Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 25.djvu/5

 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Vol. XXV. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1897.

The Career of Wise's Brigade, 1861-5.

AN ADDRESS

Delivered by GENERAL HENRY A. WISE, near Cappahoosk, Gloucester County, Virginia, about 1870.

The following graphic address, is now first printed, from the original manuscript in the autograph of the "Noble Old Roman" who died at Richmond, Va., Sept. 12, 1876, an " unrepentant rebel," without government pardon.

It is unfortunately undated, and without definite statement of place of delivery. The object appears to have been to secure funds to meet the cost of gathering together the remains of soldiers from Gloucester county, who died in defence of the South, and to duly mark their graves. A monument has been since erected at Glouces- ter Courthouse.

The address has been furnished by Mr. Barton Haxall Wise, a young lawyer of Richmond, Va., who has in preparation a life of his distinguished grandfather, whose public services thread the warp of our National history for quite a half century:

Surviving Comrades of the Confederate War,

of the County of Gloucester, Ladies and Gentlemen :

The people of no section of the South were more self-sacrificing in their devotion to the "Confederate Cause," or more heroic in its defence, than were the inhabitants of the five peninsulas lying be- tween the Potomac and Rappahannock, the Rappahannock and the York, the York and the James, the James and the Nottoway, and the Eastern Shore of the. Chesapeake Bay.

The whole Atlantic and Bay Coasts from Hatteras to Assateague Island and the mouth of the Potomac river, were accessible to war steamers far above the head of tidewater, and the rivers and estua- ries so parted each from the others that they could not readily or