State

Many-Starred Career of Thomas Clingman A most <»x I r.i ordinary T;ir Heel, seem¬ ingly sueeessful in nil things exeepl two. By GLENK TUCKER Thomas Lanier Clingman — to use the poet Vachel Lindsay's phrase — has gradually passed into obscurity, an "Eagle Forgotten." He has never had a biography, yet many have ac¬ counted him. though not the greatest, the most extraordinary man North Carolina has produced. Born in Huntsville, a near-deserted village in what is now Yadkin County, in 1812, he passed most of his years in Asheville and Washington. D. C.. and died senile and impoverished in Morganton in 1897 at the age of eighty-five. The theme that seemed to run through his life was one of yearning, reaching, heady triumph, then lingering frustration. An able Senator, he was ambitious beyond his talents to be President of the United Stales, though it is true that men of lesser mold occupied the White House before his time and have since. Restless, inquisitive, contentious, with a goading confidence extending to an inordinate vanity, yet with natural endowments and an unfagging scholar¬ ship adequate to support an abundance of self esteem; statesman, scientist, soldier, mountain explorer, Thomas Lanier Clingman was seemingly suc¬ cessful in all things except the two com¬ monly held to be the surpassing achievements of life, the one dearest to the individual himself, the other ap¬ plauded by society as the glittering symbol of fulfillment: love and money. Disappointed Suitor He had solemnly determined in his youth, at the hour of his graduation at the top of his class from the Uni¬ versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to avoid feminine entanglements. “I can marry and be a happy man, or not marry and be a great man. I will be a great man," he avowed. That was well over two decades bc- THE STATE, AUOUST 1975 fore, as an advancing Congressman, he was overcome by blond Louise Cor¬ coran. daughter of the Washington financier and philanthropist. William Wilson Corcoran. Clingman and Cor¬ coran had become warmly compatible before either had gained much national attention. The stormy North Carolina legislator was twenty-nine years older than the delightful young lady whom he had seen grow from an exuberant girlhood into charming maturity. He nevertheless had the assets of position and ability. He pressed his suit with all his customary resolution, while the idolizing father, bereaved early of his wife, reluctantly stood aside. Louise naturally rejected the Caro¬ linian, though he dressed fastidiously and possessed the posture of a twenty- year-old. in favor of the Louisiana cx- Congrcssman and confidant of Senator John Slidell — the Know-Nothing poli¬ tician George Euslis. Jr., of New Or¬ leans and Harvard Law. Euslis was a finished, courtly, nian-about-Washing- ton. nearer to her own age of nineteen, although still twelve years her senior. Fighter to the End Clingman. with a stoicism springing from his admixture of Cherokee blood, never whimpered. As far as the record seems to disclose he never mentioned the girl again. Renewing his original vow, he never married. The only evi¬ dence of heartbreak some seemed to detect was that he exposed himself recklessly in battle, lingered at the for¬ ward posts, rode the front line on horseback when he might have taken the usual command position slightly in rear of the firing line. He confided to his chief-of-staff Colonel William H. S. Burgwyn, after he had been hit once more at Petersburg, that he wished he had been killed when an earlier bullet reached him at Cold Harbor. Beautiful, dictatorial Mary Boykin Chestnut, duchess of the Richmond- South Carolina gossip demesne, dealt with him as something of a dolt, partly because he bowed so low to his partner at a dance that it caused a nosebleed. “The staid and scvcre-of-aspect Ging- man is here.” she wrote, then called him a “strange looking man” and said "he could not look more disgusted than he usually docs." She related as hear¬ say that he had cut his throat because he was "not as clever as Mr. Calhoun." but had botched the job and lived by grace of a surgeon’s stitches. The story is quite obviously apocryphal, because he relished his jousts with John C. Cal¬ houn. He alone among the Southern con¬ gressmen dared to challenge the omnip¬ otence of the severe and unforgetting South Carolinian. In one celebrated in¬ stance. in which he gained for the slaves THomo» Lamer Clmgmon the right of petition, he triumphed over the Calhoun following. Despite Mary’ Chestnut's impression, his head was se¬ curely fastened on when he fought his duel with one of Calhoun’s men. Con¬ gressman William Loundcs Yancey of Alabama, and stood unflinchingly when Yancey fired. He did not lake his return fire because, as he explained it. he did not want to orphan Yancey's children. He came to respect Calhoun but reserved his fondness for Henry Clay. After Lee surrendered at Appomat¬ tox. Clingman. a brigadier general and a fighter to the end. rode, accompanied by a single orderly, to join Joseph E. Johnston’s remnants near Durham Sta¬ tion. North Carolina. Surveying the shreds of the once glorious Army of >5 Я