Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/213

 f n/it',< /, 1'iit' Monument at Montgomery, Ala. 203

as tin cross to the Crusader, and he would follow wherever any would carry it.

1 It \\.is not always up on salutes, and the finer points of tactics or guard duty, but in the essentials of inarching, fighting and taking care of himself, he had no superior. He knew how to show respect for the officer he loved, and often he would not go forward until his leader went back, in time of danger. His battalion drill may have been somewhat ragged, but his alignment in the charge was magnif- icent, his fire by file unequaled, and his "rebel yell " the grandest music on earth.

Who that looked on him can ever forget his bright face, his tat- tered jacket, and battered hat, his jests, which tickled the very ribs of death his weary marches in heat and cold and storm ? his pangs of hunger, his parching fever, and agony of wounds his passing away in hospital or prison, when the weak body freed the dauntless soul his bare feet tracing the rugged fields of Virginia, and Geor- gia and Tennessee, with stains like those which reddened the snow at Valley Forge his soul clutching his colors, while suffering and unprotected wife and child cried for him at home his faith and hope and patience to the end his love of home, deference to woman and trust in God his courage which sounded all the depths and shoals of misfortune, and for a time throttled fate the ringing yell of his onset, his battle anthem for native lands rising heavenward above the roar of five hundred stormy fields ?

HIS ANTAGONIST.

While we speak of the Confederate soldier, there rises before us the image of his antagonist, whom none that fought him would ever de- preciate. He came at the call of his State, the earthly tribunal be- fore which it was our faith all men should bow.

He believed, and had been reared to believe, that the future of the Republic demanded but one flag between the seas. Not Pickett's charge at Gettysburg, nor Cleburne's at Franklin, outshone jn vain but glorious valor, the lustre of the assault at Marye's Heights, and his mad charges at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. He had grander courage yet he did not mock us at Appomattox. Had these men the power to control the peace, the Southern soldier had been spared the hardest of the trials that came to him with the end of armed hostilities.