Professor Laments Miners' Sacrifice

1879S Morgan.

by Glenn Franco Simmons

My last post included author C.C. Goodwin’s prosaic and philosophical insights on the untimely death of Mr. Wright has had a sobering effect on the gentlemanly Comstock Club in Virginia City, Nev.

After Mr. Wright's wake, the professor spoke about the very real sacrifices of those who mined the silver that made many people rich — the value of which was eventually represented in U.S. coinage.

He lamented about the anonymous miners' sacrifice of health, and of the devastating price that miners' loved ones paid when a miner was injured or killed.

He felt the true value of the silver mined was in no way reflected in the wholesale and retail silver markets; essentially saying that miners were an inconvenient necessity for mine owners.

"Three days ago this piece of crumbling dust {Mr. Wright} was a brave soldier of peace,” the professor said. “I mean the words in their fullest sense. Just now our brothers in the East are fearful lest so much silver will be produced that it will become, because of its plentifulness, unfit to be a measure of values.

“They do not realize what it costs or they would change their minds.

“They do not know how the gnomes guard their treasures, or what defense Nature uprears around her jewels.

1879S Morgan Rev.

“They revile the stamp which the Government has placed upon the white dollar.

“Could they see deeper they would perceive other stamps still. There would be blood blotches and seams made by the trickling of the tears of widows and orphans, for before the dollar issues bright from the mint, it has to be sought for through perils which make unconscious heroes of those who prosecute the search.

“For nearly twenty years now, on this lode, tragedies like this have been going on. We hear it said: 'A man was killed to-day in the Ophir,' or 'a man was dashed to pieces last night in the Justice,' and we listen to it as merely the rehearsal of not unexpected news.

"Could a list of the men who have been killed in this lode be published, it would be an appalling showing. It would outnumber the slain of some great battle.

"Besides the deaths by violence, hundreds more, worn out by the heat and by the sudden changes of temperature between the deep mines and the outer air, have drooped and died.

Obverse of an 1857 Seated Liberty Half Dime.

"The effect is apparent upon our miners. Their bearing perplexes strangers who come here. They do not know that in the conquests of labor there are fields to be fought over which turn volunteers into veteran soldiers quite as rapidly as real battle fields.

"They know nothing about storming the depths; of breaking down the defences of the deep hills.

"They can not comprehend that the quiet men whom they meet here on the streets are in the habit of shaking hands with Death daily until they have learned to follow without emotion the path of duty, let it lead where it may, and to accept whatever may come as a matter of course.

"Such an one was this our friend, who fell at his post; fell in the strength of his manhood, and when his great heart was throbbing only in kindness to all the world.

"One moment he exulted in his splendid life, the next he was mangled and crushed beyond recovery.

"Still there was no repining, no spoken regrets. For years the possibility of such a fate as this had been before his eyes steadily; it brought much anguish to him, but no surprise.

Obverse of an 1857 Seated Liberty.

"He had lived a blameless life. As it drew near its close the vision of his mother was mercifully sent to him, and so in his second birth the same arms received him that cradled him when before he was as helpless as he is now.

"By the peace that is upon him, I believe those arms are around his soul to-night; I believe he would not be back among us if he could.

"We have a right on our own account to grieve that he is gone, but not on his. He filled on earth the full measure of an honest, honorable, brave and true life. That record went before him to Summer Land. I believe it is enough and that he needs neither tears nor regrets."

A few days more went by, but the old joy of the Club was no more.

(This is my last post with regard to “The Comstock Club,” authored by C.C. Goodwin — one of the most prosaic and philosophical writers who belonged to The Sagebrush School of Writers that were dominant mostly in Nevada. The rest of the book contains many a surprise — surprises I will not mention here because, to do so, would ruin it for those who read the book.)

Comstock Club Ends After Deaths

Silver Terrace Cemetery.

by Glenn Franco Simmons

The gentlemanly camaraderie formed at The Comstock Club was a grand notion but one that would fall apart in the end.

In this post, we find that Mr. Wright has suffered seriously injuries that ultimately led to his death. At his wake, Mr. Goodwin describes it with compassion and wisdom:

The undertaker came, the body was dressed for the grave and placed in a casket, and the Club took up their watch around it. Now and then a subdued word was spoken, but they were very few. The hearts of the watchers were all full, and conversation seemed out of place. Wright was one of the most manly of men, and the hearts of the friends were very sore.

The evening wore on until ten o'clock came, when there fell a gentle knock on the outer door. The door was opened and by the moonlight four men could be seen outside. … They were the famous quartette of Cornish miners and were at once invited in. They filed softly into the room — the Club rising as they entered — and circled around the casket. After a long look upon the face of the sleeper they stood up and sang a Cornish lament. Their voices were simply glorious. The words, simple but most pathetic, were set to a plaintive air, the refrain of each stanza ending in some minor notes, which gave the impression that tears of pity, as they were falling, had been caught and converted into music. The effect was profound.

The stoicism of the Club was completely broken down by it. When the lament ceased all were weeping, while warm-hearted and impetuous Corrigan was sobbing like a grieved child. The quartette waited a moment and then sang a Cornish farewell, the music of which, though mostly very sad, had, here and there, a bar or two such as might be sung around the cradle of Hope, leaving a thought that there might be a victory even over death, and which made the hymn ring half like the Miserere and half like a benediction.

When this was finished and the quartette had waited a moment more, with their magnificent voices at full volume, they sang again — a requiem, which was almost a triumph song, beginning:

Whatever burdens may be sent

For mortals here to bear,

It matters not while faith survives

And God still answers prayer.

I will not falter, though my path

Leads down unto the grave;

The brave man will accept his fate,

And God accepts the brave.

Then with a gentle "Good noight, lads," they were gone. It was still in the room again until Corrigan said: "I hope Wright heard that singin'; the last song in particular."

Virginia City's Silver Terrace Cemetery. © Glenn Franco Simmons.

