Fulton-Dekalb-Taylor County GaArchives News.....Bathed In Blood March 18, 1879
************************************************
Copyright. All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm
************************************************
File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Linda Blum-Barton http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000645 February 22, 2008, 10:23 pm
The Atlanta Weekly Constitution March 18, 1879
Part 5 of 5 - INCIDENTS OF HIS LIFE AND FAMILY.
A FEAST THAT ENDED IN A TRAGEDY.
On the night of the meeting of the legislature, General Reed was elected
speaker. After the adjournment the members had assembled in Brown's hotel to
enjoy the usual dinner given by the speaker to his friends. While the banquet
was at its merriest there was a slight commotion in the further end of the
hall. Pushing aside the crowd gathered about the door, a tall figure, wrapped
in a long cloak, stepped hastily towards the table. Although the face was
hidden by a slouched hat, the tall and striking figure was known to the
crowd. "There's Alston! Alston!" they shouted. At this point Colonel Alston
threw the cloak back and disclosed his features. Without an instant of
hesitation Reed arose and drew his pistol and fired at Alston, tearing two
fingers off of his right hand in which he was holding a bowie-knife. Alston
never hesitated at this but charged like a wild boar on Reed. They were pulled
apart after a struggle in which Reed was cut and Alston somewhat injured. Some
months afterward General Reed was walking down the street with a friend when he
was attacked by Col. Willis Alston. He received the contents of a shotgun, and
as he turned to confront his assailant, received the other load in his face.
He dropped mortally wounded. Colonel Alston's friends claimed that he had
notified Reed that he would kill him on sight. Reed's friends claim that he
received no such notification. At any rate Colonel Alston was imprisoned. He
managed to get off to Texas, it is said, at a sacrifice of over $30,000 in
property and money. He settled in Texas, near Brazoria.
After he had been there for some time he heard that a Dr. Stewart had been
discussing his killing of Reed in uncompimentary terms. He wrote down the
remarks, and a short time afterwards met Dr. Stewart on the prairie. He
presented the letter, and asked Dr. Stewart if he had made the remarks he ws
credited with there. While Dr. Stewart was examining the letter, he drew his
pistol and fired on Colonel Alston. The shot entered his bowels. In the
meantime Dr. Stewart had dismounted, getting his horse between himself and
Alston. Alston advanced, and after being terribly mutilated, so much that his
bowels protruded, he killed Stewart -- pouring a load of buckshot through his
head. He was taken to jail, and while there wrote his last letter on earth.
It was addressed to Colonel Tom Howard. It was confident, hopeful and
defiant. After writing this letter he took his fiddle and commenced playing,
all gashed and torn as he was. William, his faithful body servant, shortly
afterward entered the jail, having a coil of rope wound about his body under
his clothes. While they were preparing for the master's escape, a noise was
heard outside. It was a crowd breaking into the jail to take the prisoner out
and kill him. The mob pressed through the doors, but the dauntless hero never
quailed. He sat there fiddling in lordly contempt of pain and death, looking
upon his inhuman assailants with unblanced face. They dragged him out,
swinging him in a blanket, which they knotted at the ends. There, muffled up
from the light of day, but with the old fearlessness blazing in his heart, and
the old dauntless smile playing on his olips, his body riddled with a shower of
lyncher's bullets, the last of the Halifax Alstons died. A lion-like race they
were, their gentle blood flaming into passion at the slightest insult --
generous of life and gold alike -- fitter in their imperious habits and
princely ways for the days of chivalry and a realm of barons than for our
prosaic days and our commonplace land.
THE ALSTON DESTINY.
There is a point upon which "Bob" Alston has been more misunderstood than
[several words are unreadable here]... The bravery and dash of the old Alston
blood were there, but the passion-fever had been cooled out of it, and a most
genial essence sent through it, cool and sparkling. His mother was a gentle
woman and gave to her sons a most admirable sweetness of disposition. Whenever
the Alston fire flashed in the veins, this delicious coolness put it down. I
never saw Alston angry five minutes at a time in my life. It was a flash -- a
frown -- a smile! Why does not John Nelms say that in the crisis of that
murderous fight, while the messenger of death was already winged, the pale,
stern face turned toward him and lighted with a smile? And does not the poor
clay coffined and stilled, in that room, yet wear a smile that tells that the
passion roused in that forbearing frame died away before the smoke had cleared
from his face?
I know, besides this, as Alston's friends know, that he had a sort of
superstitious dread of dying a violent death. While he lved his ancestors, and
honored their high spirit, he has told me time and again that his highest
ambition was to live and die in peace. He said to me once that he had kneeled
by his boy's bedside and prayed to God that he might be allowed to leave him a
legacy of peace. The night he left Atlanta to go to meet Mr. E. Y. Clark in
Alabama, he parted with me at the old Castleberry corner. He turned and leaned
against the well that stood there and prayed aloud that he might come back
without having done or suffered violence. He never knew what bodily fear was.
