Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/189

 General Joseph Eggleston Johnston. 189

MEMORIAL SERVICES IN MEMPHIS TENN., MARCH 31, 1891.

MEMORIAL OF His LIFE AND ADDRESSES BY MAJOR T. B. EDGINGTON, GENERAL GEORGE W.GORDON, COLONEL CASEY YOUNG AND OTHERS.

The services in honor of the memory of General Johnston, held in Memphis, Tennessee, in the Grand Opera House, on the night of March 31, were of the most impressive character.

Throughout they were marked by simplicity and earnestness. The speeches were not marked by oratorical flights, but they were eloquent, for they told the life story of a man among ten thousand. The music, sadly beautiful, seemed typical of the transportation of a commotion into a land calm and quiet. On the stage to the right there stood the picture of Johnston draped and embowered with flags and flowers. To the left a broken column built of immortels, roses, lilies and smilax reared its head. Between the two stood the speakers of the evening. With his hand resting upon a sable-colored table, Colonel Luke Finley read the memorial address prepared by himself, Samuel P. Walker, Lude E. Wright, George W. Gordon and L. B. McFarland. It was a tribute to a comrade from men who had fol- lowed him in the wake of war and had stood shoulder to shoulder with him when the battle fiercely raged. It told of his career, the momentous part he played in the greatest war of modern times; it recited his life as a citizen and told of his noble attributes and char- acteristics. No more eloquent tribute could be paid to any man than that contained in that address. The Hon. T. B. Edgington and General George W. Gordon stood beside that picture and column and laid garlands of praise upon the tomb of their departed friend, and the Hon. Casey Young, in language both beautiful and eloquent, told of the departed one's career as a servant of the people and of his sunny home-life.

In the rear of these emblems were three rows of chairs, occupied by the vice-presidents of the meeting, and still further back were rows of seats arranged for the military. The audience filled the theatre long before 8 o'clock, and the Southern Mothers and the members of the Ladies' Confederate Memorial Association had taken their*places in the boxes before the soldier boys put in appearance. Shortly the "tramp, tramp," announced their arrival and they