Historic Fredericksburg: The Story of an Old Town

Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and his wife visited England in 1872 and Moncure Conway and his wife knew them intimately and afterwards visited them in this country. Joseph Jefferson, John Motley, George Eliot, Mrs. Humphrey Ward (whose book, Robert Elsmere, he flays) and W. S. Gilbert, all were his friends. The man was a genius, a social Voltaire; a master of thought and phrase. Where before did an exile from his own country ever achieve a friendship circle where the names now scintillate over all the world?

He Travels Through Russia

He visited Paris in 1867 and the story of his travels in Russia later are full of charm, of folk lore and religious mysticism. But before long we find him back in his South Place Chapel. His accounts of several woman preachers there are interesting, as is that of Annie Besant – the wondrous before-her-time – whom Mrs. Conway befriended in her bitter persecution by her parson husband for agnosticism. In 1875 Conway returned to America, and Falmouth town, grieving over the war ravages and his lost boyhood friends. He toured through the West, lecturing on Demonology, and the great Englishmen he knew. The death of his son, Dana, and of his wife in 1897, were blows, and his remaining years were spent in Europe with several visits between to his brother, Peter V. D. Conway, of Fredericksburg, and friends in America. His life ended in 1907 in Paris. A great man, a brilliant and a brave one. He fought for his beliefs as bravely as ever did any warrior or explorer in unknown lands.

A Great American ArtistGari Melchers

Crowning a hill, which is the triumphant result of a series of terraces rising from the town of Falmouth, opposite Fredericksburg, is Belmont, the home of Gari Melchers, an American artist, who has been more honored abroad than any of our living painters, with the exception, perhaps, of John Singer Sargent.

Born in Detroit, Gari Melchers left America when he was seventeen, to pursue his studies in Europe.

His apprentice days were spent in Dusseldorf and Paris, where his professional debut in 1889 gained for him the coveted Grand Prix – Sargent and Whistler being the only other American painters similarly honored.

Italy had to resign to Holland the prestige of lending her country to the genius of Mr. Melchers, for he intended to reside in Italy, but owing to the outbreak of the cholera there he settled at Engmond instead. His studio borrowed the interest of the sea on one side and the charm of a lazy canal on the other, and over its door were inscribed the words: “Wahr und Klar” (Truth and Clarity). Here he worked at those objective and realistic pictures of Dutch life and scenes; and free from all scholastic pretense, he painted the serene, yet colorful panorama of Holland.

Christian Brinton says of the art of Gari Melchers that it is explicit and veracious. Prim interiors are permeated with a light that envelopes all things with a note of sadness. Exterior scenes reflect the shifting of seasons or the precise hour of day. He paints air as well as light and color. Without exaggeration, he manages to suggest the intervening aerial medium between the seer and the thing seen.

Mr. Melchers has no set formula.

In 1918 there was a wonderful “one man” display of his art at the Corcoran Art Gallery, and in 1919, the Loan Exhibition, held by the Copley Society at the Boston Art Club, was the second of the two important recent events in the artist’s career since his returning to America. Here his work has undergone some perceptible change, gaining lightness and freshness of vision, which shows his reaction to a certain essential Americanism. Mr. Melchers attacks whatever suits his particular mood, and his art is not suggestive of a subjective temperament.

“The Sermon” – “The Communion” – “The Pilots” – “The Shipbuilders” – “The Sailor and His Sweetheart” – “The Open Door” are some of his well-known canvases. His reputation as a portrait painter rests upon a secure foundation.

His awards include medals from Berlin, Antwerp, Vienna, Paris and Munich, Ansterdam, Dresden, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and many other medals for art exhibitions.

He is an officer of the Legion of Honor, France; officer of the Order of the “Red Eagle,” Prussia; officer of the Order of “St. Michael” Bavaria; officer of the Order of the “White Falcon,” Saxe-Weimar.

Mr. Melchers himself is frank and not chained by minor conventions. He has a powerful personality and a charming wife, who dispenses a pleasant hospitality, in a home that leaves nothing to be desired.

