Profile of Luther Hardy:
[They said this was "too long" to put under the heading "About Me" -- bunch of ninny-geese -- so you'll just have to read it here!]
My name is Luther Chappell Hardy. I was born on the 18th of June, 1843, on Whitehall Plantation, in Lunenburg County (né Prince Edward) -- the beating heart of Southside Virginia.
My parents were Jordan Robert Hardy and Anne Elizabeth (“Eliza”) Love Hardy. Jordan Robert’s mother Sally was of the Jordan family of Jordan Point on the James River. Eliza Love’s parents were Henry Hix Love and Martha Chappell Love, of the Chappells of Brunswick County. Eliza’s brother, my uncle, David Robert Love was less that 18 older months than I, and we were raised as brothers.
In 1756, My great-great-grandfather William Robert Hardy came to Lunenburg from Isle of Wight County and founded Whitehall on a Royal land grant. He later served in the Continental Army under Gen. Daniel Morgan at Cowpens -- though we all suspected he was a Tory at heart. His son, my great-grandfather Covington Hardy developed Whitehall into one of the largest and most famous tobacco plantations in Virginia. Covington was a vestryman of Cumberland Parish of the Anglican Church, and married Anne Beuford (neé Beaufort) of Amelia County. Our branch of the family is generally known as the "Covington Hardys”, sometimes the “Whitehall Hardys”.
We are all descended from John Hardy and Olive Council Hardy who came to Virginia in 1660, with a Royal land grant in Isle of Wight County. Their sons George and Richard Hardy had preceded them in 1650. Some say that Olive Council was the granddaughter of Sir Francis Drake, but I can't prove it. [Sir Francis is up here, but he's hard to talk to! All he wants to do is drink rum and set the King of Spain's beard on fire. What a boor! Besides, I don't think he knows who his grandchildren were.] John and Olive's manor house was known as the “Old House”. George Hardy became a land-holder in Surrey County.
In England, we can be traced back directly to the East Ridings of Yorkshire in 1446, thence to the shire of Kent in the late 1300's, thence to several Norman barons of the Conqueror (né de Hardie). One forebear, also John Hardy, was Master of the Guildhall, an Alderman of the City of London, and Lord High Sheriff during the reign of Henry VIII. We are related by marriage to the earls of Darby, and the dukes of Suffolk and Somerset. The author Thomas Hardy and Capt. Sir James Hardy, who commanded HMS Victory at Trafalgar, are cousins, as is Gen. Douglas MacArthur through his mother, the former Mary Pinckney Hardy. It is recorded that Cousin Thomas wanted to title his famous novel “Tess of the Hardys” until his publisher insisted otherwise. We are the Anglophone co-ordinate family of the Norman Hardy family in France.
Shortly after my 18th birthday in June, 1861, David Love, I, and about two dozen of our relatives answered the Virginia Militia Muster at Kenbridge, County Seat of Lunenburg. We formed into a cavalry unit and called ourselves the “Lunenburg Light Dragoons”. That fall we were organized into the Cavalry Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, as Company “G”, 9th Regiment, Virginia Cavalry. Our first Colonel was Fitzhugh Lee, Gen. Lee’s nephew, who went on to command the entire Confederate Cavalry, after the death of Jeb Stuart. David Love ultimately became our company commander.
Except for my two stretches as a prisoner of war at Elmira Prison in New York, I rode with the 9th through the war, three times circling the Army of the Potomac. I was wounded and captured the first time at Brandy Station, the largest cavalry engagement ever fought on the North American Continent. I was exchanged, wounded, and captured a second time in a skirmish near Guinea Station where Gen. Jackson had received his mortal wound the year before. While at Elmira the second time, I lost my left leg from the knee down. I made them give me the bone, out of which I carved a chain, just to pass the time of day. When I came home to Lunenburg in 1865, I was wearing that chain around my neck. That chain and my saber were donated to the Confederate Museum in Richmond by my baby granddaughter in the 1950’s.
After the war, two of my younger brothers and I went to Hardy County on the Potomac, in what by then had become “West Virginia”, to seek our fortunes. Hardy County was named after another cousin of ours, the Honorable Samuel Hardy, a Member of Congress and the House of Delegates. By 1869, however, I was back in Lunenburg. I married Mary Ellen Hurt, sister of Dr. Munford B. Hurt, a surgeon in the 9th. We had four children – two daughters and two sons – and settled in Richmond, where I went to work as an executive for the C&O Railroad.
