Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 17.djvu/401

 Soldiers' Monument 393

city, among the latter notably Mrs. Keiley, the wife of Hon. Anthony M. Keiley. But as the changes have been brought about the vacant places have been filled, and the work to which the ladies first devoted themselves has never wavered, has never been allowed to diminish, and now, finally their labors have been crowned with the success for what they have toiled so arduously. They have actually gone from " a headstone to a monument— from a wooden slab to a monument in bronze/* as one of the original members said to-day to a Dispatch reporter.

THE FIRST MANAGERS.

The first Board of Managers appointed was on May i6, 1866, when these ladies, well known and honored throughout the whole of Southside Virginia, agreed to act as such : Mrs. R. G. Pegram, Mrs. J. H. Claiborne, Mrs. David Dugger, Mrs. Louisa McGill, Mrs. W.

S. Simpson, Jr., Mrs. Mahood, Mrs. Richard Bagby, Mrs.

Alphonse Jackson, Mrs. General D. A. Weisiger, Mrs. Colonel

Williams, and Mrs. P. B. Batte.

THEIR GLORIOUS OBJECT.

The ladies announced as their principal object the gathering to- gether of the remains of the Confederate dead who were buried in this vicinity and their reburial in the precincts of Blandford ceme- tery ; and furthermore, the decoration of these graves every year upon such an anniversary as should be thereafter fixed. How faith- fully they have kept to their work, how in the face of poverty and the most trying obstacles they have fulfilled their pledge, the neatly- trimmed graves in Blandford will attest.

BODIES FROM GETTYSBURG.

Not content with gathering together the bones of the dead near this city, they actually brought here the mortal remains of brave Virginians who died at Gettysburg, as well as at Fredericksburg, Seven Pines, and Antietam. Then, when the section devoted to the known and unknown in our cemetery had been beautifully turfed, when neat head-boards had been raised over each grave, when all had been done that could be done, and a memorial arch raised its bow over the braves that slept, then these noble women addressed them- selves to the task of rearing a fitting monument to crown their work through the sad years of the past.