John Elder’s Great WorkJohn A. Elder

Fredericksburg gave John A. Elder, the gifted painter to the world, for he saw the light of day in this town in February, 1833; and here he first felt that call to art which had its beginnings when Elder would, as a mere boy, make chalk drawings on the sides of the buildings, and took the time, while doing errands for his father, to give rein to his imagination through some interesting sketch, which would finally drift into the possession of his friends. His father’s opposition to an artistic career for his son did not long retard his progress, as so great was the urge within him that he borrowed from a fellow townsman, Mr. John Minor, the money to study abroad, and before long Dusseldorf, Germany, claimed him as a student, and there the love of line and color which he had inherited from his mother’s family gained definition. Details of his life in Dusseldorf are too vague to chronicle but he returned to this country at the beginning of the Civil War, with a knowledge of his art which gained him instant recognition, and success followed in his footsteps.

Elder was a man whose sympathetic personality drew the love of his fellow-men, and his studio was the rendezvous of such men as Attorney-General R. T. Daniel, Lord Grant, Peterkin, Fred Daniel, who represented the United States as consul to Rome for fourteen years, and many others.

His experiences in war gave to him a sureness and truth in detail, which, when added to his technique, produced results which challenged the admiration of all who saw his work.

Some of Elder’s Paintings

His “Battle of the Crater” and “Scout’s Prize” were inspired by scenes in which he had figured. The former hangs on the walls of the Westmoreland Club, in Richmond, Va., and his canvas “After Appomattox” adorns the State Library in the same city, along with many portraits which trace their origin to him.

His “Lee” and “Jackson” are in the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, and there is a portrait of Mr. Corcoran himself which owes its existence to his gifted brush.

He visited Jefferson Davis at “Beauvoir” and painted him there.

Of ordinary height and rather thick set, Mr. Elder’s appearance was characterized by distinction and force. His eyes were dark and very expressive; he wore a moustache and “imperial” and in all his photographs we notice the “artistic flowing tie.” On the left of his forehead was a scar, the result of some encounter in Germany, and as the artist never married, one is apt to read a romance into his life. However, this is pure speculation, as there is nothing to substantiate such an assumption.

“Jack” Elder was a master of the foils, and on one occasion when a noted Frenchman engaged him in a “bout” Elder disarmed him with ease, and the Frenchman’s foil was thrown against the ceiling.

The artist returned to Fredericksburg, where he lived six years prior to his death, which occurred on February 25, 1895, and in these last years he was ministered to by his nieces and nephews, who showed him much devotion.

Rev. James Power Smith

Rev. James Power Smith was not born in Fredericksburg, but he preached here for thirty years, at the Presbyterian Church, aiding the poor and sick, and always smiling. He was highly successful in his church achievements and in his years of editorship of the Central Presbyterian.

One night in his life proved him to be minted of fine metal, and that night inscribed his name forever in history. It was the fearful night when Stonewall Jackson received his death blow.

Captain Smith (now Reverend) was a theological student when war broke out, and was immediately made a military lieutenant (not a chaplain). Throughout the war he followed close to Jackson, on his staff. Religion brought them together and their friendship was deep.

When Jackson Was Wounded

When in the darkness of the trees that overhang the Chancellorsville road, “Stonewall” Jackson was mortally wounded and others about him killed by their own troops there were a few men, among them General A. P. Hill, at hand to help him. He had hardly been taken from his horse when two aides, Lieutenant Morrison and Lieutenant Smith, arrived. With General Hill directing, they arrested the bleeding. General Hill had to hurry back to form his men for an attack. Lieutenant Morrison had just seen a field piece, not 200 yards away, pointing down the Plank Road. There was no litter, and General Jackson offered to walk to the rear. Leaning on Major Leigh and Lieutenant Morrison, he began struggling toward his lines. They had just placed Jackson on a litter that had been sent up, when the Federal cannon began to rake the road with canister. Every figure, horse or gun toward the Confederate lines disappeared. They tried to take him back, but a litter-bearer was struck down and the Great Leader was dropped and bruised.

In a moment, on the dark road swept by awful fire, there were but three men, and, as the subject of this sketch, Lieutenant Smith, was one of them, it is apropos to quote what Prof. R. S. Dabney says in his Life of Jackson:

“The bearers and all the attendants, excepting Major Leigh and the general’s two aides, had left and fled into the woods. While the sufferer lay in the road with his feet turned toward the enemy, exposed to the fire of the guns, his attendants displayed a heroic fidelity which deserved to go down in history with the immortal name of Jackson. Disdaining to leave their chief, they lay down beside him, leaning above him and trying as far as possible to protect him with their bodies. On one side was Major Leigh, on the other Lieutenant Smith. Again and again was the earth torn by volleys of canister, and minnie balls hissed over them, the iron striking flashes from the stones about him.”

