It was Calhoun who forced the issue
upon the United States, and compelled us to choose between
annihilation and war.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Calhoun had still Irish enough in his composition to
use "will" for "shall."]
JOHN RANDOLPH.
In June, 1861, Dr. Russell, the correspondent of the London Times, was
ascending the Mississippi in a steamboat, on board of which was a body
of Confederate troops, several of whom were sick, and lay along the
deck helpless. Being an old campaigner, he had his medicine-chest with
him, and he was thus enabled to administer to these men the medicines
which he supposed their cases required. One huge fellow, attenuated to
a skeleton by dysentery, who appears to have been aware of his
benefactor's connection with the press, gasped out these words:
"Stranger, remember, if I die, that I am Robert Tallon of
Tishimingo County, and that I died for States' Rights. See,
now, they put that in the papers, won't you? Robert Tallon
died for States' Rights."
Having thus spoken, he turned over on his blanket, and was silent. Dr.
Russell assures his readers that this man only expressed the nearly
unanimous feeling of the Southern people at the outbreak of the war.
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