Another sign that is seen in every direction for the information of his customers is:

“No credits,

one bill at a time.

Six days our best terms,

never thirty”

            Mr. Rouss considers one week a sufficient time for all his customers in the country to receive their purchases, and he expects the goods to be paid for as soon as they reach their destination. City customers are required to pay cash. He told me that he burned his ledger eighteen years ago and now carries on his enormous business, amounting to many millions a year, with only two bookkeepers, who simply record the purchases of out-of-town customers and credit them with the pay when it is received.

            “A fellow was fool enough to trust me when I first came to New York and I trusted others,” said Mr. Rouss one day when I called upon him. “I smashed all to pieces; owed $51,000, paid it up dollar for dollar, never trusted anybody again and never permit anybody to trust me.”

            Mr. Rouss’ peculiar name is his trade mark. He was born in Frederick, Md., clerked in a country store at Winchester, Va., came to New York with an ambition to emulate A. T. Stewart, got a stock of goods and opened a small shop in Broadway, but customers were slow in coming and he painted a big sign, “Charles Broadway Rouss,” to attract curiosity, which he believes was the foundation of his success in life. Overwork cost him his eyesight, but he continues to manage his business and knows everything that is going on in his great store.

            I asked Mr. Rouss what he considered his greatest of virtues.

            “Honesty,” he replied; “that covers everything.”

            “And what is the greatest of vices?” I asked.

            “Idleness – that is the source of all vice; a busy man has no time to be bad.”

            Mr. Rouss is a practical philanthropist, and has given away large sums of money. He always gives a dollar to everybody who asks for aid or sends him a begging letter.

            “You would not want me to print fact,” I suggested.

            “Why not?”

            “Because it would bring upon you multitudes of applications for money.”

            “Let them come. If a dishonest man robs me he will suffer for it, not I; if I refuse a worthy man the aid he needs, I will suffer for it as well as he. I would rather give $10,000 to people who do not need it than to refuse $1 to a man who does.