Dalton, Georgia

“ It had been selected by Captain Dupont and General Sherman in joint council.
[Pg 64]
THE SEA ISLANDS AND FORT PULASKI. The sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia are grouped in a nearly continuous chain along the coast, between the mainland and the sea. They are flat, with only a few slight elevations here and there; and there is not, over their whole area, a single boulder, pebble, or gravel bed, nor any spot where the ledge rock comes to the surface. The soil at first seems to be sandy; but you soon discover that it has mingled with it a fine black loam and is extremely productive. ”

“ Dalton is served by the Southern, the Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis, and the Western & Atlanta (operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga & St Louis) railways. The city is in a rich agricultural region; ships cotton, grain, fruit and ore; and has various manufactures, including canned fruit and vegetables, flour and foundry and machine shop products. It is the seat of Dalton Female College. Dalton was founded by Duff Green and others in 1848, and was incorporated in 1874. ”

“ Dalton, it is here. By this will, signed, sealed, and witnessed in all form, Mr. Godfrey bequeathed to his brother-in-law his whole estate of Corrig-O'Neal, and, with the exception of some trifling legacies, names him heir to all he is possessed of.”
“Let me out of this,—leave me free!” shouted the prisoner, whose eyeballs now glared with the red glow of madness. “What brought me into your schemes and plots?—why did I ever come here? Oh, my Lord, don't see a poor man come to harm that has no friends. Bad luck to them here and hereafter, the same Daltons! ”

“ As George thought of this terrible journey in after years he wondered why it was that engine, car and passengers were not hurled headlong from the track.
“We are coming to Dalton,” suddenly announced Andrews. Dalton was a good-sized town twenty-two miles above Calhoun, and formed a junction with the line running to Cleveland, Tennessee.
“We must be careful here,” said Andrews, “for we don’t know who may be waiting to receive us. If a telegram was sent via the coast up to Richmond, and then down to Dalton, our real character may be known. ”

“ Dalton, seeing difficulties thickening and troubles gathering, suddenly bethinks him that he has a daughter, a young lady of such attractions that, in a society where wealth and splendor and rank hold highest place, her beauty has already established a dominion which nothing, save her gentleness, prevents being a despotism. ”

“ Dalton, like most manufacturing towns of fifteen or twenty thousand souls, had all the diversity of a much larger place. There was West Hill, where were the pillared and porticoed residences of the pretentious and the pretending, set in painfully new, wide-sweeping, flower-bordered lawns; and there was Valley Street, a double line of ramshackle wooden buildings with broken steps and shutterless windows, where a blade of grass was a stranger and a flower unknown, save for perhaps a sickly geranium on a tenement window sill. ”

“ The county families had not called, but he was not yet aware of his social isolation. He was rich, and most of the county families were poor—from his point of view the odds were in his favor—and it was never hard to get guests. He could always motor up to Washington and New York, and bring a crowd back with him. His cellars were well stocked, and his hospitality undiscriminating.
"I don't know the girl," he told Dalton, "but the old man is Judge Bannister. He's one of the natives—no money and oodles of pride." ”

“ The father of young Dalton had been a man of improvident habits, and, immediately upon the death of his wife, squandered his large estate in the riot of dissipation, so that his son inherited nothing but a dilapidated manor-house and a single slave. This servant, a pure negro, was deeply attached to young Dalton, and the two continued to reside in the manor-house near the city suburbs, the negro acting as cook, valet, and man-of-all-work. ”

“ The old families is dying out fast, and the properties changing hands. A set of English rogues and banker-fellows that made their money in dirty lanes and alleys.”
A sort of imploring, beseeching anxiety from his daughter Kate here brought Dalton to a dead stop, and he pulled up as suddenly as if on the brink of a precipice.
“Pray, go on, Mr. Dalton,” said Lady Hester, with a winning smile; “you cannot think how much you have interested me. You are aware that we really know nothing about poor dear Ireland; and I am so delighted to learn from one so competent to teach.” ”

