Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 40.djvu/305

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I have been honored by the Pickett-Buchanan Camp of Confederate Veterans, in being selected to be their spokesman upon this interesting and inspiring occasion, to greet and welcome you as their guests, to our city and section of our grand old Commonwealth of Virginia. I fully appreciate the distinguished honor thus conferred upon me, but for your sakes I wish it had fallen to one better able than I to measure up to the requirements of the occasion. When I was appointed, feeling my insufficiency, I urged them to choose some one else. They were indiscreet enough to decline. Upon which, I consented, saying, "Well, my comrades, I will charge that battery, and if I am repulsed, upon you must rest the responsibility." Thus the honor of welcoming you, upon your Twentieth Annual Reunion, is placed on me, and inspired by the memory of your courage and patriotism in time of war, your patience and fortitude since, I speak as to men who, during all the vicissitudes of life, have been tried and proven, and have never been found lacking in anything going to make up true and loyal manhood and citizenship.

My friends, noble patriots, followers of the immortal Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, you, under God's benign and merciful wisdom, are spared a small remnant of a noble race of men. who with the courage of their convictions, unhesitatingly rushed, at the call of our dear old mother State, Virginia, to meet and battle with the invaders and despoilers of her sacred soil. Your noble deeds have not been surpassed in the annals of history.

We annually assemble, with no rancor in our hearts towards our late foes, but to keep in everlasting remembrance the fact