JOHN WESLEY POWELL lOI 



ther, a hyena, a something that wants to fasten its bloodthirsty 

 fangs upon a fellow man. I will have difficulty in confining 

 myself to " Powell the soldier." 



I was with him at the battle of Pittsburg Landing, where he 

 lost his arm. But you can not tell anything about a man in 

 battle. There he may seem to be utterly merciless and blood 

 thirsty. In order to properly judge of a man it is necessary to 

 know him outdoors and indoors — in the camp and the field, on 

 the highway and in the byway, by the forest and along the 

 stream, and it is especially necessary to know him in his family. 



During the World's Fair, having been chosen by the old 

 Society of the Army of the Tennessee, of which Major Powell 

 was a member, to deliver the annual address, my theme was 

 •' War." When I addressed them I said : " My theme is 'War,' 

 and I'm against it I Yes, looking down into the old bronzed 

 faces of you men who fought with the armies of Grant and 

 Sherman, I tell you I am against it." One day when I was 

 riding around this city with Major Powell, he referred to that 

 speech, and told me that he had quoted largely from it in one 

 of his papers. He said that in that speech I had touched the 

 key to his heart. He was not an admirer of Napoleon, or 

 Caesar, or any of the great slaughterers ; but oh, how illumined 

 and beautiful became that rugged, bearded face when he talked 

 of Abraham Lincoln I 



Now Bessie Beech has the true conception of Major Powell. 

 She pays this tribute to the Major : " He enlisted with the avowed 

 purpose of doing his part in the extinction of slavery in this coun- 

 try ; and from the first day after the call was made for troops, he 

 felt thoroughly convinced that American slavery was doomed. 

 He found reasons later in life for enlarging his opinions regard- 

 ing the importance of the issue at stake ; for he says in a letter 

 to a friend : ' It was a great thing to destroy slavery, but the in- 

 tegrity of the Union was of no less importance.'" Note well his 

 words. Most of us would have said "was of far greater impor- 

 tance than the destruction of slavery," but he puts it "of no 

 less importance." God bless your memory. Major Powell, you 

 understood that war ! But let him speak for himself: "'And 

 beyond it all was to be counted the result of the war as an in- 



