Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/35

 Annual Reunion of Pegrcnn Battalion Association. 29

even when scattered and without officers or commands, and when all seemed lost amidst confusion and chaos.

I claim for the cavalry most conspicuously, and in the highest de- gree, this special attribute, coming as they did from the young men who were "the flowers of the land," and representing in its highest degree the noble manhood of the Sunny South.

I am thankful it was my good fortune to have served in this arm of the service, and I glory in their many and noble deeds in the " Lost Cause," commanded as they were by that great, grand cavalry chief- tain. General J. E. B. Stuart.

5. THE ARTILLERY—" A Little more Grape from the Bottle." Responded to by Carlton McCarthy.

6. THE INFANTRY— " They Stood like a Stone Wall." Responded to by Major C. S. Stringfellow as follows:

Mr. Presideiit and gentlemeji of the Pegrani Battalion Association :

In rising to address you at this late hour, I find myself very much in the unhappy situation of one of the brave boys in blue, a young and raw necruit, who was captured before the good city of Petersburg and carried to the Provost Marshall, a kind-hearted but stern- visaged old gentleman, who looking him full in the face said to him very abruptly : " And pray, sir, who are you, and what are you doing down here, and what do you want sir, what do you want?" The prisoner burst into tears and replied: "I want to go home, I want to go home ! " Now, my friends, I want to go home almost as badly as did that unfortunate little Yank, for I feel sure that after all that has been said, and said so well by the eloquent gentlemen who have preceded me, I can add nothing that will be interesting to you or worthy of the sentiment to which I am expected to reply.

Infantry is a term of somewhat recent date. It was first applied to a body of men organized by a Royal Infante of Spain for the release of his father, who had been captured by the Moors ; and subsequently used to designate the great mass of foot-soldiers, who in all ages have composed the bone and muscle of the armies that have been led to the field, sometimes as the mere instruments of unhallowed ambition,

"The tools, The broken tools that tyrants cast away By myriads,"

and sometimes as the defenders of right or the avengers of wrong.