Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/94

 94 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Cadmus M. Wilcox; Brigadier-General E. A. O'Neal, ex-Governor of Alabama; the Honorable James M. Smith, member of Confederate Congress and afterwards governor of Georgia; Brigadier-General B. D. Fry, at one time commanding in this city; Brigadier-General R. J. Henderson, of Georgia; Brigadier-General Thomas F. Drayton, of South Carolina; Joseph Eggleston Johnston, the hero of four wars, a most noted leader of Confederate armies, honored at home and abroad, and, general Beauregard excepted, sole survivor of those who were entrusted with the rank of General in the military service of the Confederacy; the Honorable Augustus R. Wright, of Georgia, legislator, jurist, and orator, the compeer of Toombs and Stephens and Cobb, and a signer of the Confederate Constitution; Brigadier-General Albert Pike, poet, scholar, and Grand Commander of Scottish Rite Masonry in the Southern jurisdiction, gone where the mysteries which confuse the speculations and embarass the inquiries of the present are already solved in the light of eternal day or are pretermitted in the calm of never-ending repose; Colonel William L. Saunders, for twelve years Secretary of State of North Corolina, the capable editor of the Colonial Records of that Commonwealth, and a gallant officer; Brigadier-General Lucius J. Gartrell, of Georgia, an eloquent advocate and an ex- member of Confederate Congress; Colonel Daniel G. Fowle, a true Confederate, and, at the time of his sudden death, occupying the gubernatorial chair of North Carolina; and Brigadier-General John R. Cooke, of Missouri, accredited by official appointment to the Old North State, have all succumbed to the attack of the "Black Knight with visor down," whose onset none may successfully resist.*

Laying to heart the lesson of this Memorial season, and remembering that we, too, are powerless to elude "Mortality's strong hand," let us, my friends, contemplate with composure and anticipate with philosophic resignation the advent of the inevitable hour. "If it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all."

Honored as we are by the presence of one who, as Master of Horse of the Army of Northern Virginia, as governor, senator,


 * On the second day succeeding the delivery of this address, April 29th, Brigadier-General Armistead Lindsay Long, late Chief of Artillery of the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, and the military biographer of General Robert E. Lee, "Crossed the river," and rested with his immortal Chief.