"Who knows?" said Ashley. "It was all silence here; those men came and filled the place with music. Who knows that it will not, in swelling waves, roll on until it breaks upon the upper shore?"

"Who knows," said Harding, "that he did not hear it sung first and have it sent this way to comfort us? I thought of that when the music was around us, and I fancied that some of the tones were like those that fell from Wright's lips, when, in extenuation of Miller's fault, he was reminding us that it was the intent that measured the wrong, and that Miller never intended any wrong. Music is born above and comes down; its native place is not here."

"He does not care for music," said the Colonel. "See how softly he sleeps. All the weariness that so oppressed him has passed away. The hush of eternity is upon him, and after his hard life that is sweeter than all else could be."

"Oh, cease, Colonel," said Brewster. "Out of this darkened chamber how can we speak as by authority of what is beyond. As well might the mole in his hole attempt to tell of the eagle's flight. "We only know that God rules. We watched while the great transition came to our friend. One moment in the old voice he was conversing with us; the next that voice was gone, but we do not believe that it is lost. As we were saying of the telephone, when we speak those only a few feet away hear nothing. The words die upon the air, and we explain to ourselves that they are no more. But thirty miles away, up on the side of the Sierras, an ear is listening, and every tone and syllable is distinct to that ear. Who knows what connections can be made with those other heights where Peace rules with Love?

"Our friend whose dust lies here was not called from nothing simply to buffet through some years of toil and then to return to nothing through the pitiless gates of Death. To believe such a thing would be to impeach the love, the mercy and the wisdom of God. Wright is safe somewhere and happier than he was with us. I should not wonder if Harding's theory were true, and that it was to comfort us that he impelled those singers to come here."

"Brewster," said Alex, "your balance is disturbed to-night. You say 'from out our darkened chamber we cannot see the light,' and then go on to assert that Wright is happier than when here. You do not know; you hope so, that is all. So do I, and by the calm that has pressed its signet on his lips, I am willing to believe that all that was of him is as much at rest as is his throbless heart, and that the mystery which so perplexes us — this something which one moment greets us with smiles and loving words, but which a moment later is frozen into everlasting silence — is all clear to him now. I hope so, else the worlds were made in vain, and the sun in heaven, and all the stars whose white fires fill the night, are worthy of as little reverence as a sage brush flame; and it was but a cruel plan which permitted men to have life, to kindle in their brains glorious longings and in their hearts to awaken affections more dear than life itself."

Then Harding, as if to himself repeated: "It matters not while Faith survives, and God still answers prayer."

"This is as it seems to us, straining our dull eyes out upon the profound beyond our petty horizon (, the Colonel said. “} But who knows? We can trace the thread of this life as it was until it passed beyond the range of our visions, but who of us knows whether it was all unwound or whether in the 'beyond' it became a golden chain so strong that even Death can not break it, and thrilled with harmonies which could never vibrate on this frail thread that broke to-day?"

Anti-Chinese Sentiment From 1800s

This image shows a caricature of a Chinese worker wearing a queue an 1899 editorial cartoon titled "The Yellow Terror In All His Glory." It shows that the anti-Chinese sentiment became more virulent as the American Empire matured. Wikipedia.

(Editor's note: This post will expose the discrimination the Chinese faced in the United States in the era of The Comstock Lode. It's a prejudice that was left to linger and that would metastasize into a spiritual malignancy that nefariously infected every strata of American society, including its religious, educational, political and legal institutions, in addition to newspapers. At the end is a comment that shows that maybe not all the gentlemen agreed with the prejudice against the Chinese.)

by Glenn Franco Simmons

In this post, we join the gentlemen of The Comstock Club, written by C.C. Cummings, in Virginia City, Nev., discussing what Goodwin said was "the Chinese question {that} came up for consideration. C.C. Goodwin writes:

Strong took up this latter theme and said: "The men of the Eastern States think that we of the West are a cruel, half-barbarous race, because we look with distrust upon the swelling hosts of Mongolians that are swarming like locusts upon this coast.

"They say: 'Our land has ever been open to the oppressed, no matter in what guise they come. The men of the West are the first to stretch bars across the Golden Gate to keep out a people. And this people are peaceable and industrious; all they petition for is to come in and work. Still, there is a cry which swells into passionate invective against them. It must be the cry of barbarism and ignorance. It surely fairly reeks with injustice and cruelty and sets aside a fundamental principle of our Government which dedicates our land to freedom and opens all its gates to honest endeavor.'

"Those people will not stop to think that we came here from among themselves. We were no more ignorant, we were no worse than they when we came away. We have had better wages and better food since our coming than the ordinary men of the East obtain. Almost all of us have dreamed of homes, of wives and children that are men's right to possess, but which are not for us; and though they of the East do not know it, this experience has softened, not hardened our hearts, toward the weak and the oppressed. If they of the East would reflect they would have to conclude that it is not avarice that moves us; that there must be a less ungenerous and deeper reason.

"Our only comfort is, that, by and by, maybe while some of us still live, those men and women who now upbraid us, will, with their souls on their knees, ask pardon for so misjudging us. "We quarantine ships when a contagion is raging among her crew; we frame protective laws to hold the price of labor up to living American rates; New England approves these precautions, but when we ask to have the same rules, in another form, enforced upon our coast, her people and her statesmen, in scorn and wrath, declare that we are monsters.

"{...} There are one hundred thousand {Chinese} people in this State and California. We will suppose that they save only thirty cents each per day. That means, for all, nine hundred thousand dollars per month, or more than ten million dollars per annum that they send away. This is the drain which two States with less than one million inhabitants are annually subjected to. How long would Massachusetts bear a similar drain, before through all her length and breadth, her cities would blaze with riots, all her air grow black with murder? Ireland, with six times as many people, and with the richest of soils, on half that tax, has become so poor that around her is drawn the pity of the world.

