Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/207

Rh He was afterward postmaster-general of the United States, now president of Washington and Lee university, and may be taken as a fair specimen of the morale of the Confederate armies. For some years prior to the last session of Congress, the speaker of the house a position conceded to be only second to that of President of the United States was Hon. Charles F. Crisp, of Georgia, who served through the war as a gallant private soldier in the Tenth Virginia regiment, and may be called a product of the morale of the Confederate armies.

The Confederates have no reason to retract the views they held, nor any cause to be ashamed of the men who led them; nor of the fight they made against overwhelming numbers and resources. And, after considering fairly the character of the Confederate soldiery for general intelligence, decided morality, patriotic spirit, true courage and magnanimous soul, it may be finally and permanently recorded of them, as it is similarly written of their fallen Confederacy: