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Updated: June 21, 2025
And Watts McHurdie rode with the artillery through the rear of the rebel lines at Pittsburg Landing, and when the rebel officer saw the little man's bravery, and watched him making for the Union lines bringing three guns, he waved his hat and told his soldiers not to shoot at that boy.
It was a noble effort, and in his notes to the McHurdie poems following the Biography published over thirty years after those lines were written, Colonel Culpepper writes: "This touching, though somewhat humorous, poem was written on the occasion of the departure for college of one who since has become listed with the world's great captains of finance none other than Honourable John Barclay, whose fame is too substantial to need encomium in these humble pages.
But to the woman who lay murmuring of other days, whose lips were parched for the waters of brooks that had surrendered to the plough a score of years ago, the halting verses of Watts McHurdie were laden with odours of grape blossoms, of wild cucumbers and sumach, of elder blossoms, and the fragrance of the crushed leaves of autumn.
Barclay and Miss Lucy beside him, stood in the door and made a speech to the men. And then there were songs. Watts McHurdie threw back his head and sang "Scots wha ha' wi' Wallace bled," following it with some words of his own denouncing slavery and calling down curses upon the slaveholders; so withal it was a martial occasion, and the boy's heart swelled with patriotic pride.
"If I ever get to be a Turk or anything like that," said Watts McHurdie, in October, two months after the events recorded in the last chapter had occurred, as he sat astraddle of his bench, sewing on a bridle, "I'm going to have one red-headed wife but not much more'n one." Colonel Culpepper dropped a "Why?" into the reflections of the poet. Watts replied, "Oh, just to complete the set!"
It may interest metaphysicians in the world at large to know that the McHurdie parliament that August definitely decided that this is not a material world; that sensation is a delusion, that the whole phantasmagoria of the outer and material world is a reaction of some sort upon the individual consciousness.
Carnine paused a moment and then added, "Good old Mart he's got a heart just like a woman's." They were passing the court-house square, and Bailiff Jacob Dolan, with a fist full of legal papers, caught step with Carnine and McHurdie. "We were talking about Mart Culpepper and his Mission Church," said Carnine.
"Well," said Watts McHurdie to Gabriel Carnine as the two walked down the hill into the business section of the town, a few days after the corner-stone of Ward College was laid, "old Phil has got his college started and Mart's got his church a-going." "You mean the East End Mission? Yes, and I don't know which, of 'em is happier over his work," replied Carnine.
Then he put his head forward, and whispered confidentially: "What'd you ruther do or go a-fishing?" "But why?" persisted the young man. "Widder who?" returned Watts, grinning and putting his hand to his ear. When John repeated his question the third time, McHurdie said: "I know a way you can get rich mighty quick, sonny."
Also it must not be forgotten that Nellie McHurdie since her marriage had become Grand Preceptress in one lodge, Worthy Matron in another, Senior Vice Commander in a third, and Worshipful Benefactress in a fourth, to say nothing of positions as corresponding secretary, delegate to the state convention, Keeper of the Records and Seals, Scribe, and perhaps Pharisee, in half a dozen others, all in the interests of her husband's political future; and with such obvious devotion before him, it is small wonder after all that he succumbed.
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