"'But,' say the Eastern people, 'you must receive them, Christianize them, and after awhile they will assimilate with you.'

"Waiving the degradation to us, which that implies, they propose an impossibility. They might just as well go down to where the Atlantic beats against the shore, and shout across the waste to the Gulf stream, commanding it to assimilate with the 'common waters' of the sea. Not more mysterious is the law that holds that river of the deep within its liquid banks, than is the instinct which prevents the Chinaman from shaking off his second nature and becoming an American. He looks back through the halo of four thousand years, sees that without change, the nation of his forefathers has existed, and with him all other existing nations except Japan and India and Persia, are parvenues. "For thousands of years, he and his fathers before him, have been waging a hand-to-hand conflict with Want. He has stripped and disciplined himself until he is superior to all hardships except famine, and that he holds at bay longer than any other living creature could.

"A defiant 'Columbia' in an 1871 Thomas Nast cartoon of Harper's Review, shown protecting a defenseless Chinese man from an angry Irish lynch mob that has just burned down an orphanage. (*See bottom of post for more of an explanation.)

"Through this training process from their forms everything has disappeared except a capacity to work; in their brains every attribute has died except the selfish ones; in their hearts nearly all generous emotions have been starved to death. The faces of the men have given up their beards, the women have surrendered their breasts and the ability to blush has faded from their faces.

"Like all animals of fixed colors they change neither in habits nor disposition. In four thousand years they have changed no more than have the wolves that make their lairs in the foothills of the Ural mountains, except that they have learned to economize until they can even live upon half the air which the white man requires to exist in. They have trained their stomachs until they are no longer the stomachs of men; but such as are possessed by beasts of prey; they thrive on food from which the Caucasian turns with loathing, and on this dreadful fare work for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. "The moral sentiments starved to death in their souls centuries ago. They hold woman as but an article of merchandise and delight to profit by her shame.

"Other foreigners come to America to share the fortunes of Americans. Even the poor Italian, with organ and monkey, dreams while turning his organ's crank, that this year or next, or sometime, he will be able to procure a little home, have a garden of his own, and that his children will grow up — sanctified by citizenship — defenders of our flag.

"But the Chinaman comes with no purpose except for plunder; the sole intention is to get from the land all that is possible, with the design of carrying it or sending it back to native land. The robbery is none the less direct and effective for being carried on with a non-combatant smile instead of by force.

"It is such a race as this that we are asked to welcome and compete with, and when we explain that the food we each require — we, without wife or child to share with — costs more in the market daily than these creatures are willing to work for and board themselves; the question, with a lofty disdain, is asked: 'Are you afraid to compete with a Chinaman?'

Chinese workers on the Transcontinental
Railroad. Wikipedia. Public domain.

"It is an unworthy question, born of ignorance and a false sentimentality; for no mortal can overcome the impossible.

"In the cities these creatures fill the places of domestics and absorb all the simpler trades. The natural results follow. Girls and boys grow up without ever being disciplined to labor. But girls and boys must have food and clothes. If their parents can not clothe and feed them other people must. If poor girls with heads and hands untrained have nothing but youth and beauty to offer for food, when hungry enough they will barter both for bread.

"The vices and diseases which the Chinese have already scattered broadcast over the west, are maturing in a harvest of measureless and indescribable suffering.

"The Chinese add no defense to the State. They have no patriotism except for native land; they are all children of degraded mothers, and as soldiers are worthless.

"Moreover it is not a question of sharing our country with them; it is simply a question of whether we should surrender it to them or not. When the western nations thoroughly understand the Chinese they will realize that with their numbers, their imitative faculties, their capacity to live and to work on food which no white man can eat, with their appalling thrift and absence of moral faculties, they are, to-day, the terror of the earth.

"The nations forced China to open her gates to them. It was one of the saddest mistakes of civilization.

"To ask that their further coming be stopped, is simply making a plea for the future generations of Americans, a prayer for the preservation of our Republic. It springs from man's primal right of self-preservation, and when we are told that we should share our country and its blessings with the Chinese, the first answer is that they possess already one-tenth of the habitable globe; their empire has everything within it to support a nation; they have, besides, the hoarded wealth of a hundred generations, and if these were not enough, there are still left illimitable acres of savage lands. Let them go occupy and subdue them.

"The civilization of China had been as perfect as it now is for two thousand years when our forefathers were still barbarians. While our race has been subduing itself and at the same time learning the lessons which lead up to submission to order and to law; while, moreover, it has been bringing under the ægis of freedom a savage continent, the Mongolian has remained stationary. To assert that we should now turn over this inheritance (of which we are but the trustees for the future), or any part of it, to 'the little brown men,' is to forget that a nation's first duty is like a father's, who, by instinct, watches over his own child with more solicitude than over the child of a stranger, and who, above all things, will not place his child under the influence of anything that will at once contaminate and despoil him.

"Finally, by excluding these people no principle of our Government is set aside, and no vital practice which has grown up under our form of government. Ours is a land of perfect freedom, but we arrest robbers and close our doors to lewd women. While these precautions are right and necessary it is necessary and right to turn back from our shores the sinister hosts of the Orient."

With this the whole Club except Brewster heartily agreed.

Brewster merely said: "Maybe you are right, but your argument ignores the saving grace of Christianity, and maybe conflicts with God's plans."

Then the good-nights were said.

---

That one sentence uttered by Mr. Brewster shows that C.C. Goodwin was aware of the contradiction for Christians to be prejudiced against people from China and yet believe that Christ came to serve all humanity, which He did.

It just goes to show that prevailing public opinion is not always an indicator of what is moral.

Because this is a series about the book titled "The Comstock Club" by C.C. Goodwin, it is not appropriate here to go into the brutal history of repression against Chinese and other Asian immigrants. It is worth noting, however, that this ungodly prejudice resulted in murders, rapes, beatings, loss of jobs, and so much more. It is a shameful epoch in American history and one we should not repeat.

