Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/382

366 Maryland, T. L. Rosser of Virginia, and W. W. Gordon of Georgia, all noted Confederate officers who won distinction in the Confederate army.

Lieut. Richmond Pearson Hobson, of the navy (an Alabamian), is probably the hero of the war, by virtue of sinking the Merrimac in the channel leading to the harbor of Santiago de Cuba amid the shot and shell of Spanish heavy guns. Lieut. A. S. Rowan, of the United States army (a Virginian), is another Southern hero in the short war; while North Carolina has added to the above Worth Bagley and South Carolina Lieut. Victor Blue. There were many other heroes who deserve mention. The officers of the army and navy of the United States have never failed to do their whole duty wherever duty called them, but in this brief war with Spain, so far as individuals are concerned, the Southerners mentioned, have received enthusiastic appreciation from the whole people of the United States.

It should not be thought strange that the people of the South would burn with patriotic ardor against a foreign foe. While giving full credit to the South for her patriotism in the recent war with Spain, it is with pride that she can point to her past history in every instance where national honor and national statesmanship were needed to defend the flag of the Union, or be aggressive for its advancement. Leaving out her record of the great civil war, she points back to the spirit of the Southern colonial people, as broad and liberal, active in the general defense against the Indians and in the French wars. The first battle of the revolutionary war was fought on Southern soil, and the signal for resistance came from the South. The most critical and pressing struggle of the revolutionary war was carried on in the South and in the face of continual disaster. The devastations of that war were nearly all on her soil. A Southern colony furnished most of the soldiers in the army of the American revolution, and a Southern State finds a place in her soil for the