So with an equal splendor
      The morning sun rays fall,
    With a touch impartially tender
      On the blossoms blooming for all;
    Under the sod and the dew,
      Waiting the Judgment Day;
    Broidered with gold the Blue;
    Mellowed with gold the Gray.

CHAPTER XLIII

OUT OF THE LONG AGO

While local historians attempt to tangle up the exploration of De Soto with the early history of this region, saying that De Soto “entered the State of Mississippi near the site of Columbus,” and that “he probably crossed the Tombigbee River at this point,” their conclusions are largely the result of guesswork.  But it is not guesswork to say that when the Kentucky and Tennessee volunteers, going to the aid of Andrew Jackson, at New Orleans, in 1814, cut a military road from Tuscumbia, Alabama, to the Gulf, they passed over the site of Columbus, for the road they cut remains to-day one of the principal highways of the district as well as one of the chief streets of the town.

More clearly defined, of course, are memories of the Civil War and of Reconstruction, for there are many present-day residents of Columbus who remember both.  Among these is one of those wonderful, sweet, high-spirited, and altogether fascinating ladies whom we call old only because their hair is white and because a number of years have passed over their heads—­one of those glorious young old ladies in which the South is, I think, richer than any other single section of the world.

It was our good fortune to meet Mrs. John Billups, and to see some of her treasured relics—­among them the flag carried through the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista by the First Mississippi Regiment, of which Jefferson Davis was colonel, and in which her husband was a lieutenant; and a crutch used by General Nathan Bedford Forrest when he was housed at the Billups residence in Columbus, recovering from a wound.  But better yet it was to hear Mrs. Billups herself tell of the times when the house in which she lived as a young woman, at Holly Springs, Mississippi, was used as headquarters by General Grant.

Mrs. Billups, who was a Miss Govan, was educated in Philadelphia and Wilmington, and had many friends and relatives in the North.  Her mother was Mrs. Mary Govan of Holly Springs, and her brother’s wife, who resided with the Govans during the war, was a Miss Hawkes, a daughter of the Rev. Francis L. Hawkes, then rector of St. Thomas’s Church in New York.  All were, however, good Confederates.

Mrs. Govan’s house at Holly Springs was being used as a hospital when Grant and his army marched, unresisted, into the town, and Mrs. Govan, with her daughters and daughter-in-law, had already moved to the residence of Colonel Harvey Walter, which is to this day a show place, and is now the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Johnson of St. Louis—­Mrs. Johnson being Colonel Walter’s daughter.