(*The billboard behind is full of inflammatory anti-Chinese broadsheets," according to Wikipedia. "Columbia is the personification of the United States. It was also a historical name used to describe the Americas and the New World. It has given rise to the names of many persons, places, objects, institutions and companies; for example: Columbia University, the District of Columbia (the national capital of the United States), and the ship Columbia Rediviva, which would give its name to the Columbia River." The cartoon illustrates anti-Chinese prejudice, but also shows that fundamental American values of fairness should protect everyone. Wikipedia. Public domain.)

Mining Likened To Stock Wagers

Although this isn't The Comstock Club, the structure is what the club's members
would have seen on C street in Virginia City. Photo courtesy of the University of Nevada, Reno. C Street is Virginia City's main street.

by Glenn Franco Simmons

In today's post, The Comstock Club's gentlemen are considering whether or not to view mining as an honest industry or one filled with the skullduggery that surrounded them, which included stocks and an overabundance of lawyers and lawsuits.

"{Chance} is the corner-stone on which every fortune on the coast has been builded," Mr. Miller noted. "I mean every fortune in mining."

"That is so," Carlin agreed. "Mining is simply a grand lottery and is about as much of a game of chance as poker or faro."

"Oh, no, Carlin," Strong interjected. "You have picked up the idea that is popular, but there is nothing to it. I am not referring to mining on paper, that mining which is done on Pine and California streets {stocks}. That is not only gambling, but it is, nine times out of ten, pure stealing.

"But what I mean is where a man, or a few men, from the unsightly rock, by honest labor, wrest something, which all men, barbarous and civilized alike, hold as precious; something which was not before, but which when found, the whole world accepts as a measure of values, and the production of which makes an addition to the world's accumulated wealth, and not only injures none, but quickens the arteries of trade everywhere; that is not gambling.

"Of course there are mistakes, of course worlds of unnecessary work have been performed, of course hopes have been blasted and hearts broken through the business, but in this world men have to pay for their educations," Mr. Carlin continued. "Twenty years ago there was not a man in America who could work Comstock ores up to seventy-five per cent. of their money value; only a scholarly few knew anything about the formations in which ore veins are liable to be found; processes to work ores and economical methods to open and work mines had to be invented; so far as the West was concerned the business of mining and reducing ores had to be created. The results do not justify any man in calling mining a lottery."

Mr. Carlin further emphasized his view of the mining industry, saying:

"In my judgment, it is the most legitimate business in the world; the only one in which there can be no overproduction, and the one which, above all others, advances every other industry of the country.

"When the steam engine was first invented steam boilers blew up every day. This was no argument against the engine, but was a notice to men to build better boilers. For the same reason the sixty-pound steel rail has been substituted for the old wooden rail with an iron strap on top on railways, and the sixteen ton Pullman car for the old rattle trap that the slightest collision would smash. The Westinghouse air brake and the Miller platform are part of the same education. "By and by men will learn to know the rocks, and when their marks and signs are reduced to a perfect alphabet the crude work of mining as carried on now will take on the dignity of a science, and mining will become what it deserves to be, the most honored of industries."

(Editor's note: Excerpts from "The Comstock Club" are presented in original format, unless otherwise noted by ellipses (...) or brackets ({}).)

C.C. Goodwin Forgotten By Some

C.C. Goodwin. Courtesy: Washoe Courts.

(Editor's note: For a few posts, starting with this one, I'll diverge from my review of C.C. Goodwin's "The Comstock Club." This post is a feature on Goodwin.)

by Glenn Franco Simmons

With the exception of "The War Prayer" by Mark Twain, my favorite writing of the Sagebrush School of writers is Charles C. Goodwin's "The Comstock Club" published in 1891.

At least, so far, among many writers I've read.

I find his portrayal of discussions among the men who established the fictional Comstock Club in Virginia City to be among the best prose to have come out of the Sagebrush School.

The Sagebrush School of Writers is a distinct American literary epoch composed mainly of Nevada-based writers. Until 2009, it wasn't given much thought by many in Nevada; that's when the Nevada Writers' Hall of Fame recognized the Sagebrush School. The Hall of Fame was established in 1988.

"The Sagebrush School was the literary movement written primarily by men of Nevada," according to Wikipedia's page on the Sagebrush School. "The sagebrush shrub is prevalent in the state. It was a broad-based movement and included various literary genres such as drama, essays, fiction, history, humor, journalism, memoirs, and poetry.

"The name Sagebrush School was coined by Ella Sterling Mighels, who stated: 'Sagebrush school? Why not? Nothing in all our Western literature so distinctly savors of the soil as the characteristic books written by the men of Nevada and that interior part of the State where the sagebrush grows.'"

"The roots of the movement were in the American Old West," the Wikipedia entry continues. "The Sagebrush School was the main contributor to American literature from Nevada's mining frontier during the period of 1859 to 1914. There were several characteristics of this movement that distinguished it from others, such as literary talent. These authors were known to be intelligent and accomplished writers."

The Sagebrush School's multifaceted styles are what distinguish the school from other American literary styles. The Sagebrush School's styles represent some of the richest veins of American prose ever compiled. Sadly, with the exception of a few writers, the literary school is not given the accolades it deserves, in my opinion. It is particularly frustrating because these writers collectively tower over most modern and contemporary American writers — again, my personal opinion as a voracious reader.

"The style included hoaxes, wit, audacity, or an irreverent attitude," Wikipedia notes. "The inspiration for the movement began with Joseph T. Goodman of the Virginia City, Nevada Territory's 'Territorial Enterprise' newspaper. The most notable of the Sagebrush School writers, and a Territorial Enterprise journalist, was Mark Twain. In 2009, the Sagebrush School was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame."

I would say the Sagebrush School represents far more than hoaxes, wit, audacity or an irreverent attitude. Just read C.C. Goodwin's "The Comstock Club" to gain an appreciation for his prose in which the gentlemen of the club discuss many ideas, often waxing poetic and philosophical. That book alone is worthy of a university course for its sheer brilliance.

