THE LONG ROLL (1911)
from Chapter VI
It was the middle of July, 1861.
First Brigade headquarters was a tree—an especially big tree—a little removed from the others. Beneath it stood a kitchen chair and a wooden table, requisitioned from the nearest cabin and scrupulously paid for. At one side was an extremely small tent, but Brigadier-General T.J. Jackson rarely occupied it. He sat beneath the tree, upon the kitchen chair, his feet, in enormous cavalry boots, planted precisely before him, his hands rigid at his sides. Here he transacted the business of each day, and here, when it was over, he sat facing the North. An awkward, inarticulate, and peculiar man, with strange notions about his health and other matters, there was about him no breath of grace, romance, or pomp of war. He was ungenial, ungainly, with large hands and feet, with poor eyesight and a stiff address. There did not lack spruce and handsome youths in his command who were vexed to the soul by the idea of being led to battle by such a figure. The facts that he had fought very bravely in Mexico, and that he had for the enemy a cold and formidable hatred were for him; most other things against him. He drilled his troops seven hours a day. His discipline was of the sternest, his censure a thing to make the boldest officer blench. A blunder, a slight negligence, any disobedience of orders—down came reprimand, suspension, arrest, with an iron certitude, a relentlessness quite like Natures. Apparently he was without imagination. He had but little sense of humour, and no understanding of a joke. He drank water and sucked lemons for dyspepsia, and fancied that the use of pepper had caused a weakness in his left leg. He rode a rawboned nag named Little Sorrel, he carried his sabre in the oddest fashion, and said “oblike,” instead of “oblique.” He found his greatest pleasure in going to the Presbyterian Church twice on Sundays and to prayer meetings through the week. Now and then there was a gleam in his eye that promised something, but the battles had not begun, and his soldiers hardly knew what it promised. One or two observers claimed that he was ambitious, but these were chiefly laughed at. To the brigade at large he seemed prosaic, tedious, and strict enough, performing all duties with the exactitude, monotony, and expression of a clock, keeping all plans with the secrecy of the sepulchre, rarely sleeping, rising at dawn, and requiring his staff to do likewise, praying at all seasons, and demanding an implicity of obedience which might have been in order with some great and glorious captain, some idolized Napoleon, but which seemed hardly the due of the late professor of natural philosophy and artillery tactics at the Virginia Military Institute. True it was that at Harper's Ferry, where, as Colonel T.J. Jackson, he had commanded until Johnston's arrival, he had begun to bring order out of chaos and to weave from a high-spirited rabble of Volunteers a web that the world was to acknowledge remarkable; true, too, that on the second of July, in the small affair with Patterson at Falling Waters, he had seemed to the critics in the ranks not altogether unimposing. He emerged from Falling Waters Brigadier-General T.J. Jackson, and his men, though with some mental reservations, began to call him “Old Jack.” The epithet implied approval, but approval hugely qualified. They might have said—in fact, they did say—that every fool knew that a crazy man could fight!
MARY HARRIS “MOTHER” JONES
(May 1, 1830?–November 30, 1930)
Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, labor organizer and union gadfly, was born in Ireland in the 1830s. Her father's anti-British activities forced the family to flee to the United States where Jones worked as a schoolteacher in Memphis, and later, as a dressmaker in Chicago. In 1861, she married George E. Jones, an iron molder and staunch unionist.
When a yellow-fever epidemic swept Chicago in 1867, Jones's husband and all four of her children died. Five years later, her home and dressmaking business were destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.
Made homeless by circumstance, she remained homeless by choice, dedicating her life to improving the working conditions of America's laborers. She helped organize rail strikes in Pittsburgh and Birmingham, a textile strike in Philadelphia, and coal strikes in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. When asked where she lived, Jones replied, “Wherever there is a fight.”
Dubbed “Mother” Jones by union members, she grew adept at staging events which garnered national attention, such as a 125-mile march across New Jersey and into New York City to protest the textile industry's exploitation of child workers.
