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Valley Virginian: August 21, 1867 Go To Page : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |

[No Title]
(Column 01)

Summary: The paper announces that Governor Pierpont will be at the Staunton Court House on August 26th to "address the people of Augusta."

[No Title]
(Column 01)

Summary: The paper reports that the newest registration revisions show 84 whites registered and 43 blacks. Fifty whites were stricken from the rolls. "This makes the white majority in the county 9 less. There are about 150 persons disfranchised in the county."

[No Title]
(Column 01)

Summary: Dr. Barnas Sears, agent of the Peabody Fund, purchased Dr. Madison's house and a lot owned by Jed Hotchkiss. He will reside in Staunton.
(Names in announcement: Dr. Barnas Sears, Dr. Madison, Jed Hotchkiss)

Good Order
(Column 01)

Summary: Despite 5,000 people in the streets and at the show on Saturday night, only one arrest was made. "A more quiet, orderly, well behaved body of people never congregated together. It speaks well for old Augusta, and we are proud of her."

A Word to the Negroes
(Column 02)

Summary: This editorial advises African Americans to abstain from voting. Only through working, ignoring politics, and avoiding conflict with whites can they escape racial extermination.

Full Text of Article:

There has been a great war between the whites on this Continent. They have lost, and you alone have gained. But once upon a time, the Indians, over a thousand to one, made war upon the whites, and where are they? There are 36,000,000 whites in the U. S., to 4,000,000 negroes. If you go for the Radicals our people are down on you; if you go Conservative the Radicals will turn against you, and both can do you immense harm. You are between the "upper and nether mill-stone," and we tell you, honestly, there is but one course to pursue. It is the same you pursued during the war. Work and let white people settle this question--don't vote at all. The only escape for you, from the fate of the Indian, is to make yourselves the best body of laborers in the world, and to avoid, by not voting, a conflict with any portion of the whites at present. The "blue veins" will rule, and your policy is to make enemies of no party, for, be the result as it may, you are bound to suffer. Hold on to your Registration, but don't vote. The fruit is very tempting, but you had better throw yourself on the generosity of the whites, and wait until it is fully ripe.

A Reconstruction Item
(Column 02)

Summary: The purchase of the Esteline Iron Furnace augurs well for the prosperity and development of Augusta.
(Names in announcement: Nelson Beall, James I. Hohlitzell, Horace Resley, John E. Russel, Burke, Kunkle)

Full Text of Article:

The Esteline Furnace is in good hands. This magnificent Iron property, situated in Augusta county, 20 miles from Staunton, about 4 miles from the Va. C. R. R., at Pond Gap, containing 6,110 acres, (a small portion in Rockbridge county,) was sold on the 17th, to Nelson Beall, James I. Hohlitzell, Horace Resley and John E. Russel, of Alleghany co., Md., for the sum of $35,000--one-half of which was paid in Land, to Burke & Kunkle, and the balance to be paid in 9 and 18 months with interest. We understand that the gentlemen who purchased this property are enterprising and energetic. They will at once proceed to develope the rich purchase they have made. This is but "the beginning of the end" of the development of the Iron interest, of old Augusta. This interest should, with proper efforts to secure foreign capital, prove as valuable to our people as the Gold Mines of California, and we congratulate them on the opening made. We again invite the attention of capitalists to this interest. When the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad is completed we will be all right on the Iron question.

Good News
(Column 02)

Summary: The first bulk shipment of grain was made from Staunton to Baltimore through the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at rates lower than ever. "This shows what can be done, and our farmers should take advantage of the arrangement." The Valley Railroad is expected to be completed as far as Harrisonburg by January, 1868. "Our people, by proper action, in giving up land damages and taxes, can put it to Staunton soon, and then to Salem! Let us see to it."

John Robinson's Circus
(Column 03)

Summary: John Robinson, "the veteran showman," brought his Menagerie and Circus to Staunton on Saturday. The show drew 5,000 people to town. "The Mammoth Pavilion was so densely crowded in the afternoon, that it was found necessary to refuse admittance to hundreds." By night, most everyone was able to get in. "Everybody was in the best of humor; the exercises in the ring were all good, and we heard but one general expression, and that was that 'John Robinson's show was one of the institutions of the country.' It fully maintained its old reputation and added to it."

