From the May 24, 1871 INDEPENDENT MONITOR, Tuscaloosa

For the Monitor. 

An Old Tuskaloosian's Dream of Home.

 As tonight I, an old Tuskaloosian, far away from the loved scenes of my youth, wearied of books, sit in my old arm chair, watching the smoke curling upward from my Powhatan   Pamplin Pipe Factory, Appomattox Co., Slideshow and wreathing itself into a thousand fantastic shapes, by some strange witchery my thoughts revert to the dear old town that my boyhood knew and loved so well. As the sweet name, with its musical cadence, murmuringly falls from my lips, a thrill of sorrowful pleasure runs through my being, and I am young again. I forget that time has sprinkled my head with here and there a silver hair, that in yonder room, in quiet slumber, repose my wife and prattling boys. I am young again; I am once more amid the scenes of my youth; I am in old Tuskaloosa. Dear old town, years have come and gone since, in the shade of your beautiful oaks, I sought shelter from the warm Southern sun; since at festive board, by genial fireside and in social hall, I enjoyed the kindly smiles, and cheerful converse, and warm hospitality of your noble citizens, but still the associations connected with your name are to me green spots in memory's great waste, and the kind reader, who has learned to know and love the old town as I do, will pardon the rhapsodies of one who can never forget his old home! As the years glide by -as I feel that time.is carrying me further along the journey of life- and the milestones between me and the town of my boyhood continue to increase, the people, the streets, the houses of the old town become dearer to me. Every grassy slope, every wooded hill, every flowery glen; the majestic river, playful even in its sublimity, now startling us with the roar of its maddenod waters as they dash over successive barriers of rock, and now, with a rippling song, smoothly sweeping over its pebbly bed; every turf carpeted plain, every grand old oak, every vine trellised cottage, every pillared mansion, the schools, the churches, the mellow toned bells, the laughing girls, all these are still before me as in other days, when, with a youthful enthusiasm and delight, I thought them the grandest, the most beautiful, the most magnificent, the best, the sweetest, that ever sun shone on or that painter's pencil ever sketched. But most to a broad, extended plain lying just beyond the old town, carpeted with green, dotted here and there with a grove where Dryads Dryad - Wikipedia would choose to dwell, or receding into a flower decked glen where Naiads Naiad - Wikipedia would delight to sport, does my fancy often turn with fond and lingering gaze. The landscape is one that would honor the mellow light of Claude Lorraine's evening skies.Claude Lorrain - Wikipedia As your footsteps seek to traverse this beautiful plain, you leave behind you the town hidden in its garb of natural foliage, save where here and there a glistening spire extends above the tall trees, you pass over a succession of gentle undulations of surface, on around by the marble slotted city of the dead up to where the eastern hills begin their woods ascent, then skirting along whose edge rise in grand spectacle the massive dome and broad structure of the Insane Asylum; then until our plain abruptly terminates at the very cliff at whose foot the Warrior in sportive glee dashes its frolicsome waters. Here are the same old beech trees, under whose welcome shade, and on whose tangled roots, for thirty seven years, many a young student, wearied with intellectual strife, has lain himself down to listen to the music of the waters, has mused of home and friends and an ambitious future. These old beeches are records of the past, for in the soft bark are engraved, some skillfully, some rudely, the hundreds of proud youths of Alabama: Let the eye wander over those names, and what a story could be woven therefrom of individual fortunes for the last thirty years "Where are their owners now?" Echo answers, "Where!" many of them written their names on "fame's eternal beadroll." BEADROLL Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com This one shone in the councils of his country, electrified Senates with the eloquence of his tongue, but now sleeps on the plains of the Great West, with no "marble to mark his lowly sleep." This one went away with the music of his loved native stream vibrating to responsive chords in his own soul, ever sung, true poet will sing of home and kindred, and of his native sunny South. As I look out from my window, and through the bright moonlight down yonder plain, my eye sees the beautiful trees that shelter the poet's grave. This one, whose name is so rudely carved, is a College President, while just beneath is the name of a distinguished jurist. There is a statesman, yonder is a College Professor. There is an eminent Divine, and yonder are names wrecked and fallen, who loved the wine cup too well--generous, noble-hearted boys, but who have filled the inebriate's grave. A tear to their memory! We remember one- his was a noble soul-we loved him- his talents were "beyond compare?" 

