Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/306

 296 Southern Historical Society Papers.

rate dead, we reverently place a brother's garland upon their new- made graves.

" On Fame's eternal camping-ground Their snowy tents are spread, And Glorj' guards, with solemn round. The bivouac of the dead."

We have recently adopted a badge, the possession and exhibition of which are esteemed by us all not only as an honor, but as a genuine privilege. It is in the form of a shield, bearing upon its upper surface the word " Survivor." Just below appear the historic letters " C. S. A." On the right and left of the centre are delineated in realistic colors the flag of the Confederacy and the battle flag — symbols at once of national entity and of martial renown — both hal- lowed by associations the most patriotic and valorous. On the one hand is inscribed the date 1861, commemorating the commencement of the Confederate struggle for independence, and on the other the date 1865, perpetuating the year of the termination of the war be- tween the States and the surrender of the Southern armies. Beneath the intersection of the staffs of the flags we have engraven the motto of the great seal of the Confederacy — Deo Vindice. With these words upon our lips, we confidently appeal from the arbitrament of the sword to the forum of conscience and that supreme tribunal where justice im- maculate and eternal sits enthroned, and, thus appealing, solemnly protest that so far from being ' ' rebels against legitimate authority and traitors to their country," all loyal Confederates were "lovers of liberty, combatants for constitutional rights, and, as exemplars of heroic virtue, benefactors of their race." Nay, more: in all reve- rence and fidelity we affirm that the issue furnished only a physical solution of the questions involved in the gigantic endeavor; that cannon and bayonet never did and never can compass other than an arbitrary award in matters of principle; and that the fundamental claims, political privileges, and vested rights, in support of which the Southern people expended their blood and treasure, although disallowed, denied and repressed by the mailed hand of superior force, are, in a moral point of view, undetermined by the result of the contest.

" 'Tis a cause, not the fate of a cause, that is glorious." ■

Symbol of a past, consecrated by aspirations the purest, impulses the most patriotic, sentiments the most ennobling, examples of valor,