Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/207

 Monument to Dt'h'iHltT* nf \ V,-/r.v/^//v/. l.i f i

ones from every hearthstone? Is there a single family that did not lose one member ? How few there are that lost only one.

" The gray blends not with the blue, Graves sever them in twain."

A grateful government has collected the bones of her soldiers, and placed them in splendid national cemeteries ; 275,000 of 359,528 men who died for it, lie buried beneath the sod of the South. I honor a people who have thus honored those who died for them. But while this is the case, the comrades and descendants of those who fell on the Confederate side of the " War between the States," would be cravens if they forgot the tender memories of the dead and buried past. Who can forget that ?

"The folded flag is stainless still, the broken sword is bright. No blot is on thy record found, no treason soils thy fame."

Macaulay, the historian, says : " A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestry, will never achieve any- thing worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants."

My friends, it is a duty to preserve the record and honor of such sacrifices, such privations, such patriotism, such endurance of hard- ship. This is why we raise monuments to our honored dead. While we live, nothing is needed to keep alive the memories of our com- rades who fell on the field of battle, but we wish to make our lost cause consecrated forever to the hearts of our descendants. We wish to hand down to our posterity a feeling of reverence for their heroic forefathers, who risked their lives and lost their fortunes for their country. Defeat and poverty cannot check our homage to their memory. And we unveil a monument this day which commemorates their valor. But this is not all. If I had my way, on the corner- stone would be an inscription to remind all who see it, that its erection was due to the energy and devotion of the lovely women of Vicks- burg. They, and all of our Southern women, cannot be too highly honored; the greatest patriots of the war were those who carried on the silent struggle at home; their endurance, their endeavors was the vital spirit of the Confederacy. Great as were the privations of the soldiers in the field, theirs were greater at home. They had none of the excitement, all of the anxiety.