You should remember that though another may have more money, beauty, and brains than you, when it comes to the rarer spiritual values such as charity, self-sacrifice, honor, nobility of heart, you have an equal chance with everyone to be the most beloved and honored of all people.
    Archibald Rutledge

Establishing oneself in a dog’s confidence is the foundation of training. For example, if a man ever lures a dog to him affectionately and then beats him, that dog’s trust will be shaken forever. I never whipped Patsy for anything. It took a little patience to teach her that stockings, old shoes and rugs are not meant to be lugged into obscure corners of the house and there chewed up, but I knew she was only a baby, and she learned quickly.

No man would knock the block off his year-old baby for pouring a cup of milk on the living room floor, but many a man will nearly kill a puppy for some little infraction of domestic manners. Start them very young and treat them gently and fairly. They like square shooters just as well as men do. A bird dog is just like a boy; let him run wild for the first part of his life, and you establish chances against his ever settling down to reliable behavior.
    -ESSAY: Patsy & the Princes (Archibald Rutledge, September 1935 Field & Stream)

It is futile for us to wish that writers, or others, who lived in less enlightened times than ours were devoid of the prejudices we now know to eschew. We must take them as we find them and it is perhaps enough to judge them for the tenor and depth of their outdated views. Which brings us to Archibad Rutedfge, a prolific outdoorsman, essayist and the first Poet Laureate of South Caroina. Raised on the historic family plantation, which he worked to preserve in latter life, where ex-slaves still dwelt when he was young, we must expect some nostalgia for the “culture” we sought to destroy in the Civil War. And, tragically, a blind eye being turned to the repellant Jim Crow system that prevailed because we failed to destroy it completely. On the other hand, unlike many of the contemporaneous critics, Rutledge lived and worked with blacks, recognized their value and even loved them. This ought make us at least aware that our easy judgments about the moral shortcomings of him and his like are more fraught than we first see.

That said–while we may be put off by the casual use of terms like “Negroes” or the “Dark Dilemma”--It is worth revisiting his writings, especially the outdoor essays that Sporting Classics Daily has republished, mostly from Field & Stream. Just consider the dog-training advice offered above, which is as relevant today as the day it was written, nearly a century ago.

(Reviewed:13-Mar-25)

