Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/270

 262 Southern Historical Society Papers.

South has been our guiding star. It is, then, with an abiding con- fidence that we entrust this monument to your gentle keeping. To us it is a consecrated column a voice from the storied past, to future generations, may it prove a silent reminder that "It is sweet and honorable to die for one's country."

MONUMENT ACCEPTED.

Honorable H. H. Downing was chosen to accept the monument on behalf of the Warren Memorial Association. Mr. Downing spoke as follows:

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen I know not why the ladies of the Memorial Association have asked me in preference to my more eloquent brethren to receive for them this beautiful monument, unless it is I was a boy in Mosby's Confederacy, and that the lost cause had my heart and but for my tender years should have had my hand. Those of us who lived in the counties of Fauquier and Loudoun, during that memorable struggle, saw more of Mosby and his men than we did of any other part of the Confederate army, and the greatest compliment I can pay them is to say that they were as much loved by us as they were feared by our enemies.

Mosby himself was no ordinary man; he possessed all the courage of Julius Caesar and the promptness of Stonewall Jackson, and the justice' of that great jurist, John Marshall, towards both foe and friend, but when occasion required he did not hesitate to enforce the Mosaic law.

MOSBY AN IDOL.

From the time that he distinguished himself as a Confederate scout to the close of his military career, he had the confidence and praise of those highest in authority, and was the idol of those who knew him best. His men were of the same material, and together they performed a part in our unequal struggle unsurpassed of its kind, and which will read more like romance than history.

The occasion which brings us together to-day is one of no ordinary interest. Within the memory of many now present one section of this great country was arrayed in solid phalanx against the other, and literally brother's hand was raised against brother. Then we had war with all of its concomitant horrors. To-day we look upon a reunited people and over a landscape smiling with peace and plenty. Thirty-five years ago to-day, from this eminence, you might have seen six unarmed and defenceless men executed in blood by the