Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/348

 336 Southern Historical Society Papers.

[From the Richmond, Va., Dispatch, May 31, 1894.]

UNVEILING OF THE SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' MONUMENT,

At Richmond, Va., May 30, 1894.

INCIDENTAL CEREMONIES-REV. R. C. CAVE'S NOBLE VINDI- CATION OF THE SOUTHERN CAUSE.

A Demonstration but Little less Imposing than the Parade on the

Occasion of the Dedication of the Monument to

Gen. R. E. Lee in 1890.

The Confederate Soldiers' and Sailors' monument stands unveiled in all its towering and majestic proportions the suggestion of a grand eternal beacon-light radiating the truth as involved in prin- ciple, as well across the stormy track of the past, as into the mists of the future.

The event of yesterday was the crowning recognition of a grateful people of the unparalleled heroism, the splendid valor, and the sub- lime fortitude of the hosts of which history has graven in unefface- able letter, they dashed themselves to pieces against overpowering numbers, but with their shivered shields untarnished and their battle- rent and tattered colors unstained and waiving defiance to the last.

Yesterday was a glorious day glorious in the demonstration that marked it more glorious in the significance of that demonstration. It was a history-making day, the record of which will be bound in the " Golden Book" of Southern memories, whose prologue is the story of the Southland's struggle for constitutional right, and whose other chapters tell of the unveiling of the Jackson, the Lee, the Wickham, the Hill, and the Howitzer monuments, and the obsequies of President Davis.

Similar chapters will follow, when the Davis, Stuart, and Cooke monuments, a monument to the noble women of the South, and other memorials shall have been unveiled, and then time will write the epilogue in the single, but all-sufficient word "VINDICATED!"

CENTRE OF ENTHUSIASM.

Richmond was indeed yesterday again the centre of Southern