Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/234

 226 Southern Historical Society Papers.

fallen, disposes of them most judiciously, inspires them with a por- tion of his own courage, and finally repulses the enemy with loss.

On this day, June ist, John Quincy Marr fell in battle. Was he the first to fall ? It is bootless to inquire. He answered the first call of duty, and he fell upon the field of honor. Virginians can trust posterity and the contemporary opinion of foreign nations, which, it is said, stands towards us in somewhat the same attitude with that of posterity and anticipates its judgment, to make a just award and to assign to us our due share in the glory of that mighty struggle. For that award we shall wait with serene confidence, and with it we shall be content, certain of this at last, that there is enough and to spare for all.

We next hear of Governor Smith as colonel of the Forty-ninth Virginia Infantry at Manassas. To follow his career in detail would be to give the story of the Army of Northern Virginia. At Manas- sas, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, the seven days of battle around Richmond, at Sharpsburg, at Gettysburg, he displayed upon greater and bloodier fields the high soldierly qualities of which he gave promise and earnest at Fairfax Courthouse. At Seven Pines we see him seize a fallen banner and bear it to the front, heedless of a storm of shot and shell; at Sharpsburg all day upon the perilous edge of the fiercest battle of the war, he displayed the highest courage and by his example lifted his men above all fear of the carnival of death, in the midst of which they stood unshaken during that awful day. Oppressed by the weight of years, weary from almost superhuman exertion, bleeding from grievous wounds, his constant soul, mounting with the occasion, was careless of all save the command he had received and the promise he had given to hold the position. Can you conceive of anything finer than that ? And yet it is no fancy picture; it is cold, sober, unadorned truth. What fancy could add to it? The attempt would be wasteful and ridiculous excess. Marshal Ney, reeling from wounds and ex- haustion covered with blood, staggering into a Prussian town and exclaiming, "I am the rear guard of the Grand Army," was not a more heroic figure.

At Gettysburg his conduct was equally admirable, and his readi- ness to perceive and promptness to meet situations as they dis- closed themselves during the ever-changing fortunes of a great battle were again conspicuous and of inestimable value. He had that quickness of physical and intellectual vision which enabled him