I have seen him do the most audacious things, and he has now written courage
with his life-blood.
He was gentle of spirit, and he shuddered at the thought of bloodshed. His
impulsive nature -- and most often his generous chivalry -- frequently led him
into difficulties, but he always sacrificed all that honor would permit to
avoid violence.
I heard it said yesterday that he had killed two men. Nothing could be
falser. He never fought a duel. He never hurt a human being. He never
carried a pistol. He was an authority on the code, and has adjusted, I
presume, more difficulties than any man in Georgia. The saddest memory of his
life, as I know, was his connection with the McGraw-Tabor duel. An article
appeared in the Charleston Mercury assailing Judge McGraw. Young McGraw,
Alston's friend, challenged the three editors of the paper, declining to hold
the author of the article responsible, and contending that the publication was
the offense. Tabor accepted. Alston loaded the pistols. At the second fire
Tabor sprang into the air and fell to the earth a corpse. Alston never got over
the horror of that sight. He believed in the "code", but he believed in it as
a peacemaker. He held that it settled difficulties rather than raised
them. "Under the code," said he, "street fights are impossible and murders
almost so. In Charleston with the code in vogue, there was not a murder in
twenty years. The code simply means that two gentlemen in passion shall leave
their dispute to two gentlemen who are cool and disinterested." His own death
seems to give weight to his argument. Had his difference with Cox been left
two hours it would have been settled.
He laughted to me a few months ago when I noted him with an old enemy. "Oh, I
am getting cooler now. I think I am going to break the old tradition that the
Alstons must die in their boots." There was a flavor of sadness in this
remark. I know that this vague horror of a violent death overshadowed his
whole life. What could have been more piteous, to those who knew the fire that
lived in the man's heart, and the pride that flashed through his veins, than
the abject way in which he tried to avoid the difficulty with Cox. How he
avoided him, dodged him, expostulated, begged for peace -- asked his friends to
interfere and save him, and at last threw himself in the treasurer's chair and
said: "How awful it is to be hunted down by a man who is determined to kill
you!" Ah -- God alone knows how that proud heart was ????? and that gentle
spirit tortured, when he answered that cry! And about the last thing he did
was to walk up to Cox, lay his two hands gently on his breast and looking into
his enemy's face with that frank, winsome way of his, say "Ed, why should we
have a difficulty? I don't want to kill you, and you oughtn't to want to kill
me?"
When at last he saw that the fight must come he met it grandly and like the man
he was. When Cox with his pistol in his hand turned to lock the door for hte
death struggle, how easily Alston could have killed him. But no! There he sat
calmly aweaiting, until his assailant had turned full upon him. Then he arose
deliberately, and stood nerved for the deadly shock. And he met it like a
hero! He never stirred from his tracks. He stood erect, his head thrown back
in the old royal way, half-wheeling on his heels at each shot to confront his
enemy, who dodged and jumped from one side of the room to the other. When his
pistol snapped, and he knew his life was gone, he never blanched or dodged. He
turned toward Nelms, his friend, smiled, and without a frown met his death in
the old Alston way!
There was a touching thing done by Ed Mercer, who always loved Alston passing
well. He knew of Alston's fear that he would die a violent death, he said,
with tear in his eyes, "Poor Bob. He shall not die in his boots," and he
tenderly pulled them off. At the bed-side the scene was heart-rending. The
poor wife, holding her husband's hand and calling on him in the most piteous
tones. Near her kneeled Governor Colquitt praying aloud, his voice so broken
that he could not syllable his words. Around the bed stood friends with
uncovered heads and streaming eyes, while the crowd thronged outside the door
eager for the slightest bit of news. On the bed, peaceful and resigned, his
eyes resting fondly on his wife or lifted now and then to some friend, lay the
sufferer. Ah, surely in God's mercy, here was the peaceful death he had prayed
for! Surely here was a peace that mocked all earthly storms -- a peace that
smiled at the ghastly hole in the temple and the blood-stains -- a legacy of
peace that would enrich his son beyond all measure -- a peace that "passeth
understanding."
-----------------------------------------------------
"BOB" ALSTON'S LIFE.
