Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 24.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[307] notes and comments. The copies in the Congressional Library appear to have been well thumbed, and are evidently esteemed to be of some importance to history. He was the originator, moreover, of a wonderful theory of making tobacco a cure-all for all the ills of human flesh, and during many of the years when he was in Washington, it was a souce of much chagrin to him, that his friends seemed to grow tired of his expatiations relative to the virtues of the immortal weed as a panacea. Much of the remnant of his fortune was spent upon the publication of a pamphlet upon this subject, but it seems to have gone the way of Pleasanton's blue grass cure, and whether the theory of Clingman was good no one can tell.

Clingman was a man of intense self-appreciation. His desire to be remembered as a great factor in the affairs of the nation was something stronger than even that which is felt by most men of ambition. As a young man, and as the aged companion of the ‘colonels,’ ‘majahs’ and ‘Judges,’ of that genus which was for a few years so plentifully represented, but which is now well nigh extinct. Clingman was of handsome and commanding appearance. He was always dressed with fine care until his purse gave out, and even then his threadbare and shining coat set on him so nicely, that anyone would know it was the coat of a gentleman, and that the gentleman was inside.

He and the late W. W. Corcoran were intimate friends, and it was through the friendship of the latter that Clingman's portrait, painted with his favorite pose when speaking in the Senate, was placed in the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Frequently the old man would walk into the gallery and remain for a long time in front of the painting, while the passing crowd would stand agape in wonder, recognizing that the original of the portrait stood there, and wondering why this gentility run to seed, should have been so honored with a place in one of the great art galleries of the land.

For years it hung in the gallery of portraits, among canvasses of Presidents, Senators, Judges and great generals of the war on both sides. At one time in the shifting of the pictures, that of Clingman was placed much above the ‘line’ in one of the corner rooms. The writer happened to be passing when the ex-senator entered. He had missed the portrait from its accustomed place and had sought until he found it.

‘Why do you suppose they placed it here, in this dark room?’ he inquired in plaintive tones.