Page:War songs and poems of the Southern Confederacy.djvu/15

 FORE-WORD

songs and poems belong to the Nation. Although our friends at the North will smile at some, wince at others, and even have their blood warmed by one here and there, they must not forget that they were written by their brothers and sisters during a family quarrel when feeling was intense and the fight hot and fast. It is all over now ; we are more united than ever and shall never fall out with each other again. My object has been to rescue from oblivion, these of a people as brave and true as ever lived, and yet within half a century forgetting the past, they have built up their shattered fortunes, and side by side with the men they had once fought, they stood in battle for the defense of our glorious flag. No North, no South, no East, no West, but one and inseparable now and forever. Hm. Wharton . March, 1904. 3