Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/226

222 ruined homes, and a desolate land. Richmond was the object. Virginia, for the most part, was the battleground. She bared her bosom to the storm, and for four long years breasted its fury, yet she faltered not; "but by her example proved that though her soil might be overrun, the spirit of her people was invincible." She lost nothing of her ancient renown. She gave Washington and Lee to the first Revolution. She gave seven Presidents to the Union. She gave Scott and Taylor to the Mexican war, and she gave Lee and Jackson, Ewell, Stuart, and A. P. Hill, among the dead, and Joe Johnston and Jubal Early, and a host of others, among the living, to the Confederacy. She gave, in the day of her wealth and power, an empire to the National Government, and in the day of her exhaustion and weakness, by the action of the same government, her territory was forcibly divided and a State carved out of it. But she still lives, and is to-day an empire within herself, the mother of heroes and States and statesmen, as well, the admiration of her sister States and the pride of her own people. God bless the noble old commonwealth! Richmond fell, then fell Virginia, and then the Confederacy.

My comrades, nearly eighteen years have passed since peace was declared. Of those who survived the war, a large number have, year by year, fallen into their graves; year by year time is tracing its indelible impressions upon us all. Many have grown gray, all of us fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, and we too must soon go the way of all the earth. While we live to us is committed the sacred duty of keeping green the graves, and to preserve unsullied the memories of the dead. While one of us may remain, let him, if need be, like old mortality, devote himself to the pious task of renewing and preserving the records and chiselling deeper in the marble, inscriptions that tell of deeds that must not die, and let me urge you, if it be necessary to this end, to teach your children the names of the battles, the names of the heroes, as far as it can be done, and the graves of the unknown martyrs. Let them take up the sacred task where we leave it, and let them so teach their children's children to the latest generation.