Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/309

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\\.ir with Mexico, and all the battles of our various Indian wars. Add the losses of all the battles of all these wars together, and the total 1"-^ will be K-SS than that of the battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania.

HIS A BRILLIANT ( ARKER.

Alabama is the mother of many brave, heroic sons, but second to none is the young hero whose memory we honor to-night. I say young, because to us, over whose head since then the storms of many years have thundered, that earnest, boyish face comes back as the friend of yesterday. A brilliant career was his few his days, but full of heroic deeds; short but glorious. Gentle and retiring as a maiden, he was brave as a paladin, and stood in the midst of fire and carnage as emotionless and unshaken as a rock. In the words of your own immortal Lee at the battle of Fredericksburg: " It was glorious to see such courage in one so young," and to us who cher- ish heroic deeds, it is a grand thought that the memory of this brave soldier, whose life ebbed out upon the blood-stained banks of the Rap- puhannock, is ever enshrined in the halo of immortal youth, "un- changed by sorrow and undimmed by tears."

It is well-nigh six and thirty years since his sacrifice was consum- mated, and to-night we look upon the semblance of his features in the place of honor prepared for it, and to perpetuate his memory. The years roll on, men come and go and are forgotten, the popular idol of to-day may be fallen ere the morrow, but the memory and the sacrifice of Pelham will live for aye. The passing years but leave an ever deepening tinge of gold upon "red danger's amaranthine wreath " that crowns the youthful patriot's brow. Alabama's crown holds no jewel purer or brighter than the memory of the gallant Pel- ham, and his name shall be cherished with pride and spoken with loving reverence so long as honor and purity and fearless chivalry are dear to the people for whom his life-blood was so gallantly shed.

I cannot resist the temptation of quoting an exquisite sonnet writ- ten by the late Hon. William R. Smith, of Alabama, then a member >f the Confederate Congress, when the sad news of Pelham 's death received in Richmond. These lines have never, to my knowl-

Ige been printed.

I'.ATTLE DEATH.

In Memory of John Pelham.

" I-V1I by his iiims! " Oh, gallant youth! Renown Beheld thy fall, and from the battle's rage