“ Thomas, with Schofield on his left, on the 7th forced the Confederates through Buzzard’s Roost Gap (the pass at Mill Creek) north-west of Dalton; at Dug Gap, 4 m. south-west of Dalton, on the 8th a fierce Federal assault under Brigadier-General John W. Geary failed to dislodge the Confederates from a quite impregnable position. On the 11th the main body of Sherman’s army followed M’Pherson toward Resaca, and Johnston, having evacuated Dalton on the night of the 12th, was thus forced, after five days’ manœuvring and skirmishing, to march to Resaca and to meet Sherman there. ”

“ The country is mountainous all the way to Atlanta, abounding in mountain streams, some of them of considerable volume. Dalton is on ground where water drains towards Atlanta and into one of the main streams rising north-east from there and flowing south-west—this being the general direction which all the main streams of that section take, with smaller tributaries entering into them. Johnston had been preparing himself for this campaign during the entire winter. The best positions for defence had been selected all the way from Dalton back to Atlanta, and very strongly intrenched ”

“ Dalton looked wretchedly cut up, when that devil of a valet, who must be an accomplice, scraped the new paint off. The picture must have been got up in New York by Dalton and the Denslows."
"Perhaps the Duke, too, was got up in New York, on the same principle," suggested Adonaïs. "Such things are possible. Society is intrinsically rotten, you know, and Dalton"——
"Is a fellow of considerable talent," sneered Lethal,—"but has enemies, who may have planned a duke." ”

“ A queer feeling of sympathy came over him for this gentle little woman on the top floor whom he had always liked. "There hain't none of the tenants no business with them yards; he said so."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Dalton, "I—I'll go then." And she picked up the trowel and rose to her feet.
She passed the janitor without a word, her head held high, and her eyes looking straight before her; but once in the seclusion of the halls, her head drooped, and her eyes rained tears that rolled down her cheeks unceasingly all the way to the top floor. ”

“ But what 's the use of blood now? devil a good it does a man. It would be better to have your father a cotton-spinner, or an iron-master, than the descendant of Shane Mohr na Manna.”
“I believe you are right,” observed the doctor, dryly.
“I know I am; I feel it myself, and I 'm almost ashamed to tell it. Here am I, Peter Dalton, the last of them now; and may I never leave this bed, if I could make a barony constable in the county where the king's writ could n't run once without our leave.”
“But Ireland herself has changed more than your own fortunes,” remarked Grounsell. ”

“ An Irish peer had come into the Saal leaning on his arm, and twice called him “Dalton” across the table. The waiter had apologized to a royal highness for not having better Johannisberg, as the “Schloss” wine had all been reserved for the “Count,” as Peter was styled. He had won four hundred Napoleons at roulette before dinner; and a bracelet, that cost a hundred and twenty, was glittering on a fair wrist beside him, while a murmur of his name in tones of unquestionable adulation, from all parts of the table, seemed to fill up the measure of his delight. ”

“ He was a very big man, tall, heavy, broad of shoulder, and very dark; with sharp black eyes under bushy brows, black hair and beard shot with gray. He came upon them from the lake, walking swiftly, his rifle caught up under his arm. The girl was sitting upon the doorstep, Farley upon a rock a few feet away. Dalton's eyes went quickly from the young man to his daughter, very keen, with a glint of surprise in them. ”

“ Someone at the courthouse had asked Dalton, in connection with some inquiry of his, whether he had an abstract of title or not. This Dalton did not know and he promptly wrote to their lawyer friend to inquire.
“If we have, Leslie, I’d like to see Mr. Ives get around that.”
“Perhaps he just wanted to frighten us and get us away. Could he be connected with rum-running, do you suppose?”
“Men apparently as honest as he are,” Dalton replied, “but unless it is on a large scale, I scarcely think so. I’ve put it up to Jim Lyon, anyway. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took a vacation and came on. ”

“ The wild and rapid utterance of his lips, and the strange fancies they syllabled, often exciting him to laughter, only deepened the gravity of their countenances, and cast over the glances they interchanged a tinge of sadder meaning.
“He could n't have better luck,” muttered Dalton, sorrowfully; “just from being a friend to us! If he had never seen nor heard of us, maybe 't is happy and healthy he 'd be to-day!”
“Nay, nay, papa,” said Nelly, gently; “this is to speak too gloomily; nor is it good for us to throw on fortune the burden that we each should bear patiently.” ”