One really has to wonder why it took so long for the Sagebrush School to be recognized by modern-era Nevada writers. That is not to say the Sagebrush School has been totally ignored. I'm just surprised more hasn't been written about all the writers within that genre.

Furthermore, in none of my university journalism classes did any teacher ever mention The Sagebrush School. That seems odd, given the influence that these Nevada writers had — not only on American literature, but American society.

Some of the more popular writers are celebrated, as noted by the University of Nevada, Reno.

Mark Twain. Courtesy: Wikipedia.

"Sagebrush writers Mark Twain, Dan De Quillle and Alfred Doten have been previously inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame," UNR states. "2009 celebrates the 150th anniversary of The Comstock Lode and a revival of interest in the Sagebrush School of writers.

"In recognition of the significant contributions of the authors, Samuel Post Davis, Joseph Thompson Goodman, Rollin Mallory Daggett, Charles Carroll Goodwin, James W. Gally, Fred H. Hart, Arthur McEwen, Henry Rust Mighels, Denis E. McCarthy, James Townsend, Thomas Fitch, and the many other writers whose work has yet to be excavated from the archives, the Sagebrush School has been selected to be inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame. They were an extraordinary cast of characters who created a distinctive early voice in our national literature — with lasting (if hitherto unacknowledged) influence."

So it took a historic milestone of 150 years to prompt a recognition. While I realize the Hall of Fame wasn't conceived until 1988, it seems UNR or some other institution could have done more to recognize the Sagebrush School in 50, 75, 100 or 125 years.

Furthermore, with UNR and all the students, professors and graduate students, why haven't the archives been thoroughly searched to include any writers not yet listed?

A book on the Sagebrush School of Writers was published in 2006 by the University of Missouri. UNR lists a book published by UNR in 2008 titled "Literary Nevada : writings from the Silver State." That is good news, and I purchased an inexpensive used book from Barnes & Noble for a little more than $3, although shipping was almost twice that.

In a summary of the 831-page book (plus 24 unnumbered pages of plates), UNR states, "'Literary Nevada' is the first comprehensive literary anthology of Nevada. It contains over 200 selections ranging from traditional Native American tales, explorers' and emigrants' accounts, and writing from the Comstock Lode and other mining boomtowns, as well as compelling fiction, poetry, and essays from throughout the state's history."

While it is a commendable effort, why is this book the "first comprehensive literary anthology of Nevada" — especially when the state has an excellent university in the very region where the Sagebrush School of writers flourished? It boggles the mind.

"There is work by well-known Nevada writers such as Sarah Winnemucca, Mark Twain, and Robert Laxalt, by established and emerging writers from all parts of the state, and by some nonresident authors whose work illuminates important facets of the Nevada experience," the UNR book summary continues. "The book includes cowboy poetry, travel writing, accounts of nuclear Nevada, narratives about rural life and urban life in Las Vegas and Reno, poetry and fiction from the state's best contemporary writers, and accounts of the special beauty of wild Nevada's mountains and deserts. Editor Cheryll Glotfelty provides insightful introductions to each section and author. The book also includes a photo gallery of selected Nevada writers and a generous list of suggested further readings."

Not mentioned in the summary is Goodwin. {Note: The book arrived and I still haven't found mention of C.C. Goodwin, but I will not that if I do find him mentioned.} To me, he was a better writer than Twain, although he wrote few books (I have only found three; if you know of more, please leave the title or titles in a comment). "The Comstock Club" is far superior to anything Twain wrote about The Comstock Lode, in my personal opinion, and it's better than many of Twain's books I've read — and I've read a lot of Mark Twain, with my favorite being not a novel but "The War Prayer."

So, who was Goodwin?

"Charles C. Goodwin was born in the Genesee Valley, N.Y., a few miles from Rochester," according to the Washoe Courts' website that features excellent and thorough articles on former Washoe judges. "He received an academic education, and became a wonderfully proficient mathematician. He had most of the English classics at his tongue's end when a boy, but could never surmount the barriers which lay between him and the dead languages.

"In 1852 he came to California and studied law under his brother, Jesse Goodwin, in Marysville, where he afterward became teacher in an academy. He practiced law and taught school until 1861, when he came to Nevada and built a quartz mill a few miles below Dayton. Goodwin invested a small fortune into the mill's construction. When the mill was nearly completed the owner announced a 'warming' {akin to a grand opening in the modern era}, and was making preparations to celebrate the event ... when a freshet {flash flood} swept it away."

Within minutes, his mill that represented his significant investment was gone, but that wasn't the worst part of this natural disaster.

"At the same time six of his men were drowned, one of them leaving an orphan boy to the cruel charity of the world," according to the Washoe Courts' biography. "Goodwin adopted the boy, who held the position of lieutenant in the Regular Army. His kind care and providence for the future of that child speaks of a generous, loyal nature, true and unflinching in its instincts, louder and with a more certain sound than would a eulogy.

"Selling the dismantled machinery of the mill. he paid off such of his men as were left. With a few hundred dollars in his pockets, Goodwin put up an arastra at Dayton."

"An arrastra (or arastra) is a primitive mill for grinding and pulverizing (typically) gold or silver ore," notes the Wikipedia page dedicated to arrastra. "The simplest form of the arrastra is two or more flat-bottomed drag stones placed in a circular pit paved with flat stones, and connected to a center post by a long arm. With a horse, mule or human providing power at the other end of the arm, the stones were dragged slowly around in a circle, crushing the ore. Some arrastras were powered by a water wheel; a few were powered by steam or gasoline engines, and even electricity."

In his ranching and mining ventures, it has been reported that his Achilles heel was debt in the form of compounded interest-bearing notes.

"His bad luck seemed to follow him like a shadow," the Washoe Courts' website notes.

