Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/528

 522 Southern Historical Society Papers.

The Campaign from the Wilderness to Petersburg — Address of Colonel C. S Venable (formerly of General R. E. Lee's Staff), of the University of Virginia, before the Virginia Division f the Army of Northern Virginia, at their Annual Meeting, held in the Virginia State Capitol, at Richmond, Thursday Evening, October 30th, 1873.

[This address ought ere this to have been put in our records, and would have been but for the delay of the distinguished and busy author to furnish the MS., and the subsequent pressure upon our pages. Our readers will recognize it as a valuable and interesting contribution to our history.]

Comrades afid Friends :

Warmly appreciating the kindness and good will of the Execu- tive Committee in extending to me the honor of an invitation to address you on this occasion, and recognizing the duty of every Con- federate soldier in Virginia to do his part in the promotion of the objects of this Association, I am here in obedience to your call. Fellow-soldiers, we are not here to mourn over that which we failed to accomplish ; to indulge in vain regrets of the past ; to repine be- cause, in accepting the stern arbitrament of arms, we have lost; nor merely to make vain-glorious boast of victories achieved and deeds of valor done. But we are met together as citizens of Virginia, as American freemen (a title won for us by the valor and wisdom of our forefathers), with a full sense of our responsibilities in the present and in the future which lies before us, to renew the friendships formed in that time of trial and of danger, when at the call of our grand old Mother we stood shoulder to shoulder in her defence. More than this: we are met to preserve to Virginia— to the South and to America — the true records of the valor, the constancy and heroic lortitude of the men who fought on field and flood under the banner of the Southern Cross. With this view, I have thought it not inappro- priate on this occasion to give a brief outline ol some facts and inci- dents of the campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Petersburg, which may be of some little use as a memoir to some future seeker after historic truth. I am aware that in this I am in danger of repeating much tiiat has been told by dif- ferent biographers and historians; but my desire is to give correct!\- some incidents of which I was an eye-witness in that wonderful cam paign, and to state in brief outline, some facts — accurate contempo rary knowledge of which I had the opportunity of obtaining — and to