“Marse Henry”
An Autobiography
by Henry Watterson
Illustrated
Henry Watterson (About 1908)
To My Friend
Alexander Konta
With Affectionate Salutation
“Mansfield,”
1919
A mound of earth a little higher graded:
Perhaps upon a stone a chiselled name:
A dab of printer’s ink soon blurred and faded—
And then oblivion—that—that is fame!
—Henry Watterson
Contents
I Am Born and Begin to Take Notice—John Quincy Adams and AndrewJackson—James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce—Jack Dade and “BeauHickman”—Old Times in Washington
Slavery the Trouble-Maker—Break-Up of the Whig Party and Rise of theRepublican—The Key—Sickle’s Tragedy—Brooks andSumner—Life at Washington in the Fifties
The Inauguration of Lincoln—I Quit Washington and Return toTennessee—A Run-a-bout with Forest—Through the Federal Lines and aDangerous Adventure—Good Luck at Memphis
I Go to London—Am Introduced to a Notable Set—Huxley, Spencer, Milland Tyndall—Artemus Ward Comes to Town—The Savage Club
Mark Twain—The Original of Colonel Mulberry Sellers—The “Earlof Durham”—Some Noctes Ambrosianæ—A Joke on Murat Halstead
Houston and Wigfall of Texas—Stephen A. Douglas—The Twaddle aboutPuritans and Cavaliers—Andrew Johnson and John C. Breckenridge
An Old Newspaper Rookery—Reactionary Sectionalism in Cincinnati andLouisville—The Courier-Journal
Feminism and Woman Suffrage—The Adventures in Politics andSociety—A Real Heroine
Dr. Norvin Green—Joseph Pulitzer—Chester A. Arthur—GeneralGrant—The Case of Fitz-John Porter
Of Liars and Lying—Woman Suffrage and Feminism—The ProfessionalFemale—Parties, Politics, and Politicians in America
Andrew Johnson—The Liberal Convention in 1872—Carl Schurz—The“Quadrilateral”—Sam Bowles, Horace White and MuratHalstead—A Queer Composite of Incongruities
The Ideal in Public Life—Politicians, Statesmen andPhilosophers—The Disputed Presidency in 1876—The Persona andCharacter of Mr. Tilden—His Election and Exclusion by a Partisan Tribunal
Charles Eames and Charles Sumner-Schurzand Lamar—I Go to Congress—AHeroic Kentuckian—Stephen Foster and His Songs—Music and TheodoreThomas
Henry Adams and the Adams Family—John Hay and Frank Mason—The ThreeMousquetaires of Culture—Paris—“TheFrenchman”—The South of