Despite such misfortune, Goodwin staked out a ranch in Washoe County. However, even that venture resulted in a bit of bad luck.

"A lawsuit 20 miles away cut off the water supply with an injunction, and he left the ranch a howling wilderness," states the Washoe Courts' website. "Shortly afterward he was elected District Judge of Washoe County, and edited a newspaper. ...

Territorial Enterprise building in Virginia City, Nev. Courtesy University of Nevada, Reno.

"He next located a mine in Eureka, and just as his friends were expecting to see him blossom into a millionaire, the mine gave out and left him in the lurch again. Another mine opened in Nye County treated him with the same lack of devotion to his interests."

Probably more stunned by even more misfortune, Goodwin "returned to the newspaper business, where he really belonged," the Washoe Courts' website notes.

"For six years he ran The Territorial Enterprise, for a while as editor-in-chief and a portion of the time in connection with Congressman Rollin M. Daggett," the Washoe Courts' website recounts. "The judge edited the paper with a vigor that made its influence felt in Nevada, and it was recognized as a journal controlled by a man of brains and culture. While he was editor The Enterprise had nothing but gall and wormwood for the unreconstructed Bourbons. In 1880 he left that paper to accept a position as editor-in-chief of the Salt Lake Tribune.

"In private life Goodwin is a conversationalist such as one seldom meets, and his fund of quaint humor, ready repartee and good stories, seemed inexhaustible. His home was always open to his friends, and his purse at the mercy of every old tramp, dead-beat and imposter who called upon him for assistance, as he could no more resist an appeal for charity than he could change the attributes of his nature."

Goodwin's character and talent were widely respected. Carson Appeal's editor and publisher Henry Rust Mighels paid tribute to Goodwin in the Nov. 12, 1878 edition:

Henry Rust Mighels. Property of Special Collections Library, University of Nevada, Reno. via Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Pinterest page.

"In the history of Nevada journalism no such brilliant and effective assaults were ever made by any newspaper upon the enemy's line as Goodwin has been making," according to the Washoe Courts' website. "His splendid services should be most generously remembered; and he has, while making an enviable reputation for himself, placed The Territorial Enterprise in the front rank of live and powerful political newspapers.

"The people of the state have a right to be proud of their leading daily print, as his brethren of the pen-and-scissors have a right to glory in the achievements of their overworked but unflinching and faithful brother. The Appeal gives him all hail!"

Having worked in radio, web and print journalism for 33 years, I can tell you that praise from a journalist from another publication is rare.

Later in life, Goodwin would immortalize himself in the annals of Western Frontier literature with his books. "The Comstock Club" may have been his best novel and features far more literary brilliance than any of Mark Twain's literary endeavors — with the exception of Twain's "The War Prayer." Goodwin also wrote "As I Remember Them" and "The Wedge of Gold," both of which can be found on Project Gutenberg and "The Wayback Machine" (Archive.org), respectively.

(Editor's note: The Washoe Courts' biography of C.C. Goodwin had grammatical errors in it that have been corrected, as well as a different style than AP Style, and I changed the present tense to the past tense. Changes include capitalization changes, grammatical corrections, spelling corrections, etc. The Wikipedia information quoted has also had slight edits for clarity. Thank you to Washoe Courts and Wikipedia for providing such historically significant information that should not be forgotten. Disclosure: I subscribe to The Nevada Appeal. I do not accept and have not received any monetary or other incentives to write any articles on this blog.)

'Flag On Fire' A Spectacle

An 1875-77 photo of the Bullion Mine, Virginia City, Nev., courtesy of J. Paul Getty Museum. The photographer was Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916). "Most of the miners in this rugged settlement took special care to dress for their portrait, appearing in their best white shirts and black jackets," Getty notes. "Only the gentleman seated atop the trolley on the left looks as if he has just emerged from the mineshaft. The California Gold Rush peaked in 1852, yet pioneers like those pictured here continued to toil in the mines over twenty years later. While three young children appear in the picture, the women of the town are conspicuously absent. In this depiction of scattered homes carved into a barren mountainside, Carleton Watkins conveyed the isolation of the prospecting and pioneering western frontier."

by Glenn Franco Simmons

The pioneer Virginia City residents couldn't believe their eyes. Torn from a wooden pole on top of Mount Davidson, an American flag was carried by the fierce wind when it suddenly became illuminated by the setting sun peaking through storm clouds over the Sierras. The spectacle was so profound that a female poet took up the challenge and put the experience ~ which captivated countless onlookers on The Comstock Lode ~ to poetry.

This post reveals her long-lost poem, as well as the four American flags, any one of which may have been the flag torn asunder.

C.C. Goodwin mentions, in passing, poem titled "The Flag On Fire" by Anna M. Fitch in his literary masterpiece titled "The Comstock Club."

He notes that in July 1863, a heavy storm with thunder descended upon the pioneer mining outpost.

"… As the sun was disappearing behind Mount Davidson, the clouds broke and rolled away from the west,” writes Goodwin, “while at the same time a faint rainbow appeared in the East, making one of those beautiful spectacles common to mountainous regions.

"At the same time the flag on Mount Davidson caught the beams from the setting sun and stood out a banner of fire. This, too, is not an unfrequent spectacle in Virginia City, and long ago inspired a most gifted lady to write a very beautiful poem, 'The Flag on Fire.'"

"From the summit of Mount Davidson, looking westward from Virginia City, Nevada, float the stars and stripes," Fitch writes. "On the evening of July 30th, 1863, upon the breaking away of a storm, this banner was suddenly illuminated by some curious refraction of the rays of the setting sun. Thousands of awe struck persons witnessed the spectacle, which continued until the streets of Virginia, 1500 feet below, were in utter darkness."

At a time when there were sympathizers of The Union or the Confederacy in Virginia City, the poem was sure to inflame the pride of patriotism in the hearts of those who supported The Union.

