soldier be cherished as a bright example and holy remembrance. With great esteem,

Your obedient servant,

R. E. LEE."

Such words as these from the prince imperial of the gray batallions were like apples of gold; but they were justified by the chivalry which they applauded. For the hero whose life's blood had ebbed on the tide of victory was another brave Sir Galahad "whose strength was like the strength of ten because his heart was pure," and whose victor-brow unshadowed by coming Appomattox still bore the morning glories of the Southern cause.

General Cobb's remains were brought home and laid to rest in the family burial-plot on the banks of the Oconee river; and never was sorrow displayed in truer symbols than by the tearful multitudes of friends and neighbors who gathered about his new-made grave to pay him the last tribute of respect and to bespeak the shadow whose penumbra encircled the borders of the whole State. Rarely had achievements so vast been crowded into years so brief. Too early had General Cobb died for Georgia, but not too early to engrave his name upon the arches. of her Constitution, and not too early to enroll his spirit among the radiant hosts whose citizenship is in the restored metropolis of the chosen seed: the city of God and of Gold.

CHAPTER XXV.

"W

66 Who is Joe Brown?"

HO is Joe Brown?"

This is the question, with the modifying phrase omitted, which General Toombs is said to have asked when the news reached him. out in the State of Texas that Joe Brown, of Canton, had received the Democratic nomination for Governor of Georgia in 1857.

It is probable that the question, if really asked, was only an outburst of surprise occasioned by the unexpected in politics. General Toombs had doubtless carefully studied the situation before he left Georgia; and, having forecast the result as he thought with some degree of precision, he was wholly unprepared for this "thunderbolt from the blue." He may have been disappointed as well as surprised; but the ignorance which the question implied was certainly more rhetorical than real.

The fame of the future chief executive was at this time by no means coextensive with the area of the State. Perhaps it was not much wider than the Blue Ridge circuit. But the two men had met before. They had met first at Milledgeville in 1850 when Governor Brown was a Democratic State Senator and General Toombs a Whig Con

gressman. The latter had then become a power in national affairs and was idolized by his party in the State; while the former had just entered the political arena. They had met again at Marietta some few years later, when General Toombs and Judge Cowart crossed swords in joint debate.

There was nothing about the personality of the young State Senator at this time to challenge special attention. He was younger than General Toombs by at least ten years. He was rather awkward in appearance; his figure slight though compact; and his face pale. He was what in ordinary parlance is described as "raw-boned." Except for the impress of character which was stamped upon his clear-cut features and which expressed itself with peculiar force in his rigid mouth whose lines denoted unshaken firmness and grim determination, there was little else to suggest the inherent power which lay concealed behind that slender frame. General Toombs may have lightly dismissed the mountaineer from his thoughts; but the mountaineer vividly remembered General Toombs. Speaking, in after years, of the profound impression which the kingly Georgian made upon him at this time, Governor Brown declared that General Toombs was the handsomest man he ever saw. Moreover, he was completely captivated by his fiery eloquence and paid unstinted tribute to his divine genius.

Forgotten though he may have been for the time being, the mountaineer was accustomed to the silent solitudes; and being unnoticed by the world occasioned him no concern. He had often scaled the rugged heights of the Blue Ridge mountains; and now at the age of thirty-seven he stood upon an eminence which few men had ever suc

ceeded in attaining. He had mounted by slow degrees and under serious difficulties; and such was the quiet demeanor of the man, who calmly and patiently met all obstacles and permitted nothing to disturb his unruffled spirit, that he climbed almost unobserved. But nevertheless he climbed; and now as the chosen standard-bearer of the great Democratic party for the high office of Governor his name was heralded far and near. It even reached Texas.

General Toombs was no doubt disturbed by the information which came from Milledgeville announcing the action of the State convention. On the issues of the day he had recently left the Whig ranks and joined the Democratic hosts; and he realized that his seat in the United States Senate depended upon the success of the party whose banner had been put into the hands of this comparatively unknown candidate.

There is no spur like uneasiness. General Toombs managed to wind up his affairs in Texas with wonderful dispatch; and, inquiring when the next train left for the East, he was soon bounding away over the iron rails to Georgia.

Whatever may be the truth of the story which credits the distinguished Senator with having asked the question which heads this chapter, it is undeniably true that the question was being asked all over the State:

"Who is Joe Brown?"

The popular ignorance concerning the nominee for Governor was specially marked in the wire-grass region, where comparatively few seemed ever to have heard the

name which was destined so soon to acquire historic familiarity in all parts of the Union. Even in North Georgia the knowledge of the candidate was by no means intimate.

Taking the question as a point of departure, this may be as good a place as any for discussing the antecedents of this remarkable man who was thus suddenly plucked out of the maze of obscurity and thrust into the limelight of one of the most dramatic campaigns ever known in the history of the State.

Seventeen years before this event was recorded in the calendar of Georgia politics a lad driving a pair of steers was seen to emerge from one of the mountain passes of the Blue Ridge between Union and Lumpkin counties.

He came of sturdy old revolutionary stock, but his worn suit of country jeans and his bony nag, both of which had seen better days, told only too plainly that he had not been reared in the clover of fortune and that hard knocks were about the only things he had thus far received from the world upon whose picturesque mountain stage he had just appeared.

To quote Judge Emory Speer: "There was not in his day, in the remotest cove of the mountains or in the humblest cabin of the wire-grass, save for the pure blood and strong brain of the unpretentious but historic stock from which he came, a boy whose chances for distinction in life were less auspicious."

Yet this plain country-bred youth whose constant companion until now had been a plowshare, and whose only home since childhood had been a log-cabin, was the only boy in all the history of the State who was destined to be four times Governor. He was also to be once a State Sen