Finally when the firing ceased, General Jackson was removed from the battlefield to a hospital, and then to Mr. Chandler’s house at Guinea Station, where he died, May 10, 1863.

Lieutenant Smith became The Reverend when war ceased, and married Miss Agnes Lucy Lacy, a daughter of Major J. Horace Lacy.

He was well known in Fredericksburg. For thirty years he was pastor here; for fifty years Secretary of the Presbyterian Synod, and for years editor of the Central Presbyterian. Many know his works. All men know the deep, immovable courage it took that night to lie as a barrier, to take whatever death might be hurled down the shell-swept road toward “Stonewall” Jackson.

He still lives, in 1921, in Richmond. His voice is low, his smile soft, and his religion his life. He is the last surviving member of “Stonewall” Jackson’s staff.

Major J. Horace Lacy

There are many living now who remember him. The strong, stolid figure, the fine old face traced with the lineage of gentility, the cane that pounded down the sidewalks as he went where he willed. There are some left who knew the power and poetry and kindliness of the man.

Major Lacy was a graduate of Washington and Lee and an attorney at law, though he seldom practiced. He was married in 1848 at Chatham, when he was twenty-four years of age, to Miss Betty Churchill Jones, and later became the owner of “Chatham” and of the “Lacy House,” about each of which clings grim traditions of war; both the Wilderness place and Chatham became known in those two battles as “The Lacy House.”

Washington Irving was his guest while spending some time in Virginia; General Robert E. Lee was his guest, and many other widely known men.

His service in war was well done. He was made a lieutenant at the beginning and promoted to major on the field of battle at Seven Pines. He served under General Joseph E. Johnston until the latter surrendered, some time after Appomattox.

When the war was ended he went North to do a brave thing. He spoke through Pennsylvania and Maryland, pleading for funds to bury and put grave stones over the Confederate dead. He had experiences there. But his splendid oratory and the courage of his presence usually kept order.

Winning a Hostile Audience

He spoke once at Baltimore, and among his audience was an Irish Federal regiment, clad half in uniform, half in civilians, as forgotten ex-privates usually are. Major Lacy was told that most of the audience was hostile and threatening.

He walked on the platform and spoke a few words about the unknown men he came to get funds to decently bury, of the women away where the starlight was twinkling over cabin and home, of those who waited, listening for a step; of those who were never again to see the men they loved.

Shuffling feet and laughter dulled the simple pathos of his words. Then turning half away from his audience he recited a poem called “The Irish Immigrant’s Lament”:

“I am sitting on the stile, Mary,Where we sat, side by side,On that bright May morning long ago,When first you were my bride.”

He began it thus, and into his voice, filled with the sorrows of the “Mary’s” who wept down in his Southland, he put the full strength of his expression. The hostile audience was silent as he finished.

“And often in the far-off world,I’ll sit and close my eyes,And my heart will travel back againTo where my Mary lies.And I’ll think I see the little stileWhere we sat, side by side,Mid the young corn on that bright May mornWhen you were first my bride.”

The Irishmen who had fought against the cause which Lacy loved were quiet now, and when he said, “Wouldn’t you want a bit of a stone for ‘Mary’ to remember you,” they yelled and rushed to grasp his hand. From his “hostile” audience he collected $14,000.00 that night. In the whole tour he gathered a great sum for Confederate cemeteries.

During his later years, with his wife, who represented the ladies of another era, as he did its men, he lived on Washington Avenue, in Fredericksburg. To few did he ever show the deeper side of his character, but those who knew him until he died in 1906, knew how much kindly manliness dwelt therein.

Major General Daniel Ruggles

Although Major General Daniel Ruggles was born in Massachusetts, he married Miss Richardetta Mason Hooe, a great granddaughter of George Mason, and the greater part of his life was spent in Fredericksburg, of which he became a citizen and in which he died.

During his life in Fredericksburg he concerned himself with the business of the town, and was known to almost all of its residents.

