Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/75

 .1 Mnll,, /' n/' //,, Cn]lfl< 1-iH-i/.

Let her stand there as long as the winds of autumn shall sigh gently and sadly over the graves of the buried valor in Hollywood and Oakwood, and deck them with the russet and golden splendor of falling leaves. Let her stand there as long as winter comes with icy fingers to touch the soldiers' graves with frost, and wrap them with the pure and spotless winding sheet of its snows. And Itt her, from her lofty throne, welcome spring, when, with warm sunshine and lovely flowers, she comes to deck the sod which covers the forms of the men who made the gray jacket a mantle of glory, and the southern flag a blazing meteor in history, eternal in all the annals of fame. And when eventide shall come with gentle, vernal showers, just before the sun sinks into his ocean bed, let his last rays from the West, coming across ocean and continent, passing over the city of the dead (Hollywood) and of the living (Richmond), light up the heroic forms in bronze of Robert E. Lee and George Washington, forming, as they reach the Confederate soldier and the Confederate woman, through the falling rain, a gorgeous rainbow, spanning the whole eastern sky, a heavenly crown for the brave man and lovely woman standing there, glorious in the bow and sunshine of hope, and refulgent in the promise of immortality.

[From the Memphis, Tenn., Appeal-Avalanche, June 30, 1894.]

A MOTHER OF THE CONFEDERACY.

Mrs. Sallie Chapman Gordon Law.

Just upon the eve of preparations by ex-Confederates to celebrate the Fourth of July in a becoming manner and spirit, the sad news is announced of the death of the venerable Mrs. Law, known all over the South as one of the mothers of the Confederacy. She was also truly a mother in Israel, in the highest Christian sense. Her life had been closely connected with that of many leading actors in the late great Civil War, in which she, too, took, in her quiet way, an influ- ential part.

She passed away, June 28th, at Idlewild, one of the suburbs of Memphis, nearly eighty-nine years of age.

She was born on the River Yadkin, in Wilkes County, N. C.,