The Herald's New Tack
(Column 03)

Summary: The paper endorses the argument of the Herald that Johnson must make clear that Stanton was dismissed for his support of equal rights for blacks, and as a means to check "that particular tendency of the Republican party which threatens to throw the destinies of the country into the hands of the nigger." If the racist North understands this, then they will support the president.

A Conflict of Races
(Column 03)

Summary: This article asserts that a race war is becoming more likely. Given the large white majority in the country, it can have only one result.

Full Text of Article:

Facts show, says the Philadelphia Age, that we are fast tending to this point, and it were well for both whites and blacks to consider and weigh well the result of such a conflict. As circumstances are now progressing, we behold with a conviction which no argument can weaken, with a vividness of perception which no effort of our own can soften, the certainty of an impending conflict between the white and the colored population of this country--the nature of which it is as easy to foresee as it is fearful to contemplate.

Colored people think of this. There are 36,000,000 whites to 3,000,000 blacks, in the United States! Let us avoid this trouble.

Congressional
(Column 03)

Summary: The paper mockingly offers "Dumb George," the Valley Virginian office hand, as a candidate for Congress in response to those who argue blacks should have the right to be elected to government posts.
(Names in announcement: George Tucker)

Full Text of Article:

The policy of sending colored men to Congress is being seriously agitated by some of our people. The idea is a fair divide between the whites and blacks. The whites to take the State offices and the blacks all Federal offices, each party pledging the other mutual protection. In view of this, a number of persons have spoken of our black devil, "Dumb George," as a proper candidate for Congress. In reply we can only say, that George Tucker, deaf and dumb, is of a good family; is as honest as the day is long and a true patriot. He don't ask for office, neither does he decline. He has our earnest support.

The Muttering of the Coming Storm North
(Column 04)

Summary: This editorial predicts a revolution or second civil war in the North to remove the Radicals from power. Their political struggle with the Democrats is cast as one between a monied plutocracy and the people. If the Democratic minded people only have the courage to resist their rule, then the country will be saved from their tyranny.

Full Text of Article:

In reviewing the results of the elections in Kentucky, the New York Freedman's Journal and Catholic Register, speaks some brave, true words. We will be more pleased when we see them carried out by acts. It says:

"The fact is, it is almost laughable, if it were not so sad, to think how easy it would be for the Democratic majority in these States, North and South, to assert their power--if they had but organization, and the most ordinary amount of courage! As it is, to our damning disgrace as a people, a Puritan minority are ruling us--and the managers of this minority are, physically, abject cowards! What a position for a great people, professing popular Government!

Let us resume the courage of the old time "unterrified democracy!" Let us assert it for North and South alike! Let us fight if need be, the corrupt plutocracy that seek to grind down the people! If we will only take the trouble, as a people, to learn the issues before us, as the intelligent men of Kentucky have done, we will win without a conflict. We will put the cheating Bondholders under our feet. We will pay them off in their own greenbacks! We will not let them reap gold for their greenbacks, while we have but greenbacks in exchange for the gold we used to own. They talk of "manhood suffrage!" Let them have it to the full! It shall not, however, be, as in Tennessee, a farce and a fraud, manipulated by violence upon a docile people. It shall be--if they so will it, a real exhibition of the popular power against the monied few. If the monied few persist in sowing the wind, we will give them the harvest of the whirlwind! The greenback-paper currency is rotten from beginning to end. S. P. Chase, formerly Secretary of the Treasury, left that position with thirty millions of debt incurred, without corresponding vouchers. The Treasury Department has been, and continues, a huge swindle upon the people! For every million of real debt, the people are burdened with other millions of fraudulent debts. Revolution--if necessary a bloody revolution--is our only escape. The finances of the country are bankrupted by official frauds, and the proofs will yet be forthcoming that this is so.

Kentucky has given us the rallying point. Now let Pennsylvania, and Ohio, speak, next. The issue before us is one, at the same time, of manly principle, and of personal self-interest. The principle, of manhood is this:--Will we let our States of the North be dominated by a Puritan minority, in Congress, pretending to wield the power of the Southern States against us, when, in fact, they have disfranchised the real people of the South, and have substituted for them the ignorant rabble of uncivilized and pagan negroes, who have stuffed the ballot-boxes with whatever tickets the military power has put in their hands.

The question of self-interest results from this action. A few are to be benefitted, but the masses of the people at the North, are to sink into subjection to the few cunning manipulators. These few are about to bring their nominal triumph in Southern States, by negro votes, to override our State dispositions at the North. This is the end and aim of the Black Republican party, that made war, in 1861, to change our fundamental institutions.

