Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/372

 360 Southern Historical Society Papers.

sentiments, and there was enthusiastic applause and cheering. When he finished his beautiful peroration there were loud shouts of appro- bation, and he was heartily congratulated. Mr. Cave said:

Ladies and Gentleman and Comrades

of the Army of Northern Virginia :

When I was honored with the invitation to speak on this occasion of the valor and worth of those in memory of whom this monument has been erected I felt somewhat as I imagine one of old felt when, contemplating the infinite, he said: " It is high, I cannot attain unto it. " I felt my inability to rise to " the height of this great argument,' ' and fitly eulogize the soldiers and sailors of the Southern Confed- eracy. And yet I felt impelled to speak some word, however weak, in honor of those tried and true men who fearlessly fronted the foe in defence of home and country, and battled even unto death for a cause which was dear to my heart while its banner proudly floated over victorious fields, and which I have regarded with an affection sanctified and strengthened by sorrow since its banner was furled in the gloom of defeat.

As death paints our loved ones in softer and fairer colors, and brings us to see, as we did not see before,

"Their likeness to the wise below, Their kindred with the great of old,"

so the overthrow of the cause we struggled to maintain gave me a still higher appreciation of it, and brought me to realize more deeply its oneness with the cause of human freedom in every age and land.

NOT THE WILL OF HEAVEN.

I am not one of those who, clinging to the old superstition that the will of Heaven is revealed in the immediate results oi " trial by combat," fancy that right must always be on the side of might, and speak ot Appomattox as a judgment of God. I do not forget that a Suwaroff triumphed and a Kosciusko fell; that a Nero wielded the sceptre of empire and a Paul was beheaded; that a Herod was crowned and a Christ crucified; and, instead of accepting the defeat of the South as a divine verdict against her, I regard it as but another instance of " truth on the scaffold and wrong on the throne."

Appomattox was a triumph of the physically stronger in a conflict