Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/491

 The Monument at Munfordaville. 481

whom it is my pleasure to meet to-day for the first time, though many letters and mementoes have passed between us, I feel that as individ- uals and as Mississippians, yea, as citizens of the late Confederate States, we behold a friend, a benefactor and a patriot, and one whose philanthropy and generous love is something too pure and sublime not to rivet our acknowledgement and esteem. As one who had re- sided on the soil of Mississippi and knew her people and institutions well, his sympathies were enlisted in her behalf during those dark days when she most needed friends abroad. At no time during the struggle did Mississippi or the Confederacy look to him in vain. His princely fortune was tributary to their necessities, and more than once his active support received the grateful recognition of the State and Confederate authorities. The deposed Chief of the Confederacy was his friend, and he permits no opportunity to pass to manifest his at- tachment to his person and to the cause which was forever eclipsed in his fall. During a long life, and even before fortune had so generously smiled upon and blessed his efforts, he has been noted for his deeds of charity. His private benefactions are only equaled by his public philanthropy. When I received, in November last, a let- ter from him informing me that during his visit to this country, the June previous, he had purchased a spot of the field of action here, and would erect a great stone " as an imperishable mark of the place of sacrifice," and within the very massive inclosure to be built, any who are interested in the dead of that battlefield, from Mississippi, were invited to deposit their remains, all the better impulses of my nature went out across the broad Atlantic to the home of this good man, who, in honoring the memory of his dead brother, did not for- get to honor Mississippi.

Sensible of the gratitude Mississippians would feel for this exhibit of patriotism and crowning act of generosity, I prepared and intro- duced in the Senate of my State the following resolution, which passed both branches of the Legislature, and became a law by the prompt and cordial approval of the Governor, February 7, 1884.

Whereas, in the fatal and unfortunate battle of Munfordsville, on Green river, Kentucky, on the 14th of September, 1862, quite a number of soldiers from Mississippi, belonging to the Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, Twenty-ninth and Forty-fourth Mississippi regiments, gave up their lives in the service of the State, and by their gallantry and unselfish devotion to the cause, to which the State had pledged its sacred honor, reflected new and enduring luster upon its name; and.

Whereas, Mr. James Smith, of Glasgow, Scotland, once an 4