The poem is cast in a reverential, almost religious, style, that seems to indicate a feeling among some observers that the illumination of the Stars and Stripes was somehow divinely ordained and proof that the United States of America would continue to prosper and be victorious in The Civil War.

What no writer mentioned was which American flag was atop Mount Davidson. We don't even know if it was one of the four most-current flags used by the United States.

An American flag used from 1861-63. Public domain.

The Flag On Fire*

by Anna M. Fitch

Up the somber

Silent chamber

Of the silver-seamed Sierra,

Where the Pi-ute

Roams in quiet

And the eagle spreads her eyrie —

Climbed on our flag, and sat in splendor

Climbed our flag, and sat in splendor

Thronged with elemental wonder.

Flushed with warning,

Dawned the morning,

O'er Nevada’s gold-girt canons

While momentous

Clouds portentous

Beat aloft their dusky pinions,

And the lengthening day slow wheeling

'Neath its swarthy height was reeling

Now the marring

Lightning scarring,

Cleaves the mailed front of heaven,

Sifting, shifting,

Drifting, rifting,

Clouds capricious course till even,

So the swarthy army marches,

Conquering through the shadowy arches.

An American flag used from 1861-63. Public domain.

Cloud-bemantled,

Storm-ensandled,

Droops the flag, all gloom-encompassed,

Now unfurling,

Waltzing, whirling,

To the music of the tempest —

While aloft the dark-browed legion

Marshals through the storm-wrapped region.

Now the crumbling

Shadows, tumbling

Into silver-skirted showers

Lo! Upbuildered

From the gilded

Eastern crags, a rainbow towers;

Linked with Carson’s purple fountain,

Circling the desert, vale and mountain.

Fire! Fire!

Fire! Fire!

Who has set the flag on fire?

What vile traitor

By Creator

Spurned, thus dare defy despair?

God of prophecy and power,

Stay the omen of the hour.

An American flag used from 1863-65. Wikipedia. Public domain.

Oh! the splendor,

Oh! The wonder,

To the worshipping beholder!

Gathering, glowing

Flaming, flowing

Skyward — fiercer, freer, bolder

Burn the beating stars of empire,

Lit by traitor-torch, nor camp-fire.

Blood nor palette,

More than all that,

Mid those starry embers linger;

Tis an omen

Sent to no man —

Signet on an unseen finger —

Prophecy from heaven’s own portal,

Borne by winged worlds immortal.

Now circling

Darkness purpling,

Plumes the rock-ribbed mountain hoary;

Yet the hallowed,

Flag unpillowed,

Burns aloft in stilly glory;

Wonder-mute, no man inveigheth;

Peace, be still! a nation prayeth.

An American flag used from 1863-65. Public domain.

In an obituary about Fitch published in "Paradise of the Pacific" Vols. 16-18 (Jan. 1, 1903), Fitch's literary accomplishments were noted.

"…  She had literary tastes, and in the exercise of her talents displayed genius," according to the publication. "One particular poem she wrote, … titled 'The Song of the Flume,' was regarded by William Cullen Bryant as classic. She also wrote 'The Flag on Fire,' 'Over the Hill,' 'The Loves of Paul Fenly,' and 'Bound Down' — a book of Fate.

"She caught a good deal of her inspiration from the scenes, the incidents and the romances of the great Pacific Slope, where most of her life was spent. With her husband she wrote ‘Better Days,’ or a ‘Millionaire of Tomorrow,’ a tale of the present period dealing somewhat with the labor interests."

Who Shall Fitly Tell Pioneers' Stories?

The hard-working laborer in America's history
is often forgotten, but heroic they were.

Lying Grossest Of Human Evils

I've added a page dedicated to the wisdom of C.C. Goodwin.
It features some of his quotes on sliver backgrounds.

Prospector's Fate Ends In Loss

Photograph of miner with loaded donkey or burro. "Steady Jack" used for "packing" the miners' tools in Nevada's Comstock Lode. Courtesy: George Wharton James Collection UNR).

(Editor's note: In this post, we find The Comstock Club's members contemplating unrequited love, fate, labor, charity, hard work and more.)

"All that is good," said Carlin, "but the rule does not always hold true. There is sometimes a limit to man's capacity to suffer, and his heart breaks; and still after that his face gives no sign, and there is no abatement of his energies. In such cases, however, men generally lose the capacity to reason calmly and chase impossibilities. I saw a case yesterday. I met a man mounted on a cheap mustang, and leading another on which was packed a little coarse food, a pick, shovel, pan, coffee-pot and frying pan. As he moved slowly up C. street, a friend — himself an Argonaut — clutched me by the arm with one hand, and with the other pointing to the man on horseback, asked me if I knew him. Replying that I did not, he said: 'Why, that is "Prospecting Joe"; I thought everybody knew him.' I told him I had never heard of him, when he related his story, almost word for word, as follows:

"He came to the far West from some Eastern state in the old, old days. He was not then more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old. Physically he was a splendid specimen of a man, I am told. He was, moreover, genial and generous, and drew friends around him wherever he went. He secured a claim in the hills above Placerville. One who knew him at that time told me, that, calling at his cabin one night, he surprised him poring over a letter written in a fair hand, while beside him on his rude table lay the picture of a beautiful girl. His heart must have been warmed at the time, for picking up the picture and handing it to my friend, he said. 'Look at her! She is my Nora, my Nora. She, beautiful as she is, would in her divinity have bent and married a coarse mold of clay like myself, and poor, too, as I was; but her father said: 'Not yet, Joe. Go out into the world, make a struggle for two years, then come back, and if by that time you have established that you are man enough to be a husband to a true woman, and you and Nora still hold to the thought that is in your hearts now, I will help you all I can. And, mind you, I don't expect you to make a fortune in two years; I only want you to show that the manhood which I think you have within you is true.' 'That was square and sensible talk, and it was not unkind. So I came away.