"In shape and jesture proudly eminent. He stood above the rest" (from page 25 of Milton's PARADISE LOST Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/31 - Wikisource, the free online library ) but the demon of the wine-cup stole away his soul. He is gone, we will not tell where he sleeps his last sleep, but his name is ofttimes spoken around Alabama firesides, and the wisdom of his brain and the eloquence of his tongue will be told by many an old man to the rising youth of the State. But where are all those whose names you see covering every inch of this old tree? What anguish that question awakens in a hundred hearts, hearts who loved them every one. From the Potomac to the Gulf, on every battlefield of that bitter civil contest, their bones, without "coffin or useless shroud," repose in the soil for which they fought so nobly and so well. Brothers, when next we meet as Alumni of the old University, you will be startled when you learn that one-third of our brothers fill a Southern soldier's grave; and if; when we visit the loved scenes of our youth, the nubidden tear does not rise to our eyes, we are not worthy sons of our Alma Mater. A truce to these sad memories !- Methinks I once more- stand under the old beech; again I hear the distant college bell, and the roar of waters dashing over rocks; again I hear other voices, long since hushed in the grave, and see other faces, long since covered with the mould of death. I look down a wooded glen, widening out into a little valley,  christened: years ago "Happy Valley" by joyous youths and maidens wont to assemble there in the merry May-time Again I hear the valley ringing with happy voices and gay and see the young student enslaved by the witching smiles and brilliant wit of the beautiful girl from yonder town. Ah, boys of Alabama, happy times-the remembrance of which provokes the tear -have we old men had in this little valley! May our younger brothers repeat them on the same spot and may the lovely maidens  be as gentle and as kind to you as they were to usl But I am forgetting the old University! In the centre of this plain, once stood our loved University, imposing in structure, gray with years, hallowed by association, and cherished in the hearts of thousands. Years have passed since I looked upon those venerable piles of brick and stone, the home of my educational childhood. They are here engraved on my memory. Washington College, Jefferson College, Franklin College, Madison College, the Rotundo, the Lyceum-they tell me that they are no more, that where once these proud structures stood, naught is seen but shapeless. masses of brick and rubbish. They tell me, that in the last sad days that witnessed the downfall of a great and struggling people, and the surrender of its armies, the torch was applied to our mother; that was decreed all should be sacrificed on the altar of Liberty. Truthfully did Madame Roland speak on the scaffold, when she said, "Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name." Heritage History: Madame Roland

 We wept as we would weep for a mother's loss when the sad tale was told us. Did her costly and complete philosophical Apparatus, her Geological, Mineralogical, Botanical and Zoological Museum ever do aught contrary to the teachings of good government? In what did her Libraries of 12,000 volumes sin, that they become a part of a great holocaustic offering to the goddess of Liberty. But it was a time of war, it was when the passions of our kind are wild and ungovernable, and When reason loses her milder Sway! So it may have been. But could I hear that old College bell once more ring out on the clear morning air; could I behold again those old piles, every brick of which was a tongue, telling us of our older brothers; could I once more see the face of that good old man who laid aside his robes of office as President when we were a student; I would wish to see no more of life. Dear old Doctor! the tears gushed freely my heart was too full for utterance, when in that old Rotundo, sixteen years ago, you bade us farewell; tongue cannot express my grief when they told me you were gone. Dear old man; your name is dear to thousands, and your memory is embalmed in their hearts, If ever Providence permits me to see old Tuskaloosa again, my heart will be sad indeed when I know I can no longer see the old walls of the University, but it will be sadder still when I know that your face too is gone. Dear old University and dear old President Basil Manly - Encyclopedia of Alabama, since that day. the boys, who to you have become men, but ofttimes in fancy we are boys again, and tears- gush afresh that both College and the loved old Doctor are gone... But they tell us that though the old College is gone, a new structure, of marked beauty and dignity; has risen from her ashes. This may be. But she can never be as lovely in our eyes as was the form of the old mother who sheltered us when we were boys. No structure, however magnificent, can bring back to us the brown old walls, the stately columns, the grand old Library, and the imposing Rotundo. She cannot speak; to us as our mother was wont in the tones, of that old bell. Yet we do rejoice, in the midst of our sorrow, that the State of Alabama has so far respected the memory of our Alma Mater as to erect a new structure on the spot where the old Lyceum stood. It is well, and we love our native State the more for it; but let a few of those charred columns of the old Rotundo remain, that when now and then we make our pilgrimage to our Mecca, we may still see a vestige of our mother. We, the sons of the University, rejoice - to know there is a prospect of its entering upon a new career, of prosperity. We believe it will: We believe its present guardians will waive all personal or political considerations and give it an impulse towards future renown far exceeding even that of its former days. May God bless the old College and all its future as well as its elder sons! 

T- Columbus, Miss...