Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/165

 General Joseph Eggleston Johnston. 165

soldier, without fear and without reproach and full of well-earned honors.

2. That in his death she mourns the loss of one of the most noble and the most loyal of all her heroic sons.

3. That, so far as such final disposition of his remains can be har- monized with the wishes and plans of the General's family, the people of Richmond and, we are confident, the people of Virginia as well, crave the noble body, scarred with ten honorable wounds, and ask that they be permitted to lay it reverently to rest here, in his native soil, at such place in or near the city of Richmond as may hereafter be determined upon.

4. That the foregoing minute and resolutions be communicated to to the family of General Johnston, accompanied by our reverent sympathies."

MAJOR STILES' REMARKS.

Major Stiles, in speaking to the resolutions, said that General Johnston was the grandest man he had ever known in respect of per- sonal friendly relations. He was, however, so essentially a soldier that he was not in touch with the people and was not esteemed as other men were.

The speaker believed that if he could communicate with the old hero he would thank him for putting before the people the life of the soldier. Public sentiment, continued Major Stiles, does not do jus- tice to the soldier. The whole force of modern society is given to the accumulation of wealth. The soldier never accumulates. It was contended that the time of the soldier had passed. This is no 1 true. All civilization is born of the blood of the soldier and founded on the bullet and the sword. The Christian civilization is iron-bound and will be until the millennium. The contrary idea was a false rep- resentation of the Christian religion. The speaker showed how Sir Philip Sidney, Havelock, Chinese Gordon, Jackson, Lee, and others were not anomalies, but the development of the soldier-life, and drew a striking picture of General Johnston the soldierly type.

INFINITE AND ABSOLUTE COURAGE.

He was, Major Stiles said, the embodiment of infinite and absolute courage. There was as much courage and nobility in his small frame as could have been packed in that of a man of six feet six inches. The