I died on 13 September 1900, and was buried by my widow in Riverview Cemetery in Richmond. In my thirty-odd years in Richmond, I lived through the best of times and the worst of times. I saw absolute funereal poverty after Reconstruction in the 1870’s and 1880’s, and I lived to see the city almost literally swimming in “railroad money” in the 1890’s – due in no small measure, I am proud to say, to the C&O. Both my sons and both my sons-in-law, as well as my brother-in-law John M. Young and his son, were Railroad Men, and spent their entire careers with either the C&O or one of her affiliated companies. In 1890, my two sons, Robert and Raymond, and I were among 100,000 people who dragged Gen. Lee’s stature by ropes from the Tredegar on the James to the park west of the City where it was dedicated. In the last five years before my death, I enjoyed very much having my toddy and reading the papers in the lobby of the new Jefferson Hotel, one of the world’s finest.
Since my death in 1900, I have remained a keen observer of American politics, particularly in Virginia and at the Presidential level. I have observed this human comedy from my eternal home, here in the Confederate Wing of Valhalla. Sometimes I wish I had died in either Louisiana or Chicago, so I could have remained more actively involved in politics, but in the final analysis, I could never have given up either Virginia or Valhalla!
Beginning in the 1960’s and reaching a crescendo in the 1990’s, I became concerned that the people of our united country had lost their toughness and sense of obligation, even noblesse oblige, that had led them to the pinnacle of greatness. Indeed, Americans’ enormous generosity of spirit that had tempered their toughness and resolve and led them to approach true greatness had, without the corresponding virtues, descended into little more than feckless self-absorption. In my view, this had come about primarily due to failures of leadership.
I became so concerned that, during A.D. 2000, I began to visit my great-grandson, who was then living in New Orleans, and had actually lived for 15 years in New York. (He’s back in Richmond now, thanks be to God and Gen. Lee!) I took to showing up about twice a month, ‘round Midnight, on the sill outside his bedroom window. First, he was scared as a she-cat, then he thought he was dreaming me, but we worked through all that. Now we have very civil conversations. Sometimes, I get to wishing he could join me here in Valhalla for eternity, but alas, unless we have another real-shooting World War where he gets to fight that’s just not going to happen. Sad to say!
Over the last six-odd years that we have been talking, Great-Grandson has persuaded me -- and it took some doing -- that Americans in general still have the toughness, resolve, and generosity that we had from 1607 and before, on up into the 1960’s. The problem is, so I understand it, that now some bunch of feckless ninny-geese, swan themselves around as “liberals”, giving everybody from Locke to Gladstone a bad name, and actually have the temerity to call themselves “Democrats”. Well I tell you, if I hadn’t already been dead, I would have fell flat-over at that one. Worse still, every so often, they actually connive to get the reins of power in the United States, and then fall-all-over-themselves trying to surrender away the Country’s patrimony. Worse still, some of these people, so I am given to understand, are even Southerners and the descendants of Confederate soldiers! Ah, how sharper that a serpent’s tooth it is . . . !
Well, there’s plenty of real leaders left lying around, we just have to make sure that the right people stay in power. Great-Grandson has persuaded me that the country’s current President, for example, has a heart as strong and true as Gen. Washington or Gen. Jackson. Problem is, he couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel! [I learned that one from Lyndon Johnson. Lyndon’s actually up here. We more-or-less had to give him a spot ‘cause he was Commander-in-Chief and all, but none the rest of us thinks much of his way of fighting a war. He always did know how to turn a phrase though; I'll give him that.]
Now, here’s the real thing: Great-Grandson has persuaded me most of all that this fellow Rudolph Giuliani is the Real McCoy. He’s got the necessary toughness in spades, and he can do the job, even though I damn-sure don’t agree with him on everything. This time round, however, Leadership, with a capital “L”, is the thing, and it outweighs everything else, and Mr. Giuliani has got it! We just have to make certain he gets himself elected President.
Now, be absolutely clear on this point: Great-Grandson first brought Mr. Giuliani to my attention in this light, but I have thought mightily about what he had to say, and have completely adopted the support of Mr. Giuliani as my own. Of course, we all heard about him after 11 September 2001 -- all Valhalla was a-titter over that for quite some time -- but it took Great-Grandson to persuade me that he absolutely has to be the next President. No one else will do!
Finally, Great-Grandson persuaded me, just here recently, that we ought to write up our thoughts and put them out there for all to see, and that is why you are reading this. I’ve left the actual writing to Great-Grandson. When he says “I” did this, or “I” thought that, he is referring to himself, but all the political analysis, he has worked out with me in advance. Everyone take heed now! Hell, once Mr. Giuliani is elected, I just might see if I can’t get myself a furlough to come back to earth for a time and enjoy the show.
Deo Vindice!
Luther C. Hardy
Valhalla
posted by LUTHER HARDY at 12:35 PM
0 comments