He was graduated into the army from West Point in 1883 and lead a small band into the west and explored the Fox river the same year.

General Ruggles’ Career

When the Seminole Indian war broke out Lieutenant Ruggles with fifty men penetrated the everglades and was commended for his services. In the Mexican war he stopped the Mexican advance at Palo Alto and was promoted to Captain on the field.

Captain Ruggles and his men reached Chapaultepec, drove into the city, made a determined stand and were the first of the advancing American Army to raise the American flag over the fort. He was breveted Major by President Polk “for gallant and meritorious conduct at Chereubusco” and a little later was made Lieutenant Colonel “for gallant and conspicuous bravery at Chapaultepec.” In 1861 he joined the Confederate Army.

The Real “First Battle”

Placed in command of the most important of the Southern departments at Fredericksburg, the “gateway to the South,” he organized and equipped a small army. When the Confederacy found that they had no gun caps, necessary on the old “muzzle loaders,” and no copper from which to make caps, General Ruggles invented a cap made from raw hide and dried in the sun (specimens are in the National Museum), which were used by the whole Southern Army during the first three months of the war.

General Ruggles planted artillery and, using these caps with match heads to explode them, drove off the Union gunboats and a lading force at Aquia Creek May 31, 1861, nine days before “Big Bethel”, and weeks after Virginia seceded. He thus fought and won the first battle of the Civil war.

His career during the war won him wide recognition. His movements won the battle of Shiloh through finding a weak point in the enemy’s line. He was made Major General March 25, 1865, and surrendered at Augusta, Ga., after Appomattox. Although he fought in five Indian wars, the Mexican war and the Civil war, from the start to finish, and was recognized as a man who would lead his men anywhere, he never received a wound of any kind in his life.

Many people in Fredericksburg remember him now, with his fine face, his erect figure and his long gray whiskers. In his latter days some people laughed at him, not understanding that there was genius in the man, because of his first experience with “rainmaking.” He invented the method which is used now by the United States Government, under his patent. He earned the name of “raincrow” which sometimes reached his ears. He patented the first propeller which was ever used on a steam boat (model in the National Museum). He also invented the first principles of the telephone. He invented in 1858 a system whereby an electric bell on a ship would ring on the approach of the ship to any rock or point on the shore equipped with the same apparatus. This was tested by the navy and proclaimed impractical, but it contained the principles of wireless telegraphy. It is used by the American navy today.

John Roger Clark, Explorer

Though a monument has just been erected in another city which claims him as a citizen, there is excellent evidence of the fact that John Roger Clarke, reclaimer of the great Northwest, and also his brother, William Clarke, who with Merriweather Lewis, explored the Mississippi, were born in Spotsylvania County and lived near Fredericksburg. According to Quinn’s History of Fredericksburg, Maury’s History of Virginia and letters from descendents, the two famous Clarke brothers were sons of Jonathan Clarke, who lived at Newmarket, Spotsylvania County, where John Roger Clarke was born. Jonathan Clarke was clerk of the County Court of Spotsylvania and afterwards moved to Fredericksburg, where it may be probable, the younger son was born. Later they moved to Albemarle County, near Charlottesville, where the two sons grew to manhood.

The history of the two Clarkes’ is so well known, even by school children, that it is needless to go into it here, the purpose of this reference being to establish their connection with the town.

Major Elliott Muse Braxton

Major Elliott Muse Braxton is widely known, as he was once Congressman from this district. He was born in the County of Middlesex, October 2, 1823, was a grandson of Carter Braxton, one of Virginia’s signers of the Declaration of Independence. His father was also Carter Braxton, a successful lawyer in Richmond.

In 1851 he was elected to the Senate of Virginia. So ably and efficiently did Major Braxton represent his constituents that he won another election without any opposition.

In 1854 he married Anna Marie Marshall, a granddaughter of the great expounder of the Constitution, Chief Justice Marshall. In 1859 he adopted Fredericksburg as his home, where he was when “war’s dread alarm,” came. He organized a company of infantry, of which he was unanimously elected captain, from which position he was soon promoted to that of major, and assigned to the staff of General John R. Cooke. On the conclusion of hostilities he again engaged in the practice of law, forming a co-partnership with the late C. Wistar Wallace, Esq. In 1870 he was nominated at Alexandria by the Democrats for Congress, the City of Fredericksburg being then a constituent of the Eighth District.

