Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/446

 440 Southern Historical Society Papers.

improved by man, could have been in the recent past the scene of armed contest between men of the same blood and lineage, having the same pride and the same traditions, like hopes and aspirations. To one familiar with the bitterness and heartburning that the history of those times recalls, it would seem even less credible that the men of the South could be here to perpetuate by monumental record the memory of their own achievements. Is it then difficult to j-ealize that the choicest handiwork of nature and of man may, in the track of human passion, be trampled in the dust? ' A field of the dead rushes red upon the sight' in quick response. Is it difficult for us, in our conception of the workings of human nature, to realize the possi- bilities exemplified by the courteous recognition of our privileges on this field, thus made a common heritage? Let us all with bowed heads have thankful hearts that time, the great healer and as- suager, has so far softened the memory, so far healed the bitterness of the past, that the men of Maryland, who once upheld the banner of the Southern Cross, may here erect, under the very shadow of tributes to the Union dead, this memorial evidence of soldierly work demanded, and soldierly work well done, by the men of their com- mand on the fateful days of Gettysburg

" Without all thought of bitterness, without all fear of misconcep- tion, lift we then the curtain of the past, knowing that behind its folds there is to us no shame to those who were our enemies, no cause for further estrangement or distrust.

"We stand, my friends, where, for the three long July days of 1863. the armies of Lee and Meade -with almost more than human effort and endurance — strove for victory. This alone would render it a point of no ordinary interest even to the casual passer-by. To every American there is something more, for, as by intuitive percep- tion, it is felt that the contest here had in it those features that give it rank in the history of nations by the side of the mighty conflicts that in their results have marked out the destiny of the world. Upon the i.ssue of that contest hung, so far as human intelligence can tell of possible results, the decision of questions that, dating back lor their inception to the very foundation of our government, had, as matter- of prime political faith, handed down from father to son, been so cherished by generation after generation of the two great sections of the North and South that their lines of political thought had at length so diverged tiiat there was no possible outcome save by resort to that dread arbiter from whose decision there can be no appeal. With full realization of the responsibilities involved in the act, the

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