Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/32

 20 Southern Historical Society Papers.

on Missionary Ridge these men saw those two lines of the enemy extending unbroken and two ranks deep from one end of the valley to the other until both ends were lost to view and learned from reliable sources that heavy columns were in their rear, and then, when the attack came, had it verified by the actual firing behind them ; little wonder, I say, it is that the patience of that army with their commander was exhausted and they refused to remain in the trap and go to prison for him.

Third. You and I, my comrades, are getting old. Life, this life, mostly, is behind us ! What have we found in it, after all (except those of us who have found a Saviour and fought a still more glorious fight under Him) ; what, I say, have we found in this life in itself coint'Cirahlc to the Glow of our Yoiitli! That war, despite its horrors, made us a "chosen generation!" It found us boys and made us men ! It awakened in our hearts and exhibited in our lives the noblest emotions and motives and virtues that human nature is capable of. It developed in us tireless energies, a nobler contempt for danger, a calm and cheerful fortitude, an unconquerable patience and perseverance in surmounting difficulties and privations, a fearless familiarity Vv'ith battle, peril and death, an unselfish sharing of all we had with comrades, even to the last crumb of bread or drop of water ; a devotion to an ideal, even to self-effacement ; a scorn for meanness, desertion, selfishness, faithlessness to duty : it made us true judges of human nature, with power to dis- tinguish the true from the false, despite conventionalities ; it packed the pages of history with our deeds; it will make us live in song and story ; it trained us for the longer and more Corrupting battle which came after, the battle with the world, the battle we have been in ever since, and it helped us to play a good part in this fight also, for the Confederate soldier has made a good name for himself in peace as well as in war !

Fourth. Nor must we in our review of that war and its prominent actors, make the common mistake of going to ex- tremes. We must not, in our estimate of General Bragg, allow his defects as a commander to blind us to his virtues as a