Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/177

 GRADY

his fidelity and faith, he turned his face south- ward from Appomattox in April, 1865.

Think of him as ragged, half-starved, heavy- hearted, enfeebled by want and wounds, having fought to exhaustion, he surrenders his gun, wrings the hands of his comrades in silence, and lifting his tear-stained and pallid face for the last time to the graves that dot old Virginia hills, pulls his gray cap over his brow and begins the slow and faithful journey. What does he find — let me ask you who went to your homes eager to find, in the welcome you had justly earned, full payment for four years' sacri- fice — what does he find when, having followed the battle-stained cross against overwhelming odds, dreading death not half so much as sur- render, he reaches the home he left so prosperous and beautiful?

He finds his house in ruins, his farm devas- tated, his slaves free, his stock killed, his barns empty, his trade destroyed, his money worthless, his social system, feudal in its magnificence, swept away; his people without law or legal status, his comrades slain, and the burdens of others hea\^ on his shoulders. Crushed by de- feat, his very traditions are gone. Without money, credit, employment, material, or train- ing, and, besides all this, confronted with the gravest problem that ever met human intelli- gence, — the establishing of a status for the vast body of his liberated slaves.

What does he do — this hero in gray with a

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