Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/297

 Southern Genius. 291

To my mind there has been nothing in history or past experience comparable to their fortitude, courage and devotion. Instances may be cited where the women of a country battling for its rights and liberties have sustained themselves under the hardest fate, and made great sacrifices for the cause they loved and the men they honored and respected, but I challenge comparison in any period of the world's history with the sufferings, anxieties, fidelity and firmness of the fair, delicate women of the South during the struggle for Southern inde- pendence and since its disastrous termination. Disappointed in the failure of a cause for which they had suffered so much, baffled in the fondest hopes of an earnest patriotism, impoverished by the iron hand of relentless war, desolated in their hearts by the cruel fate of unsuccessful battle, and bereft of the tenderest ties that bound them to earth, mourning over the disrnalest prospect that ever converted the happiest, fairest land to waste and desolation, consumed by anx- iety and the darkest forebodings for the future, they have never lowered the exalted crest of true Southern womanhood, nor pandered to a sentiment that would compromise with dishonor. They have found time, amid the want and anxiety of desolated homes, to keep fresh and green the graves of their dead soldiers, when thrrft and comfort might have followed cringing and convenient oblivion of the past. They had the courage to build monuments to their dead, and work with that beautiful faith and silent energy which makes kinship to angels, and lights up with the fire from heaven the resistless power of woman's boundless capabilities. When men have flagged and faltered, dallied with dishonor and fallen, the women of the South have rebuilt the altars of patriotism and relumed the fires of devo- tion to country in the hearts of halting manhood. They have borne the burden of their own griefs, and vitalized the spirits and firmness of the men.

All honor, all hail to woman's matchless achievements, and thanks, a thousand thanks, for the grand triumph and priceless example of her devoted heroism. Appropriately may she have exclaimed :

" Here I and sorrow sit, This is my throne, let kings come bow to it."

And yet even to this day, in certain minds, the "staying qualities" of the Southern people is denied. Quick to anger they say, im- petuous, irascible, but unequal to continuous effort or the accom- plishment of great ends. To the world at large, this delusion was dispelled by their conduct in the great war. In the few minds