Because of her activities in a 1912 United Mine Workers’ strike, Jones, at the age of eighty-two, was labeled “the most dangerous woman in America” by a West Virginia prosecutor who complained, “She comes into a state where peace and prosperity reign…crooks her finger [and] twenty thousand contented men lay down their tools and walk out.”
Sentenced to twenty years in prison by a West Virginia court, Mother Jones was pardoned by the governor after the U.S. Senate threatened an investigation.
Her autobiography retains a great deal of the passion that made her such an effective orator. Although critics contend that her memory for dates was suspect, most agree her writings offer an invaluable look behind the scenes at the struggles of American workers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The following excerpt is from The Autobiography of Mother Jones, published near the end of Jones's life.
OTHER SOURCES TO EXPLORE
PRIMARY
Books: The Speeches and Writings of Mother Jones (1988), ed. Edward M. Steel. The Correspondence of Mother Jones (1985), ed. Edward M. Steel. The Autobiography of Mother Jones (1925), ed. Mary Field Parton.
SECONDARY
Helen M. Brannan, “Mary Harris Jones,” American Women Writers (1980), 422–24. Elliott J. Gorn, Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America (2001). Joseph Gustaitis, “Mary Harris Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman,” American History Illustrated (22 Jan. 1988), 22–23. Edward M. Steel, ed. The Court-Martial of Mother Jones (1995).
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MOTHER JONES (1925)
Chapter III: A Strike in Virginia
It was about 1891 when I was down in Virginia. There was a strike in the Dietz mines and the boys had sent for me. When I got off the train at Norton a fellow walked up to me and asked me if I were Mother Jones.
“Yes, I am Mother Jones.”
He looked terribly frightened. “The superintendent told me that if you came down here he would blow out your brains. He said he didn't want to see you ‘round these parts.”
“You tell the superintendent that I am not coming to see him anyway. I am coming to see the miners.”
As we stood talking a poor fellow, all skin and bones, joined us.
“Do you see those cars over there, Mother, on the siding?” He pointed to the cars filled with coal.
“Well, we made a contract with the coal company to fill those cars for so much, and after we had made the contract, they put lower bottoms in the cars, so that they would hold another ton or so. I have worked for this company all my life and all I have now is this old worn-out frame.”
We couldn't get a hall to hold a meeting. Every one was afraid to rent to us. Finally the colored people consented to give us their church for our meeting. Just as we were about to start the colored chairman came to me and said: “Mother, the coal company gave us this ground that the church is on. They have sent word that they will take it from us if we let you speak here.”
I would not let those poor souls lose their ground so I adjourned the meeting to the four corners of the public roads. When the meeting was over and the people had dispersed, I asked my co-worker, Dud Hado, a fellow from Iowa, if he would go with me up to the post office. He was a kindly soul but easily frightened.
As we were going along the road, I said, “Have you got a pistol on you?”
“Yes,” said he, “I'm not going to let any one blow your brains out.”
“My boy,” said I, “it is against the law in this county to carry concealed weapons. I want you to take that pistol out and expose a couple of inches of it.”
As he did so about eight or ten g
unmen jumped out from behind an old barn beside the road, jumped on him and said, “Now we've got you, you dirty organizer.” They bullied us along the road to the town and we were taken to an office where they had a notary public and we were tried. All those blood-thirsty murderers were there and the general manager came in.
“Mother Jones, I am astonished,” said he.
“What is your astonishment about?” said I.
“That you should go into the house of God with anyone who carries a gun.”
“Oh, that wasn't God's house,” said I. “That is the coal company's house. Don't you know that God Almighty never comes around to a place like this!”
He laughed and of course, the dogs laughed, for he was the general manager.
They dismissed any charges against me and they fined poor Dud twenty-five dollars and costs. They seemed surprised when I said I would pay it. I had the money in my petticoat.
I went over to a miner's shack and asked his wife for a cup of tea. Often in these company-owned towns the inn-keepers were afraid to let me have food. The poor soul was so happy to have me there that she excused herself to “dress for company.” She came out of the bedroom with a white apron on over her cheap cotton wrapper.
