WATTERSON AND TWAIN AS REBELS

Too Long; Didn't Read

ADDRESS AT THE CELEBRATION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S 92ND 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.