Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/379

Rh ment on the part of the people of the South. Her senators and representatives in Congress, during the great riot in Chicago, also brought to the surface their patriotic love of the Union.

But it remained for the year 1898 and the war between Spain and the United States to cause this national feeling, this love of country, to burst into a flame that left no doubt as to the national patriotism of the people of the ex-Confederate States.

The writer of this article an ex-Confederate soldier although he was always loyal to the Stars and Stripes from the moment he laid down his arms as a soldier of the Confederacy and took the oath of allegiance to the restored Union; although he had conscientiously performed his duty as a citizen under that oath of allegiance, and although he was ready at any time to defend the Stars and Stripes had it become necessary, as a duty still, when he heard of the great victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila, his heart leaped with joy and pride because he was a citizen of the United States. There was no longer a doubt as to his possessing real and true love for his reunited country. While he would not positively say that this was the feeling of every ex-Confederate soldier, he believes that this patriotic emotion which found expression from his own heart, found also a response in the heart of almost every ex-Confederate.

The tour of the President of the United States, Mr. McKinley, through the South, and his speeches of patriotism and good-will everywhere, evoked unbounded enthusiasm and patriotism in every portion of the South. Although he is the epresentative of the great Republican party, the party toward which the people of the South felt unkindly, because of the ordeal of reconstruction, still, in their display of patriotism they have forgotten everything in the past that stood in the way of a complete obliteration of sectional lines and bad blood.

It should be a source of intense satisfaction to the peo-