Grade: (B+) Orrin C. Judd

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Archibald Rutledge Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Archibald Rutledge
    -ENTRY: Rutledge, Archibald: October 23, 1883–September 15, 1973 (South Carolina Encyclopedia)
    -ENTRY: Archibald Rutledge (South Carolina Hall of Fame)
    -ENTRY: Hampton Plantation (SC Picture Project)
    -VIDEO: Hampton Plantation Tour (Ranger Jody Davison, Jul 11, 2022)
    -ENTRY: Archibald Rutledge (Know it All)
    -COLLECTION: Archibald Hamilton Rutledge Papers, 1766-1871 (UNC Libraries)
    -ENTRY: Archibald Rutledge (Good Reads)
    -QUOTES: Archibald Rutledge Quotes (AZ Quotes)
    -QUOTES: Words of Wisdom from Old Flintlock: 13 Archibald Rutledge Quotes (Sporting Classics Daily, Sep 4, 2020)
    -ENTRY: Archibald Rutledge (Study SC)
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    -INDEX: Archibald Hamilton Rutledge (Mitchells Publications)
    -INDEX: Archibald Rutledge (Stporting Classics Daily)
    -INDEX: Archibald Hamilton Rutledge (1883-1973) (Internet Archive)
    -INDEX: “archibald rutledge” (Internet Archive)
    -INDEX: Archibald Rutledge (Penny's poetry pages Wiki)
    -INDEX: Online Books by Archibald Rutledge (The Online Books Page)
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    -TRIBUTE: to Archibald Rutledge (Fritz Hollings)
    -OBIT: Archibald Rutledge Dies; Poet Laureate in Carolina (UPI, Sept. 17, 1973)
    -TRIBUTE: to Archibald Rutledge (Fritz Hollings)
    -AUDIO: Archibald Rutledge Reads His Poetry (Library of Congress)
    -ESSAY: Patsy & the Princes (Archibald Rutledge, September 1935 Field & Stream)
    -ESSAY: Black-Horn Buck (Archibald Rutledge, Nov 28, 2019, Sporting Classics Daily)
    -ESSAY: Our Gobbler: Competing for a Prized Wild Turkey (Archibald Rutledge, Apr 1, 2021, Sporting Classics Daily)
    -ESSAY: Death In The Moonlight (Archibald Rutledge, September 1933, Field & Stream)
    -ESSAY: The Specter of Tiger Creek (Archibald Rutledge, Feb 6, 2025, Sporting Classics Daily)
    -ESSAY: Why I Taught My Boys to be Hunters (Archibald Rutledge, 1937, American Hunter)
    -ESSAY: The Baby Toddles (Archibald Rutledge, August 1922, Field & Stream)
    -ESSAY: The Lady in Green (Archibald Rutledge, Oct 31, 2022, Sporting Classics Daily)
    -ESSAY: Grouse of the Little Hills (Archibald Rutledge, from Hunter’s Choice [1946])
    -ESSAY: Pair of Mallards (Archibald Rutledge, from Old Plantation Days [1921])
    -ESSAY: A Southern Christmas Hunt (Archibald Rutledge, Dec 18, 2023, Sporting Classics Daily)
    -ESSAY: An excerpt from The Kings of Curlew Island (Archibald Rutledge, Jan 10, 2024, Sporting Classics Daily)
    -ESSAY: A Fox and a Conscience (Archibald Rutledge, from Old Plantation Days [1921])
    -ESSAY: Quail of the Kalmias (Archibald Rutledge, from Hunter’s Choice [1946])
    -ESSAY: Our Gobbler (Archibald Rutledge, from Plantation Game Trails [1921])
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    -LETTER: to Calvin Coolidge (Archibald Rutledge, 12/20/23)
    -ESSAY: That Christmas Buck (Archibald Rutledge, Field & Stream v24n09) [pdf]
    -ETEXT: Collected poems; 1925 [Archibald Hamilton Rutledge (1883-1973)]
    -ETEXT: Life's extras; 1928 (Archibald Rutledge)
    -ETEXT: South of Richmond: Poems (Archibald Rutledge, 1923)
    -ETEXT: The banners of the coast: Poems (Archibald Rutledge, 1908)
    -ETEXT: Children of swamp and wood (Archibald Rutledge,1927)
    -ETEXT: Days off in Dixie (Archibald Rutledge, 1925)
    -ETEXT: Peace in the Heart (Archibald Rutledge, 1930)
    -ETEXT: Plantation game trails (Archibald Rutledge, 1921)
    -ETEXT: Hunting and Home in the Southern Heartland: The Best of Archibald Rutledge (Archibald Rutledge. edited by Jim Casada, 2020)
    -ETEXT: Bird Dog Days, Wingshooting Ways: Archibald Rutledge's Tales of Upland Hunting (Archibald Rutledge, Edited with a New Introduction by JIM CASADA, 2016)
    -POEM: John Everyman (Archibald Rutledge, January 1926, Poetry)
    -POEM: Gifts from the Wildwood by Archibald Rutledge (Across My kitchen Table)
    -POEM: Good Friday Night by Archibald Rutledge (Braman’sWanderings)
    -POEM: Arlington Bridge by Archibald Rutledge (The Generals Redoubt)
    -AUDIO POEM: Jewels by Archibald Rutledge (Steve Williams, Georgetown County Library)
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    -VIDEO: Hampton HIstory: Archibald Rutledge: His Life and Legacy (GeorgetownCountyLibrary, Nov 18, 2019)
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    -ESSAY: Ex Libris: Archibald Rutledge (Margaret Clay, July-August 2018, Columbia Metropolitan)
    -ESSAY: Reading Archibald Rutledge (The Pipe Cottage Journal, Jun 28, 2024)
    -ESSAY: Archibald Rutledge in South Carolina (Author Adventures)
    -ESSAY: South Carolina’s poet laureate, Archibald Rutledge (Lagrange News, August 31, 2016)
    -ESSAY: Duck Gumbo Recipe Rutledge Style (Jim Casada, Apr 8, 2022, Sporting Classics Daily)
    -ESSAY: Wild turkey tales: a Rutledge family tradition (Ford Walpole, Charleston Mercury)
    -ESSAY: Archibald Rutledge: First Poet Laureate of South Carolina (Vera Smith Spears, 3/11/1934, State)
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    -EXCERPT: Conclusion: Contradiction and Continuity in the Southern Sporting Field (from Hunting and Fishing in the New South: Black Labor and White Leisure after the Civil War)
    -ESSAY: BLACKS PLAYED BIG ROLE IN HUNTING (Jim Casada, 1/26/25, Greensboro News & Record)
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    -REVIEW: of Bird Dog Days Wingshooting Ways: Archibald Rutledge (Shana Raley-Lusk, Click)
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    -REVIEW: of BEAUTY IN THE HEART by Archibald Rutledge (Kirkus)
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    -REVIEW: of HOME BY THE RIVER -- Story of the Hampton Plantation by Archibald Rutledge (Kirkus)
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    -REVIEW: of MY COLONEL AND HIS LADY by Archibald Rutledge (Kirkus)
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    -REVIEW: of THE WORLD AROUND HAMPTON by Archibald Rutledge (Kirkus)
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    -REVIEW: of WILD LIFE OF THE SOUTHby Archibald Rutledge (Kirkus)
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    -REVIEW: of Peace in the Heart by Archibald Rutledge (Sage Covered Hills)
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    -REVIEW: of Home by the River by Archibald Rutledge (Walker Rowe, Medium)
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    -REVIEW: of God’s Children by Archibald Rutledge (Kirkus)
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