Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 25.djvu/310

 306 SuHtfii-rn Historical Socitf>/

deep letters cut away down into the stone body of the monument, which stands sentinel by day and by night at the west gate of your beautiful Capitol Square, the courage and daring of this command on that day. In a public building overlooking the same square, is a presentment of the youth who perished there. His name I am for- bidden to utter to-day in these exercises, as thousands of others equally brave, equally deserving to be named here, might challenge the record as incomplete, since it spoke less than the whole truth. Bethel was the private soldiers' fight and victory. In the years of war which followed this splendid exhibition of bravery, the soldiers of North Carolina acquitted themselves in noble fashion and achieved imperishable renown.

Good tempered and calm, they were self-restrained obedient to those in authority, not given to complaining, not exacting of those who were set over them. They fought well, meanwhile they were perfected in all the requirements of the service.

They attained precision of movement, rapidity in covering ground, capacity to endure fatigue and an excellence in sustaining long marches which was the admiration of the army.

The greatest accomplishment in soldiers next to courage, is a high power of locomotion.

When Alexander the Great complained of his illustrious master for having exposed philosophy to the knowledge of the vulgar, he uttered a sentiment common to antiquity, and in complete unison with the spirit of his age.

The murmuring multitude have during a hundred years invaded the domain of exclusive rights. Exclusion is doomed. The people have conquered. Education which in its complete analysis is the knowledge of the world's past, its storied past, the achievements and resources of its civilization, its advances and recessions, its toilsome climb is now as completely the birth-right of the citizen as is personal security, personal liberty and private property.

To the full and equal participation of the people of our State in all the rights and privileges which constitutions and statutes assure to the citizen is due in a measure the unanimous decision in 1861 to make common cause with the South, and the heroic determination with which that decision was upheld.

When the true and faithful account of the war is written, there will be accorded to the private soldier of North Carolina a full share