If we yield, we are lost--for a time at least, and can never recover liberty but by bloody war. Our evident duty is to meet the issue at once.

Civil war is a terrible scourge. It turns houses into mourning; it sets neighbor in deadly array against neighbor; it disturbs the order of society by deplorable excesses. Nevertheless, civil wars, of frequent occurrence, are part of the history of the human race. We see all the conditions of war gathering, here, in our Northern States. It is to be the war of the masses of the people against the few who are set on robbing them, and against those proletaries that the few may hire, or fool, to fight the battles of a monied aristocracy against the bulk of the people!

If this battle must be fought, the sooner it comes the better! Old Kentucky shows the way. Let Pennsylvania and Ohio fall into line! If the elections result in restoring the people to power, against the New England usurpation, all may be accomplished in peace. If not, then it is a matter more evident than most political events of the future, that the strong and bloody hand of counter-revolution will take vengeance on the usurpers that have oppressed the people."

Large Farms
(Column 04)

Summary: This editorial advocates the division of large estates into small farms that can then be purchased by industrious men of moderate means. Since the emancipation of the slaves, large landowners have been unable to cultivate all of their vast holdings, so sale of portions of them would benefit everyone. The development of a yeoman class would also add to the industry, thrift, and development of the State.

The Resources of the South--European Capitalists--Good Advice
(Column 05)

Summary: The paper urges Virginia to follow the example of Hiram Hains of Alabama who succeeded in interesting European capitalists in investment in his state by highlighting its natural resources.

[No Title]
(Column 02)

Summary: The Albemarle Baptist Association met in a Baptist Church near Mt. Crawford. The association includes Baptist churches from Augusta county. Many of the delegates stopped in Staunton on their way home.

A Regret That Is Not a Regret
(Column 02)

Summary: Jed Hotchkiss regretfully gives up school teaching due to his time commitments in his engineering work. "He will hereafter devote himself to surveying lands, leveling, geological researches and surveys, reports on mineral lands &c. He is invaluable to this community."

The Federal Offices
(Column 03)

Summary: The paper reports that "some of the colored people are earnestly discussing the question of how to fill the various Federal Offices and who of their color shall fill them." The following are spoken of for office in Augusta: Aaron Shoveler, for Postmaster; Tom Campbell, for Collector of the Revenue; Philip Roselle, for Freedman's Bureau Agent. "'Dumb George' still stands for Congress, Billy Peters, of Harrisonburg, next. This may be hard on some people, but, then, we can't help it."
(Names in announcement: Aaron Shoveler, Tom Campbell, Philip Roselle, "Dumb" George , Billy Peters)

Deaths
(Column 03)

Summary: John Firebaugh died on July 21st at his residence near Cedar Grove Mills.
(Names in announcement: John Firebaugh)

Deaths
(Column 03)

Summary: Abram Grim died on July 19th near Berryville.
(Names in announcement: Abram Grim)

Deaths
(Column 03)

Summary: Mrs. S. A. Crizer died at age 51 on July 31st in Berryville.
(Names in announcement: S. A. Crizer)

Our Dead
(Column 01)

Summary: This poem honors the Confederate dead.

Full Text of Article:

Do we weep for the heroes who died for us?
Who, living, were true, and tried for us.
And in death sleep side by side for us?
The martyr band
That hallowed our land,
With the blood they poured in a tide for us?

Ah! fearless on many a day for us,
They stood in front of the fray for us,
And held the foeman at bay for us;
Fresh tears should fall
Forever--o'er all
Who fell while wearing the gray for us.

How many a glorious name for us!
How many a story of fame for us
They left! Would it not be a shame for us?
If their memory part
From our land and heart--
And a wrong and a blame for us?

No--no--no--they were brave for us,
And bright were the lives they gave for us
The land they struggled to save for us
Cannot forget
Its warriors yet,
Who sleep in so many a grave for us.

No--no--no--they were slain for us,
And their blood flowed out in a rain for us,
Red, rich and pure on the plain for us;
And years may go,
But our tears may flow
O'er the dead who have died in vain for us.

And their deeds--proud deeds--shall remain for us,
And their names--dear names--without stain for us,
And the glories they won shall not wane for us;
In legend and lay
Our heroes in gray,
Though dead, shall live over again for us.
Moina