Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 32.djvu/302

 290 Southern Historical Society Papers.

peace to the State, within its borders, for three years. So at Bethel, in 1 86 r, the first victory in pitched battle of the United Confederacy was won by North Carolinians.

[Reference may be made to the Report of the History Commit- tee of the Grand Camp, C. V., of Virginia, Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XXXI, p. 347.]

A simple monument at Moore's Creek tells the story of the men who fought there. Our citizens celebrated with much rejoicing and patriotic spirit the centenary of that victory, but heaped no insults upon the memory of the brave men who fought on the other side. Only kindly admiration was expressed for gallant Scotchmen who died there. Nor is it expected of their descendants, our fellow citi- zens of to-day, as proof of present loyalty, that they shall condemn the action of their fathers. With General Frank Nash our kinsfolk went to death at German town, in the long ago. With Mad An- thony Wayne they went to that desperate bayonet charge at Stony Point; with Jethro Sumner at Eutaw Springs; with Morgan and Greene; with Davie, Davidson and Graham; with Hogan at Charles- ton wherever duty called or danger was to be dared they were to be found until the end of that long struggle which ended success- fully for them. Well, the swift years flew by, and in 1861 our State, whose behest we were ever taught is paramount to all, again sum- moned her sons to repel invasion and to uphold the right of self- government and it cannot be too often or too strongly emphasized that they fought only to resist invasion and to vindicate the right of self-government and in the brave old way, as in the brave old times of the past, they came at her call, and with Branch and Fender and Pettigrew, with Daniel and Whiting and Ramseur, with Hoke and with Ransom, at Newbern, at Richmond, at Manassas, and at Sharpsburg, at Fredericksburg, at Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg and at Chickamauga, in the Wilderness and at Petersburg, at Fort Fisher, Averysboro and at Bentonville, they freely offered their young lives as the last evidence they could give of their earnest con- viction of right and duty. Of their fortitude under hardship, of their unflinching courage and self-sacrificing devotion you need no reminder. .

Suffice it to say that in the same brave old way, learned from those who in like manner had gone forth in the first revolution, they met their sad fate, doing all that men could do to maintain their