One of the men who was present at Dud's trial followed me up to the miner's house. At first the miner's wife would not admit him but he said he wanted to speak privately to Mother Jones. So she let him in.
“Mother,” he said, “I am glad you paid that bill so quickly. They thought you'd appeal the case. Then they were going to lock you both up and burn you in the coke ovens at night and then say that you had both been turned loose in the morning and they didn't know where you had gone.”
Whether they really would have carried out their plans I do not know. But I do know that there are no limits to which powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery.
JANE WILSON JOYCE
(July 17, 1947–)
Poet Jane Wilson Joyce grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. Her mother is a painter and a native of England, and her father spent his entire life in upper East Tennessee. “What with his stories, and her habit of looking, I found a lot of what I needed in their relationship to the region—how they helped me see and be there,” says Joyce.
Joyce earned a B.A. in Latin from Bryn Mawr College in 1969, an M.A. in Greek from the University of Texas in 1972, and her Ph.D. in classics from the University of Texas in 1982.
Her poetry collection Beyond the Blue Mountains follows “the journey of an imaginary family travelling from Kentucky to Oregon in 1852.” The original publication of her collection The Quilt Poems was by Mill Springs Press. These poems appear in Quilt Pieces by Gnomon Press, along with a short story by Meredith Sue Willis.
She has been on the faculty of Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, since 1978. “I teach a wide range of courses in the Classics—language, literature, culture,” says Joyce. She was instrumental in the establishment of Centre's major in the classics, and has been awarded the designation of Distinguished Professor of Humanities. Currently, she is the Luellen Professor of Literature.
OTHER SOURCES TO EXPLORE
Poetry: Beyond the Blue Mountains (1992), The Quilt Poems in Quilt Pieces (1992).
LIFE AND ART IN EAST TENNESSEE
from Old Wounds, New Words: Poems from the Appalachian Poetry Project (1994)
I had read in National Geographic
how in Alaska, or some places like it
where chill mysteries winter,
people stand on ice ten months thick
and see fish glint far beneath
shivering the deep green with their speed.
I stood on creek ice
one windfall of a subzero day
skating thin and bladeless
on a dare. Dreaming of parkas,
the huskies’ bark, a fish-hook gleaming
carved from a fat walrus tusk,
I saw only the bent brown ribs
of the old year's reeds
like a kayak skeleton
breaking up in the backwater.
Whatever I saw or didn't in the mud,
come spring and full summer
the creek overflowed
with tadpoles, snapping-turtles, water-bugs,
the green wink of a lizard disappearing.
I kept one eye peeled
in hopes of cottonmouth, water-moccasin
as I kneeled in the weeds, sleeve hiked,
feeling in water brown as tobacco
for the least thrill of minnows
shimmering between my fingers.
HOOKED ALBUM QUILT, 1870
from Quilt Pieces (1992)
Mama, I finished your quilt
but my heart wasn't in it
like yours was
so my work stands out—
plain crochet, thin and poor
alongside of yours.
I watched you
cut up the uniforms
they shipped home from Virginia,
sliding your big scissorblades
up the trouserlegs
like a doctor
slicing open a boot
when the leg inside is broken.
You sat, skeins striping
your black skirt
green, yellow, red,
tugging heavy yarns
through the dense weave of dull cloth
strand by strand,
shearing them down
just so: 33 squares
you worked this way,
never saying a word
that wasn't bright,
while the blisters came up on your hand,
broke, and wept.
I finished the quilt—
counterpane, you called it—
rolled it up and packed it away
in the cedar chest in the attic,
touching the rounded bunches
of cat-tails, tulips,
the one sunflower,
repeating fields of moss rose.
Why would you want to sleep
under such a weight
of remembering.
MAY JUSTUS
(May 12, 1898–November 7, 1989)
A prolific writer of children's books, May Justus was born in Del Rio, Tennessee. “I am a Smoky Mountaineer, born and bred, and proud of it,” wrote Justus in the 1950s. “The mountain culture of the past is fading…. The old customs, the folk speech, the ballads, the fiddle tunes, the play party singing games, the herb lore, the weather signs, the nonsense rhymes, the tall tales, even the riddles—you'll find them in the books I've written for a quarter of a century.”