He continued to practice his profession of law until failing health admonished him to lay its burdens down.

On October 2, 1891, he died in his home at Fredericksburg, and Virginia mourned a son who was always true, loyal and faithful. Elliott Muse Braxton was a Virginia gentleman and in saying that a good deal is comprehended. Courteous in manner, considerate in tone and temper, clean in character, loyal to State and to Church, cherishing with ardor as the years went by, the obligations and the responsibilities of old Virginia, he fell asleep.

Dr. Francis P. Wellford

“But a certain Samaritan as he journeyed came where he was and when he saw him, he had compassion on him – and went to him and bound up his wounds.” In this way we are told the tender story of the Good Samaritan.

In 1877 Dr. Francis Preston Wellford, of Fredericksburg, was living in Jacksonville, Florida, when a scourge of yellow fever invaded Fernandina. Almost all of its physicians were victims of the disease, or worn out with work. Dr. Wellford volunteered for service, which was almost certain death, fell a victim, and died, on the same day and in the next cot to his fellow-townsman, Dr. Herndon.

“For whether on the scaffold high,Or in the battle’s van,The noblest death that man can die;Is when he dies for man.”

Over his grave in the cemetery at Fredericksburg, there is an imposing monument, with this simple inscription:

“Francis Preston Wellford,

Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia,

September 12, 1839.”

On the beautiful memorial window in St. Peter’s Church, Fernandina, Florida, erected by Dr. J. H. Upham, of Boston, who felt that their memory should not be neglected, one reads:

“Francis Preston Wellford, M. D.

Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia,

Sept. 12, 1839,

James Carmicheal Herndon, M. D.

Born in Fredericksburg, Virginia,

Sept. 22, 1821,

Died in the faithful discharge of their duties at

Fernandina, Florida,

Oct. 18, 1877.”

Dr. James C. Herndon

When surgeons were needed for the Confederate Army, the Dr. Herndon above mentioned left his practice and went, although exempted by law. He served through four years of war, and when peace was declared, made his home in Florida.

He was state physician there, when Fernandina was stricken by the dread yellow fever, and the population was almost helpless.

Deeming it his duty, Herndon voluntarily went into the city of the dying. He had worked but a few days when he was stricken, and death followed.

He died as bravely as a man may die, and few have died for so good a cause. He sleeps in the silent cemetery in Fredericksburg, his home.

Hon. A. Wellington Wallace

Among the men whose writings have added to Fredericksburg’s fame is Hon. A. Wellington Wallace, at one time Judge of the Corporation Court of Fredericksburg and, later chosen President of the Virginia Bar Association. Judge Wallace never sought political office and his abilities therefore never were fully publicly known in that line, but some of his literary compositions have been widely read and favorably criticised. The most important of his work, perhaps, is his epitome on the intents, purposes and meaning of the constitution. Though brief it clearly and sharply defines and analyses the important document under which we are governed, and gives to the reader an intelligent conception of what its framers aimed at and hoped to do, such as could not be gained in pages of lengthier reading.

Hon. A. P. Rowe(1817-1900)

One of the best known and most beloved characters of the after-the-war period was Absalom P. Rowe, affectionately known as “Marse Ab.” He served as Quartermaster, Confederate States Army, throughout the Civil War, and after its close, played a leading part in restoring order and system out of the terrible desolation with which this section was inflicted. He was prominent in all matters pertaining to the civic and State governments and was a powerful influence in all the stirring events of that period.

“Marse Ab” represented the district comprising Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania county in the State Legislature for the session 1879-1880, and served as Mayor of Fredericksburg continuously from 1888 to 1900, with the exception of one term, and had just been re-elected for another term at the time of his death.

Fredericksburg was then under its old charter and the police court was presided over by the Mayor. “Marse Ab’s” court was known far and wide, and his characteristic method of dealing out justice was the cause of fear to offenders and a source of amusement to large numbers of onlookers who always attended the sessions of court. “Marse Ab’s” decisions were quickly reached and swiftly delivered, and the penalties inflicted were tempered with the wisdom and discretion of his long experience and his rare qualities as a judge of human nature.