"'Then he took the picture and looked fondly at it for a long time, and said: 'I see the delicious girl as she looked on that summer's day, when she waved me her last good by. I shall see her all my life, if I live a thousand years.'

"Well, Joe worked on week days; on Sundays, as miners did in those days, he went to camp to get his mail and supplies. His claim paid him only fairly well, but he was saving some money. In eight months he had been able to deposit twelve hundred dollars in the local bank. One Sunday he did not receive the expected letter from his Nora, and during the next hour or two he drank two or three times with friends. He was about to leave for home, when three men whom he slightly knew, and who had all been drinking too much, met him and importuned him to drink with them. He declined with thanks, when one of the three caught him by the arm and said he must drink.

"At any other time he would have extricated him self without trouble and gone on his way. But on that day he was not in good humor, so he shook the man off roughly and shortly told him to go about his own affairs.

"The others were just sufficiently sprung with liquor to take offense at this, and the result was a terrific street fight. Joe was badly bruised but he whipped all three of the others. Then he was arrested and ordered to appear next morning to answer a charge of fighting. He was of course cleared without difficulty, but it took one-fourth of his deposit to pay his lawyer. Then the miners gathered around him and called him a hero and he went on his first spree.

International Hotel in Virginia City, Nevada. Courtesy of the University of Nevada, Reno.

"Next morning when he awoke and thought of as much as he could remember of the previous day's events, he was thoroughly ashamed. As he went down to the office of the hotel, in response to an inquiry as to how he felt, he answered: 'Full of repentance and beer.' A friend showed him the morning paper with a full account of the Sunday fight and his trial and acquittal. This was embellished with taking head-lines, as is the custom with reporters. It cut him to the heart.

"He knew that if the news reached his old home of his being in a street fight on Sunday, all his hopes would be ended. His first thought was to draw his money and take the first steamer for Panama and New York. He went to the bank and asked how his account stood, for he remembered to have drawn something the previous day. He was answered that there was still to his credit $150. The steamer fare was $275. Utterly crushed, he returned to his claim. The fear that the news of his disgrace would reach home, haunted him perpetually and made him afraid to write. He continued to work, but not with the old hope.

"After some weeks, a rumor came that rich ground had been 'struck' away to the north, somewhere in Siskiyou county. He drew what money he had, bought a couple of ponies, one to ride and one to pack, and started for the new field. Before starting, he confided to a friend that the previous night he had dreamed of a mountain, the crest of which glittered all over with gold, and he was going to find it. "The friend told him it was but a painted devil of the brain, the child of a distempered imagination, but he merely shook his head and went away.

"He has pursued that dream ever since. His eyes have been ever strained to catch the reflection from those shining heights. When he began the search, his early home and the loving arms which were there stretched out to him, began to recede in the distance. In a few years they disappeared altogether. Then his hopes one by one deserted him, until all had fled except the one false one which was, and still is, driving him on. Youth died and was buried by the trail, but so absorbed was he that he hardly grieved. As Time served notice after notice upon him; as his hair blanched, his form bent and the old sprightliness went out of his limbs, he retired more and more from the haunts of men; more and more he drew the mantle of the mountains around him. But his eyes, now bright with an unnatural splendor, were still strained upon the shining height. There were but a few intervening hills and some forests that obstructed his view. A little further on and the goal would be reached. Last night he was in his cups and he told my friend that this time he would 'strike it sure,' that the old man would make his showing yet, that he would yet go back to the old home and be a Providence to those he loved when a boy.

"Poor wretch. There is an open grave stretched directly across his trail. On this journey or some other soon, he will, while his eyes are still straining towards his heights of gold, drop into that grave and disappear forever.

"Some morning as he awakens, amid the hills or out upon the desert, there will be such a weariness upon him that he will say, 'I will sleep a little longer,' and from that sleep he will never waken.

"Heaven grant that his vision will then become a reality and that he may mount the shining heights at last.

"Of course it is easy to say that he was originally weak, but that is no argument, for human nature is prone to be weak. His was a high-strung, sensitive, generous nature. He never sought gold for the joy it would give him, but for the happiness he dreamed it would give to those he loved.

"His Nora was a queen in his eyes and he wanted to give her, every day, the surroundings of a queen. He made one mistake and never rallied from it. Had the letter come that fatal Sunday from Nora, as he was expecting it, or had he left for home half an hour earlier, or had he been of coarser clay, that day's performance would have been avoided, or would have been passed as an incident not to be repeated, but not to be seriously minded.

This may be the Savage Mine's Virginia City office. Undated. Courtesy of the UNR.

"But he was of different mold, and then that was a blow from Fate. It is easy enough to say that there is nothing in that thing called luck. Such talk will not do here on the Comstock. There is no luck when a money lender charges five dollars for the use of a hundred for a month and exacts good security. He gets his one hundred and five dollars, and that is business.

"But in this lead where ore bodies lie like melons on a vine, when ore is reported in the Belcher and in the Savage, when Brown buys stock in the

Belcher and Rogers buys in the Savage; when the streak of ore in the Belcher runs into a bonanza and Brown wakes up rich some morning, and when the streak of ore in the Savage runs into a Niagara of hot water which floods the mine and Rogers's stock is sold out to meet an assessment, it will not do to call Brown a shrewd fellow and Rogers an idiot.

"Still, I do not object to the theory that a man should always keep trying, even if the lack is against him, because luck may change sometime, and if it does not, he sleeps better when he knows that with the lights before him he has done the best he could. A man can stand almost anything when his soul does not reproach him as he tries to go to sleep.

"Then, too, man is notoriously a lazy animal, and unless he has the nerve to spur himself to work, even when unfortunate, he is liable to fail and get the dry rot, which is worse than death.

"But my heart goes out in sympathy when I think of the glorified spirits, which on this coast have failed and are failing every day, because from the first an iron fortune has hedged them round and baffled their every effort, struggle as they would."

"Carlin ceased speaking, and ... silence ... prevailed in the Club for a moment. ..."