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 The Trials n<l 7V/"/ o/' Jefferson Uurix. 45

claim to our affection. The women of the South whose tender care was lavished upon the sick and wounded; whose Spartan courage bade their sons, husbands, and lovers go forth to battle while they uncomplaining assumed the stern duty of providing for the house- hold; who unflinchingly preserved under all conditions of adversity and trial, and even when their loved ones had fallen, abated not a jot in their steadfastness and loyalty, but whose every word and deed gave emphasis to the sentiment, ' Better an honored grave than a dishonored life ' to these daughters of our fair Southland we yield our grateful homage. To one of these we this day rear in enduring granite a mark of our loving remembrance, and place on record our appreciation of her eminent virtues and inestimable services Jane Claudia Johnson."

"THE TRIALS AND TRIAL OF JEFFERSON

DAVIS."

A Paper Read by Charles M. Blackford, of the Lynchburg

Bar,

BEFORE THE TENTH ANNUAL MEETING

Of the Virginia State Bar Association, Held at Old Point Comfort, Va.,

July 17-19, 1900.

Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Virginia State Bar Association, Ladies and Gentlemen :

In the spring of 1865, the States and armies of the Southern Con- federacy yielded to the overwhelming numbers of their adversaries and the failure of their own resources. The result was the surrender of a people whose constancy and whose heroic struggle had won the applause and admiration of the world, and will, in the far future, be the common boast of every American citizen.

Of the States which thus yielded to fate, President Jefferson Davis had been the representative and executive head. When the armies which had maintained his government were successively dissolved he was left defenceless. He was nearly sixty years of age, in feeble