Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 21.djvu/49

 Address of General It. E. Colston. 41

people will be ashamed to stand by the dishonored graves of their fallen champions.

Fellow Southerners, whose teachings and influence can accomplish more than all other agencies combined to hurl back this foul slander in the teeth of that reverend liar ? Who can best guard our posterity from the corrupting venom of falsehood ? Who can so implant the right and justice of our lost cause in f o their souls as to prevail over all the calumnies of our detractors ?

Your hearts reply like mine, " It is the noble, patriotic, unwavering women of the South." Yes, let me repeat this last epithet, for it be- longs peculiar to them. Unwavering, true to the right, true to the South, in the past and in the present, as they will be in the future. This is neither the time nor the place for vapid compliments or ful- some eulogy, and I speak only " the words of truth and soberness," as all of you will testify. We would be baser than the brutes that perish could we forget what the women of the South did to promote the success of our efforts. By night and by day they labored with diligent hands to supply the deficiencies of the government. They nursed the sick and wounded ; they bore sorrows and privations of every kind without a murmur. What they suffered no tongue, no pen can ever express. Yet they never faltered ; they never gave up, and they continued to cheer the sinking hearts of their defenders, and to hope against all hope, even when all was over. And see how nobly they have kept their faith. While some men who once did gallant service in the Southern armies have, alas, turned false for filthy lucre, where are the renegades among Southern women ? Even we who have preserved our truth unstained, have we not grown colder and more forgetful ? Had it depended upon us alone, is there not much reason to fear that our brothers' bones would still lie un- heeded where they fell? Not that we have grown indifferent or estranged, but the claims of the living and the anxieties of misfortune have absorbed our attention. It is these blessed Southern women, whose tender hearts never forget, that deserve the credit of all that has been done among us to preserve from destruction the remains of our brave comrades. Unwearied by all their labors and self-sacrifice during four years of war, they were, like Mary, the first at the graves of their beloved dead. Therefore, to them we may safely entrust the holy ark of our Southern faith. Yes, it is for you, wives, mothers, daughters of the South it is for you far more than for us, to fashion the hearts and thoughts of our children. We have neither the time nor the aptitude that you possess for training the infant mind from