Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History BookOpen Original Text n badly stove while alongside with the last load of passengers. She
was so much knocked to pieces as to be really unserviceable, nor could
she have held another person. Still those brave seamen, inspired by
the conduct and true to the trust imposed in them by their Captain,
did not hesitate to leave the brig again, and pull back through the
dark for miles, across an angry sea, that they might join him in his
sinking ship, and take their chances with the rest. . . . . .
As one of the last boats was about to leave the ship, her commander
gave his watch to a passenger with the request that it might be
delivered to his wife. He wished to charge him with a message for her
also, but his utterance was choked. "Tell her----." Unable to proceed,
he bent down his head and buried his face in his hands for a moment as
if in prayer, for he was a devout man and a Christian.
In that moment, brief as it was, he endured the great agony; but it
was over now. . . . He had resolved to go down with his ship. Calm and
collected, he rose up from that mighty struggle with renewed vigour,
and went with encouraging looks about the duties of the ship as
before. . . .
After the boat which bore Mr. Payne--to whom Herndon had entrusted his
watch--had shoved off, the Captain went to his state-room and put on
his uniform; . . . . . then walking out, he took his stand on the
wheel-house, holding on to the iron railing with his left hand. A
rocket was sent off, the ship fetched her last lurch, and as she went
down he uncovered. . . .
Just before the steamer went down, a row-boat was heard approaching.
Herndon hailed her; it was the boatswain's boat, rowed by "hard hands
and gentle hearts," returning from on board the brig to report her
disabled condition. If she came alongside she would be engulfed with
the sinking ship. Herndon ordered her to keep off. She did so, and was
saved. This, as far as I have been able to learn, was his last order.
Forgetful of self, mindful of others, his life was beautiful to the
last, and in his death he has added a new glory to the annals of the
sea.
[A handsome monument to his memory stands in the Parade-ground of the
Naval School at Annapolis.]
FOOTNOTES:
[14] By permission of Mrs. Corbin.
[15] By permission of Mrs. Corbin.
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.
~1806=1870.~
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS was born and reared in Charleston, South
Carolina. His early education was limited; he was for a while clerk in
a drug-store and then he studied law. But his decided taste for
letters soon induced him to devote his entire time and attention to
their cultivation. He wrote rapidly and voluminously, and produced
poems, novels, dramas, histories, biographies, book-reviews,
editorials,--in short, all kinds of writing. He was editor of various
journals at different times, and did all he could to inspire and
foster a literary taste in his generation. His style shows the effect
of haste and overwork.
[Illustration: ~Woodlands, S. C., Home of W. Gilmore Simms.~]
His novels dealing with Colonial and Revolutionary subjects are his
best work. They give us graphic pictures of the struggles that our
forefathers in the South had with the wild beasts, swamps, forests,
and Indians in Colonial times, and with these and the British in the
Revolutionary period. They should be read in connection with our early
history, especially the following: _Yemassee_, (_1714, Colonial
times_); _Partisan_, _Mellichampe_, and _Katharine Walton_, (_forming
the Revolutionary Trilogy_); _Eutaw_; _Scout_; _Forayers_;
_Woodcraft_, (_1775-1783_); _Wigwam and Cabin_ (_a collection of short
stories_).
Some of his poems are well worth reading, especially the legends of
Indian and Colonial life; and the Spirits' songs in "Atalantis" are
very dainty and musical.
He was the friend and helper of his younger fellow-workers in
literature, among whom were notably Paul Hamilton Hayne and Henry
Timrod. At his country home "Woodlands" and in Charleston, he
dispensed a generous and delightful hospitality and made welcome his
many friends from North, South, and West. The last few years of his
life were darkened by distress and poverty, in common with his
brethren all over the South; and his heroic struggle against them
reminds us of that of Sir Walter Scott, though far more dire and
pathetic.
A fine bust of him by Ward adorns the Battery in his native and
much-loved city. See Life, by William P. Trent.
WORKS.
NOVELS.
Martin Faber.
Book of My Lady.
Guy Rivers.
Yemassee.
Partisan.
Mellichampe.
Richard Hurdis.
Palayo.
Carl Werner and other Tales.
Border Beagles.
Confession, or the Blind Heart.
Beauchampe, [sequel to Charlemont].
Helen Halsey.
Castle Dismal.
Count Julian.
Wigwam and Cabin.
Katharine Walton.
Golden Christmas.
Forayers.
Maroon, and other Tales.
Utah.
Woodcraft.
Marie de Bernière.
Father Abbott.
Scout, [first called Kinsmen.]
Charlemont.
Cassique of Kiawah.
Vasconselos, [tale of De Soto.]
POEMS, [2 volumes.]
Atalantis.
Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies.
Lays of the Palmetto.
Southern Passages and Pictures.
Areytos: Songs and Ballads of the South.
DRAMAS.
Norman Maurice.
Michael Bonham, or Fall of the Alamo.
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY, &C.
Life of General Francis Marion.
Life of Captain John Smith.
Life of Chevalier Bayard.
Geography of South Carolina.
Reviews in Periodicals [2 vols.].
Life of General Nathanael Greene.
History of South Carolina.
South Carolina in the Revolution.
War Poetry of the South.
Seven Dramas of Shakspere.
SONNET.--THE POET'S VISION.
Upon the Poet's soul they flash forever,
In evening shades, these glimpses strange and sweet;
They fill his heart betimes,--they leave him never,
And haunt his steps with sounds of falling feet;
He walks beside a mystery night and day;
Still wanders where the sacred spring is hidden;
Yet, would he take the seal from the forbidden,
Then must he work and watch as well as pray!
How work? How watch? Beside him--in his way,--
Springs without check the flow'r by whose choice spell,--
More potent than "herb moly,"--he can tell
Where the stream rises, and the waters play!--
Ah! spirits call'd avail not! On his eyes,
Sealed up with stubborn clay, the darkness lies.
THE DOOM OF OCCONESTOGA.
(_From Yemassee._)
[Occonestoga, the degenerate son of the Yemassee chief
Sanutee, has been condemned, for befriending the whites,
to a fate worse than death. The _totem_ of his tribe, an
arrow branded upon the shoulder, is to be cut and burnt
out by the executioner, Malatchie, and he is to be
declared accursed from his tribe and from their paradise
forever, "a slave of Opitchi-Manneyto," the evil
spirit.]
Occonestoga's head sank in despair, as he beheld the unchanging look
of stern resolve with which the unbending sire regarded him. For a
moment he was unmanned; until a loud shout of derision from the crowd
as they beheld the show of his weakness, came to the support of his
pride. The Indian shrinks from humili Previous Next |