It is my opinion that in the death of "Bob" Alston, the state of Georgia lost
one of her most useful sons. He was just emerging from his boyhood when he
died. He had hardly entered upon his real and earnest life. He carried the
freshness and the impulses of his teens into his forty years. He was just
throwing these off. And those splendid energies -- that marvelous information -
- that active brain -- that buoyant force -- what could they not have
accomplished when ballasted with the wisdom and experience of fifty years? In
the legislature, he had already gone to the front ranks, and as fast as the
vein of earnestness and sagacity was discovered beneath the apparent tightness
his leadership was being confirmed. He would have gone out of the present
house very nearly its foremost man if he had lived. His real career was just
opening and the man in him was just asserting itself over those charming and
boyish traits which, winsome as they were, could not enforce a genuine
leadership. Just recovered from his financial troubles, he would have been
more than independent in a few months. It is hard that, just as his hand was
outstretched to pluck the tedious fruitage of a lifetime, it should be palsied
with death. Truly, God's ways are inscrutable!
Alston was the most generous man that I ever knew. I have seen him literally
give away his last dollar. Never in my life did I see him refuse help to any
applicant, if he had aught to give. He gave lavishly, hearily and without a
question. He has spent several snug fortunes since 1872. At one stroke he
made $9,8000; at another $11,000, and at another $15,000. He spent wondefully
little money on himself. He denied himself even the comforts of life that he
might give to others. I never shall forget how my eyes filled with tears and
laughter at the same time, when I saw him at the governor's inaugural ball with
trousers that had great holes in them, and remembered that two days before he
had given to a noble purpose ten times the amount needed for a new pair. I
have seen him spend the day without a mouthful of dinner, and the next day make
$50 and give $40 of it away. Of the $15,000 that he received a short time ago,
I am sure he gave away nearly $5,000, and in two weeks he had not a cent left.
He showed me a list of his expenditures, and there he had give to friend and
enemy alike, to all who had asked, as long as he had a dollar. There was no
ostentation about all this. He rather kept it hidden that he might excape the
scoldings of his more worldly-wise friends.
He was true to his friends to the last degree. He never failed to help them
when chance offered, and never deserted them when they were in trouble.
Lovable, sympathetic and frank, he was wonderfully magnetic. Every man who
worked on the old Herald with him loved him. On yesterday dispatches were
received from them all over the state, and to-day a half hundred of them will
be in Decatur to see him buried. Moore comes from Augusta, Winter from Macon,
Burney from Albany, and two-score from Atlanta. Those men who knew him best
loved him most.
His love for his wife was marvelous in its freshness and strength. It was the
passion of his life. To the very last he was her lover. The last letter he
ever wrote was addressed to her as if he was suing for her hand in marriage,
and he says: "I shall be in Atlanta on Saturday for my answer." The morning
that he left her he kissed her in the door. She followed him to the steps and
there stopped. "What! no further than the steps with me?" he said. And,
laughingly, she went with him to the gate. Ah! the poor woman spoke the secret
of her heart and the glory of her life when she rubbed his chilled hands and
said: "Oh! my poor lover; my precious lover. Speak to me -- look at me!" She
was all to him -- and nobly did she fill his life with her sweet and loyal
love! May God in his infinite gentleness bathe her heart with mercy!
Alston was child-like in his faith. He had absolute trust in prayer. I doubt
if he ever closed his eyes at night without going on his knees. He prayed all
the time and in all places. I have seen him go down on his knees in our
editorial room and pray aloud for help and guidance. And the first impulse
that followed this prayer he would follow blindly and to the end. At heart he
was profoundly religious, and his beliefs were old-fashioned on all religious
subjects. He used to upbraid me for working on Sunday in the severest terms.
That he sometimes sinned himself was due to the peculiar impulsiveness of his
nature. His life though was singlularly free from vices. I know of few men
who were cleaner in their habits. His life was a struggle, in which a great
religious heart tried to corral a myriad of impulses. It is not for me to
judge him. I know none of the secrets of the future, but I do know that if
there is mercy in God He will not turn away from this silent heart, that in all
its sorrows and triumphs went up to Him in an impulse of praise or
supplication. If ever a man walked reverently in the shadow of His footstool
my poor friend did.
I might write forever about him. About his home-life, so soft and loving and
gentle -- about the kindliness with which he placed his arm about me when I
came to this city a friendless youngster -- about the charming surprises that
his life developed day after day -- about the half-sad, half-tender talks we
used to have about his life and the hopes and loves he had centered on his
children -- about his wonderful adventures and exploits, so full of that bright
audacity that sat him so well!
But the public has nothing to do with this. To-day we bury him -- to-morrow we
shine his memory in our hearts and turn our faces to the future. Tears are
idle, and no cry can bring back that bright presence and that winsome face.
Noithing can light those darkened eyes -- nothing thrill that coffined heart --
nothing quicken that tired brain -- nothing nerve that listless hand! God's
will be done, and God rest thee in peace, thou honest friend -- thou golden-
hearted gentleman!
H. W. G.
Additional Comments:
Part 5 of 5
File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/fulton/newspapers/bathedin2550gnw.txt
This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/
File size: 17.0 Kb