Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/308

 302 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Upon retiring from the Army of Northern Virginia he took service with the State forces of Georgia, and retained his connection with them until the close of the war.

Eluding the pursuit of a body of Federal soldiery detached to compass his arrest when Confederate affairs were iyi extremis, he fled from his home and succeeded in making his escape to Cuba and thence to Europe. Upon the restoration of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus within the States lately in arms against the General Government, he returned to Georgia and resumed, with undiminished power and marked success, the practice of his profession. The angry billows of civil war were rocking themselves to rest. After the great storm there came a calm. Hate was giving place to reason, and no attempt was subsequently made to execute the order for his arrest.

The last political service rendered by General Toombs was per- formed by him as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1877, which was presided over by our venerable fellow-citizen, ex- Governor Charles J. Jenkins. In framing the present Constitution of Georgia, General Toombs exerted an almost overshadowing influence. The suggestion and the adoption of its leading and, in the opinion of some, its questionable features, are to be referred to his thought and persuasive eloquence.

His last public utterance, we believe, was heard when, with tearful eye, trembling voice, and feeble gesture, he pronounced, in the Hall of Representatives at. Atlanta, a funeral oration over the dead body of his life long friend. Governor Alexander H. Stephens. For some time prior to his demise. General Toombs had been but the shadow of his former great self. The death of a noble wife, to whom he was devotedly attached, proved an affliction too grievous for his de- clining years. The light went out of his home and gladness no longer dwelt in the chambers of his heart. Impaired vision deprived him of the ability either to read or to write except at intervals and with diffi- culty. His idols broken, his companions departed, his ambition blighted, his physical and intellectual forces abated, he lingered almost alone in a later generation which knew him not in his prime. His splendid person, months agone, suffered impairment at the ad- vance of age and the multiplication of sorrows, and the commanding presence gave place to the bent form and the unsteady gait of the feeble old man. His intellect, too, formerly so authoritative, massive, and captivating, became uncertain in its action. To the last, how- ever, he continued to denounce the reconstruction measures of Con-