Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/272

 264 Southern Historical Society Papers.

THE OLD SOUTH.

Recently a great deal has been written about the New South ; to my mind this term is somewhat ambiguous. If its authors intend to convey the idea that since 1865 the Confederate soldier has been succeeded by a new race a race with different thoughts and different sentiment from those who wore the gray, and that our heroes are apologizing and begging for forgiveness for the part they took in the conflict between the States, and that all of our posterity has come from this alien race then I for one must protest at such a perversion of history and truth.

I have no more use for such a New South than I have for the so- called new woman.

If, on the other hand, these writers, when they speak of the Southern Confederacy as the New South, mean that our boys ac- cepted the surrender at Appomattox in good faith, and that when Lee, that grandest of our great men, sheathed his sword at Appomattox, that they returned home and beat their implements of war into plow- shares and pruning hooks, and that all, even those who had never known aught save luxury, they and their wives, their sons and their daughters, worked as man never worked before, obeying the laws of their country and administering the same as soon as they were per- mitted to do so, then I would pronounce a long and a loud "Amen."

THE OLD CONFEDERATES.

Who since the war have been our legislators, our judges, our juries, our merchants, our mechanics, our miners, our ministers. These have chiefly been the old Confeds. It may be they were maimed and disfigured, but their hearts and their minds were all right, and with their one arm and their one leg they worked mightily for the upbuilding of the South. We have never been able to pen- sion them with aught save our love, and for God's sake do not per- mit them to be robbed of that honor which they and they alone have so worthily won.

In honoring the dead we must not forget the living. I see before me a thin line of Confederate Veterans, men who have faced death a hundred times for their country and for us; year by year another and another of these will fall out of ranks "and pass over the river to rest under the shade of the trees," until finally when the earthly roll shall be called there will be no one to answer, unless