Judge Risden Tyler Bennett
Generally Accepted as One of Worth Carolina's Most Colorful Characters
CAROLINA never
possessed n more col¬
orful character than
■Judge Risden Tyler Ren¬
net t of Wadeeboro, as
picturesque a character
as Mark Twain, and a
man who could employ
t h e Knglish language
quite as effectively as
that famous author.
1 1 was T w a i n who
wrote: “When I’m play¬
ful. I use the meridians
of longitude and the par¬
allels of latitude for a
seine and drag the At¬
lantic for whales. I
scratch my head with the
lightning and purr my¬
self to sleep with the
thunder." And he de¬
scribed a certain person,
as “An experienced, in¬
dustrious. ambitious and
often quite - picturesque
liar." This is colorful
language indeed, but no
more colorful than that
employed by .fudge Ren-
nett on quite ordinary oc¬
casions.
The Judge was
1к»гп
in Anson in
1840 and had a distinguished career
as a lawyer, State legislator, Superior
Court Judge, member of Congress,
and in other positions of prominence,
but he prided himself most upon hi.
record as a Confederate soldier, lie
entered the Confederate service as a
private in the Anson Guards, the first
company in the State to tender its
services upon the outbreak of the war.
He rose to he Colonel of the 14th
North Carolina, distinguishing him¬
self for gallantry at Sharpshurg,
Chnncellorsville, Gettysburg, and in
the campaign of 1804 from the Rapi-
dan to Richmond. Here lie was
wounded several times, and was finally
captured at Winchester where lie had
two horses killed under him.
A Most Colorful Character
Rut it is not of the life of Judge
Bennett that I would write, not of
his melodious voice, not of the charm
of his manner, the exquisiteness of his
courtesy, not even of his jieerless
oratory, or his distinguished service
to his State, hut of his colorful charac¬
ter. and his graphic use of the Knglish
language, and his gift for terse and
photographic impressions of men or
manners. As I was onco a lawyer.
I must now and then lapse into legal
language. Judge Bennett was sui
generis — he was absolutely unique,
and when he was to address a jury,
or place someone in nomination at
a political convention, people went for
miles to hear him.
The Judge described his own early
education as n “shadow in the mist."
He was too independent in character
to submit to the indignities of hazing
then prevalent at the University, as
elsewhere, so he soon left that institu¬
tion of learning and went west. There
lie visited the Rocky Mountains, lived
with the Indians for a time, and went
to a funeral where they “lost the
corpse and had to go back three miles
and find it. Everybody got drunk but
me and the corpse.” lie liked Kansas
- By -
R. C. LAWRENCE
City and often recalled
the time when he saw
“twelve yoke of oxen run
away and swim the Mis¬
souri River.”
Some of his reports
during the war are char¬
acteristic: In making up
a report of the dead and
wounded from his regi¬
ment he said : “These
bloody accompaniments
ndminoulate the truthful¬
ness of the apothegm of
Burke that liberty in its
last analysis is but the
blood of the brave.”
He has left in vivid
language his impressions
of Stonewall Jackson,
and wrote a classic in de¬
scribing the ride of that
(ieneral to Chancellors-
ville just prior to the
tragedy of his death,
fudge Bennett and his
regiment were resting by
the roadside. "Suddenly
came the sound of a great
multitude who had raised
their voices in accord.
Even the heavens seemed
gitated.” To Judge Bennett, Jackson
seemed “a simple Presbyterian elder,
unnointed of God, with clenched teeth,
a very statue, who passes to his trans¬
figuration."
Tribute to Confederacy
After the war the Judge accepted
the result as gracefully as possible.
Said he: “We lost. Philosophers do
not repine over the inevitable. They
are content, after acting well their
parts, to submit to the will of God.
We are Confederates still.” He de¬
scribed the Confederate soldier in this
manner: “The zeal which impelled
the men of the crusades in their mis¬
sion to redeem the Holy Sepulchre
was not more fiery than the Divine
Intoxication which moved the spirit
of our soldiers."
He said the ex-Confcderates had
"no country except the unmarked em¬
pire of eternity, no Hag except the
weird cross borne at the head of the
spectre host in the spirit land." How
I wish I could write like that !
He refused to comply with a request
of Chief Justice Clark that he furnish
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