“ The third representative of forlorn humanity was a very tall, muscular man, whose jockey-cut green coat and wide-brimmed hat contrasted oddly with a pair of huge white moustaches, that would have done credit to a captain of the Old Guard. On features, originally handsome, time, poverty, and dissipation had left many a mark; but still the half-droll, half-truculent twinkle of his clear gray eyes showed him one whom no turn of fortune could thoroughly subdue, and who, even in the very hardest of his trials, could find heart to indulge his humor for Peter Dalton was an Irishman ”

“ In a colony of gamblers, where superstition has an overweening influence, none could be found rash enough to succeed to so ill-omened a possession; and thus, for nigh half the season, the house continued shut up and unoccupied. Dalton, whose mind was strongly tinctured with fears of this kind, yet felt a species of heroism in showing that he was not to be deterred by the dangers that others avoided; and as Abel Kraus, to whom the property now belonged, continually assured him “it was just the house for him,” Peter overcame his scruples, and went to see it. ”

“ Why you come where no one ask you?”
“Is it waiting for an invitation I'd be, Abel? Is it expecting a card with ould Kraus's compliments?” said Dalton, laughing. “Sure, isn't the place open like the fish-market, or the ball-room, or the chapel, or any place of diversion? There, now; keep your temper, old boy. I tell ye, there's luck before ye! What d'ye think of that?” And, as he spoke, he drew forth one of the bills, and handed it across the counter; and then, after gloating, as it were, over the changed expression of the Jew's features, he handed a second, and a third. ”

“ What a noble service is that where merit can win its way self-sustained and independent, where, without the indignity of a patron, the path of honorable enterprise lies free and open to all! What generous promptings, what bold aspirations such a career engenders! He shall not be ashamed of me, he shall not have to blush for the Dalton blood,” said the boy, enthusiastically; and he revelled in a dream of the old Count's ecstasy on finding a nephew so worthy of their name, and in his fancy he saw pictures of future scenes in which he figured. ”

“ Well, it was in a spacious residence belonging to the Bopartis, in the Karaton, that we found ourselves comfortably lodged and awaiting the promised audience. Upon the morning of the third day, as Prabu, my brother and I were squatting upon our mats partaking the morning meal, we were aroused by the most terrible discord—howling of women and men. Martin and I ran to the veranda: the open space before the house was filled with people—not a stationary crowd, but a moving throng, all groaning, shrieking, and screaming as they passed along. ”

“ In the practice of his profession he was always cold, clear headed, and technical, believing no man, and fearing no man; in truth, the wags asserted, his courtesy was in itself a libel, because of all members of the bar no one was more rigid, more exacting, or more relentless than Robert Dalton, of Carpenter, Lomax, & Dalton.
The mental build of young Dalton rendered him especially valuable as a chancery lawyer, and this department of the business he gradually assumed until it was almost entirely in his hands. ”

“ I would have asked for no higher fortune than that peaceful home we had made for ourselves by our own affections, the happy fireside, that sufficed us for all the blandishments of wealth and riches. Still there would have been something ignoble in this humility, something that would ill become my blood as a Dalton. It was not thus my ancestors understood their station, it was not with such lowly ambitions their hearts were stirred. Count Stephen himself might at this hour have been in obscurity and poverty as great, perhaps, as our own had he been thus minded ”

“ At either side of him were seated a knot of his peculiar parasites, and neither was wit nor beauty wanting to make their society agreeable. There is a species of mock affection, a false air of attachment in the homage rendered to such a man as this, that makes the flattery infinitely more seductive than all the respectful devotion that ever surrounded a monarch. And so our old friend Peter Dalton—need we to name him?—felt it. “Barring the glorious burst of a fox-hunting chorus, or the wild 'hip, hip' of a favorite toast, it was almost as good as Ireland.” ”