Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/402

 396 Southern Historical Society Papers.

curing hand of time has done its work, his talents and character would have asserted themselves in the achievement of success ; but it is very doubtful whether he himself would not have preferred the lot which befell him — duty gloriously done, and in manhood's early prime a hero's grave — to the long, hard struggle of a crippled Confed- erate soldier for the means of subsistence, even if eventually successful. Unless it be " the whole of life to live" — to enjoy merely the plea- sures or suffer the evils of animal existence — who is prepared to say that one who, in the vigor of early manhood, falls fighting in defence of his home is less fortunate or more to be commiserated than his surviving comrades?

More than twenty-two years have passed since the solemn proces- sion that followed George Anderson's remains entered the gates of that silent city, and during those years the whole face of our civiliza- tion has been changed, and the impossible of that day has become the actually realized of this. The government for which he fought and died was long since numbered with the dead empires, and the one against which he bore arms has, with its vast powers constantly cen- tralizing in the hands of an all-absorbing national legislature, become the richest and most powerful on the earth. The State whose loyal and adopted son he was, though stripped of the sovereignty in which, with her sisters, she once robed herself, has long since put off the habiliments of mourning and clad in a new vesture, with renewed hope and courage, is moving majestically onward to a grand destiny. Will she not^ my friends, add to her honor by preserving memorials of her sons who, in the dark days of her trial and sorrow, went out to meet her enemies and died in her defence? In every civilized land such memorials are to be found in greater or less number and are at once a source of just pride with the people and of admiration and respect with the stranger who visits them. And yet I ask where are the memorials which North Carolina has erected to her heroes and statesmen of either the remote or recent past? In all her wide domain, during the hundred years of her existence as a State, and with all her glorious record, there is to be found just one — the Caswell monument, at Kmston. There is not and never has been any other, and tliis one was not erected exclusively by the State. Go to the ca[)ilol at Washington and enter the old hall of representatives, now the hall of statuary. There is a place reserved in it for two statues from each State, and these places are being rapidly filled by the mar- ble and bronze images of distinguished soldiers and statesmen. Look around for North Carolina's contribution. It is not there. Go to