Justus attended the University of Tennessee, then taught school in rural Tennessee and Kentucky. A community activist, she sought to improve not only educational opportunities, but health care and nutrition as well. She was affiliated with the Highlander Center during its early days and espoused such “liberal” ideas as integration.
She began writing stories for her students who were “always eager for the next adventure.” Her first book was published in 1927, when she was twenty-nine. One of her books, New Boy in School, was on the New York Times Best Book list for 1963, and Justus considered it one of her most significant, because it was one of the first children's books to deal with integration.
Justus's writing career spanned nearly six decades, and during that time she produced more than fifty books. The University of Tennessee's May Justus Collection contains all her books, many manuscripts, and an extensive correspondence.
Justus chose the title of her collection of folklore, The Complete Peddler's Pack, because of a childhood memory: “To those of us who lived far removed from the stores and shops of a city, the visit of a peddler was a thrilling event…. When the peddler loosened his load and spread its treasures on the floor, it was a sight to behold.” In the excerpts from The Complete Peddler's Pack, we glimpse the region's folk wisdom as recorded by Justus.
OTHER SOURCES TO EXPLORE
PRIMARY
Books for children: Jumping Jack (1974), Surprise for Perky Pup (1971), Tales from Near-Side and Far (1970), Eben and the Rattlesnake (1969), The Wonderful School of Miss Tillie O'Toole (1969), It Happened in No-End Hollow (1969), The Complete Peddler's Pack: Games, Songs, Rhymes, and Riddles from Mountain Folklore (1966), A New Home for Billy (1966), Tale of a Pig (1963), New Boy in School (1963), Smoky Mountain Sampler (1962), Winds A'Blowing [poetry] (1961), The Right House for Rowdy (1960), Lester and His Hound Pup (1960), Then Came Mr. Billy Barker (1959), Barney Bring Your Banjo (1959), Let's Play and Sing (1958), Jumping Johnny and Skedaddle (1958), Big Log Mountain (1958), Peddler's Pack (1957), Use Your Head, Hildyi (1956), Surprise for Peter Pocket (1955), Little Red Rooster Learns to Crow (1954), Peter Pocket and His Pickle Pup (1953), Whoop-ee, Hunkydory! (1952), Children of the Great Smoky Mountains (1952), Lucky Penny (1951), Luck for Little Lihu (1950), Toby Has a Dog (1949), Susie (1948), Mary Ellen (1947), Sammy (1946), Hurray for Jerry Jake (1945), Fiddlers’ Fair (1945), Lizzie (1944), Banjo Billy and Mr. Bones (1944), Jerry Jake Carries On (1943), Bluebird, Fly Up! (1943), Step Along and Jerry Jake (1942), Nancy of Apple Tree Hill (1942), Fiddle Away (1942), Dixie Decides (1942), Cabin on Kettle Creek (1941), The Mail Wagon Mystery (1941), Mr. Songcatcher and Company (1940), Here Comes Mary Ellen (1940), The House in No-End Hollow (1938), Near-side-and-far (1936), Honey Jane (1935), Gabby Gaffer's New Shoes (1935), Peter Pocket's Book (1934), The Other Side of the Mountain (1931), At the Foot of Windy Low (1930), Gabby Gaffer (1929), Betty Lou of Big Log Mountain (1928), Peter Pocket (1927).
SECONDARY
Contemporary Authors (1974), Vols. 9–10, 246. Something About the Author (1971), Vol. 1, 127–29. John W. Warren and Adrian W. McClaren, Tennessee Belles-Lettres: A Guide to Tennessee Literature (1977), 218. Eliot Wigginton, ed. Refuse to Stand Silently By: An Oral History of Grass Roots Social Activism in America, 1921–1964 (1991), 75–88, 266–72, 334–40.
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