Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/358

 352 Southern Historical Society Papers.

UNVEILING OF THE STATUE OF GENERAL AMBROSE POWELL HILL

AT RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, MAY 30, 1892.

With the Oration of General James A. Walker on the Occasion.

[From the Richmond Dispatch, May 31, 1892.]

Richmond is a city of memories and it must also be a city of monuments; monuments which entwine our hearts with the past and pledge us to a patriotic future.

We have now a monument in Oakwood cemetary to the sixteen thousand dead buried there; a granite column (nearly finished) in Marshall Park (Libby Hill) to all of the soldiers and sailors of the Confederacy ; a statue to Stonewall Jackson in the Capitol Square ; a granite pyramidal pile to the twelve thousand Confederate dead in Hollywood, and in the same cemetary monuments over the graves of Pickett, Stuart, Maury and others; a statue of Wickham in Mon- roe Park, and an equestrian statue of Lee at the west end of Frank- lin street. Our duty in this respect to A. P. Hill is also done, and movements are on foot to do like honor to President Davis and to "Jeb" Stuart.

The people of Richmond gave themselves up on the 3Oth of May heartily and enthusiastically to the two great events to which the day had been dedicated the unveiling of the statue of General Ambrose Powell Hill and the Hollywood memorial ceremonies.

The 3oth of May, 1892, has passed into history as a date on which the patriotic pulse was regnant. The scenes of the morning fill another tablet to be laid away along with those on which are inscribed the records of the unveiling of the Jackson and Hill statues. The scenes of the afternoon were a repetition in large measure of what has occurred annually for over two decades, but they never lose their freshness, nor can they become less pregnant with a beautiful and touching lesson as time rolls on.

The note of preparation for the actual demonstration began Sun- day afternoon. On every train military companies and camps were arriving, and by midnight the man seen on the street who did not have on uniform or wear a badge was the exception.