Take what's coming to you

This week in 1862, the Confederacy took a whippin.' But George Campbell didn't.

Marmaduke B. Morton tells the tale, once more. As noted in prior columns, Morton published his reminiscences of 1880s Nashville in a twelve-part series for the Nashville Banner that ran in the autumn of 1930. Morton had been managing editor of the afternoon paper for 32 years at that point.

As a young reporter in the 1880s, Morton heard many tales of the panic that had gripped Nashville when news of the battle of Fort Donelson reached the city in late February 1862. The fort, located about 30 miles west of Clarksville at Dover, Tenn., was all that defended Nashville against a riverborne invasion up the Cumberland.

Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant gained the first major victory of his soon-to-be illustrious career at Fort Donelson, capturing over 12,000 Confederate soldiers. Rebel troops beat a hasty retreat from Nashville on February 23, 1862, and Union forces captured the city a couple of days later without firing a shot.

It was bad news for Nashville but a godsend for one local schoolboy, Morton recalled:

Squire George Campbell was a live wire in the eighties. He was active in politics and in the affairs of the county. He had an unusual maxim: "Never do today, what can be put off until tomorrow." When asked why he had adopted such a dilatory rule of conduct, he said that just before the Civil War he was going to a country school with his brother.

One Saturday afternoon the teacher asked him and his brother to remain after school had been dismissed. He then explained that he knew of some of their misdoings that deserved a whipping, and they were going to get what was coming to them. "But," said he, "it is Saturday, and if you prefer it I will put it off until Monday." The brother said he would take his punishment at once, and not have it on his mind all day Sunday. So he got it.

The young Squire-to-be said he preferred to defer the evil day, and would take his licking Monday. Sunday came the news of the fall of Fort Donelson, and there were no more schools in Nashville for three years. And the Squire’s licking will have to be administered in the New Jerusalem, where hickory switches do not grow.

A not-so-grand jury?

Eighty-eight years ago this week, contending forces in the Davidson County Courthouse came to loggerheads — and the grand jury went on strike.

The week before, City Court Judge Madison Wells had fined local taxicab driver J. W. Black $100 for illicit liquor dealings. Black had previously offered to testify in an ouster lawsuit against city officials accused of corruption. The cabbie accused Judge Wells of taking revenge on him by finding him guilty on flimsy evidence and imposing such a stiff fine.

Black succeeded in having the jurist arrested on a warrant charging him with "official oppression." In typical criminal cases, then as now, the district attorney general would present the case to the grand jury, which would almost invariably issue the indictment requested by the AG. But Davidson County Attorney General G. B. Kirkpatrick refused to submit this one to the grand jury. He gave no specific reason for his decision, but he said he had absolute discretion under the law to make the choice he did.

Sam Borum, foreman of the grand jury, took exception to Kirkpatrick's lack of action. "I claim the attorney general has no right to pass upon the merits of the case until it is sent to the grand jury, which is a constitutional body the same as the attorney general's office," Borum asserted. And he declared that the grand jury would conduct no other business until the Wells case came before it.

The strike began on Monday, February 24. Borum's stand provoked a defiant response from Judge Wells the next day: "They are engaged in an effort to coerce officials in finding indictments against me for assessing a fine against a bootlegger," he said. "But I still manage, despite the seeming impossible condition, to work hard every day and sleep sound every night."

The Tennessean chimed in on Tuesday. An editorial labeled Borum's action "high-handed" but went on to take a pox-on-all-their-houses approach to the situation:

There has been entirely too much politics, and not enough work, going on in a certain county building, The public will not stand for much more such. Public servants are chosen to serve. They are not placed in office to dawdle away their time, whether they be merely grand jurymen or something else.

Borum said he would defer to the legal opinion of Judge J. D. B. DeBow of Davidson County Criminal Court, and it was telling that DeBow sought a compromise rather than simply telling the grand jury to get back to work. On Thursday morning, DeBow appointed local attorney Lurton Goodpasture to serve as temporary attorney general for purposes of handling the Wells case.

Goodpasture did not even hold the post until lunchtime, however: As soon as he heard that Kirkpatrick was furious at his appointment, he quit. Finding another stand-in, one willing to cross the AG, was not going to be easy. "There are only two members of the Nashville bar, it is said, who are believed to favor serving as temporary attorney general" long enough to sign the Wells indictment, the newspaper reported.

By the next day, Foreman Borum and Judge DeBow had both decided not to push the matter further. The grand jury went back to work.

Resource note:

We are in the midst of a nationwide renaissance in African-American genealogy — a topic that holds plenty of interest for non-African-Americans too, as Henry Louis Gates' excellent PBS series this month made abundantly clear.

Now a Nashville medical librarian has created a genealogy blog full of material valuable not only for family history purposes but for other research on local history, not to mention pure entertainment for those of us who get really excited about reading yesterday's news. Check out the Black Nashville History & Genealogy blog at this link.

Birthdays of note this week:

• Former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) — February 22
• Former fire chief and 2007 mayoral candidate Buck Dozier — February 23
• Country singer Sammy Kershaw — February 24
• Milestone birthdays for Titans coach Jeff Fisher (the big 5-0) and Criminal Court Judge Cheryl Blackburn (no gentleman would ever say which milestone) — February 25
• Retired State Librarian Edwin Gleaves — February 28

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"Nashville now and then" is a week-by-week look back at Nashville's economic, political and social history. Your thoughts, suggestions and questions are always welcome — leave them in the comments section below, or e-mail tom.wood@nashvillepost.com.

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