Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 07.djvu/359

Rh The plan is that each State shall substitute this wooden shaft by one of marble or granite, appropriately carved and inscribed, and when this design has been fully realized, there will be here a perpetual memorial of the gallant sons of all of these States who marched forth so gayly at their country's call and gave their lives so freely to the cause of constitutional freedom.

Always in the lead in efforts to honor our Confederate dead, a few ladies in Winchester organized themselves together as the "Virginia Shaft Association," and by their earnest efforts secured, paid for, and unveiled, on the 6th of June, a beautiful marble shaft for the Virginia section, which has been greatly admired, and is considered very cheap, at $1,500. Cannot our devoted women of other States do the same for their respective sections?

But besides these marked graves, there have been gathered 829 soldiers, who were buried in separate coffins, but of whom nothing could be learned, save that they died in the gray uniform defending the "stars and bars." It is over these that the central monument to the "unknown and unrecorded dead" has been erected, and who so beautifully realize the inscription on one face of the monument: We regret that we have not space for a full description of the monument, which is forty-nine feet high, and of Italian marble, resting on a base of Richmond granite—the base and faces being beautifully carved and appropriately inscribed, and the crowning figure being a private soldier—not the jaunty militiaman, the disciplined "regular," or the "holiday" soldier of times of peace, but the veteran who followed Stonewall Jackson—standing with bowed head and hands folded upon his reversed rifle.

The monument is the work of Mr. Thomas Delahunty, of Philadelphia (a gentleman who lost a brother in the Confederate army), and is certainly most beautifully executed. The cost of the whole was $10,000—of which the committee have paid all except $1,500, which they would have realized by a collection on the day of the unveiling except for the rain, which dispersed the vast crowd. [Let us say, by way of parenthesis, that any one desiring the privilege of helping to complete this good work can do so by sending a contribution to James B. Russell, chairman Finance Committee, Winchester]. Nor will our limited space allow any detailed account of the ceremonies of unveiling the monument. By every train and every highway, the people poured into the old town, and a crowd assembled which the most careful estimates put at full 25,000. The military and civic procession was under charge of General J. E. Johnston, assisted by General Dabney H. Maury, Colonel L. T. Moore, Major R. W. Hunter, Major S. J. C. Moore, Major H. Kyd Douglass, General J. R. Herbert, Colonel H. E. Peyton, Captain Wm. N. Nelson, Colonel Wm. Morgan, Major F. H. Calmes, Colonel C. T. O'Ferrall, Captain S. S. Turner, General Geo. H. Steuart, Colonel R. P. Chew, Captain P. P. Dandridge, Captain Ran. Barton, Colonel Harry Gilmor, Colonel R. H. Lee, Captain Wm. L. Clarke, Dr. W. S. Love, Dr. S. Taylor Holliday, and Dr. Cornelius Baldwin—names which will all be recognized as