Confederate Memorial Dedication 1901

[proud texan]

Confederate Memorial Dedication 1901 from Livingston,TEXAS. My home town. A little long, but a great read. Includes the soldiers point of view in regards to the reasons for secession, and causes of the war.

ADDRESS
OF
JUDGE J. M. CROSSON
AT THE
Confederate Monument Unveiling, October 10, 1901,
After a short but very appropriate introduction by Judge
J. E. Hill, and as the monument was unveiled by Miss Rowena
Green, the speaker said
:
All hail, monument dedicated to the brave and true!
Your top should be reaching the sky,
Proclaiming what you represent;
How true men and patriots can die.
Oh, silent and "lone monument!
You speak of the soldiers in gray,
Whose pluck, though their numbers were few,
In triumph so oft won the day,
And wrested the palm from the blue.
•
The fame of their deeds shall abide
In the hearts of our people, who dwell
In the land at whose mandate they died
—
The storm-cradled nation that fell.
Oh, voiceless stone, you tell the story of their glory
!
Now, Miss Rowena Green, the beautiful and accomplished
daughter of a comrade, a hero of Hood's Brigade—A. B. Green—
and the granddaughter of David G. Green, a hero
of the Texas revolution, I salute you. As you unveiled this
monument our hearts swelled with patriotic emotion. May
your pathway through life be strewn with flowers sweet
as your own amiable and lovely character.
Comrades, I am grateful for the invitation that brings
me here to my old home and comrades, to address you. 1
love Polk ; I love her rivers and her rills, her vales and her
hills; her brave sons and lovely daughters. My comrades, I
greet you! I am proud to see so many here, with heads
erect as when the bullets of volleyed thunder went wildly
screaming o'er the empurpled field in a tempestuous storm
of fire.
Fair Daughters of the Confederacy, the uncrowned queens
of our hearts, the inspiration of every noble and chivalrous
deed—I salute you!
Dear, sweet ladies, our hearts are thine
'Till the springs of life shall fail,
'Till the cords of life shall sever.
Sons of the Confederacy, I greet you! This monument
will remind you of your heroic ancestry, and the basic principles
of human liberty.
On an occasion like this we should not forget the heroes
of the Texas Revolution. Valentine Burch, James Burch,
Claiborne, Holshausen, Harnett Hardin and David G Green
should be remembered when deeds of patriotic valor are
mentioned—great, grand, good patriotic citizens. When
clouds and darkness was over Texas, and our citizens were
fleeing, Houston turned, and the two Burches performed valiant
duty on the field of San Jacinto. The other three were
hastening to join the army, but were delayed by high waters,
and after swimming bayous, reached the army next day.
When you decorate the graves of your heroes, put chaplets
of flowers on their graves.
Standing by this monument we will discuss the heroism
of the Confederate soldiers—"how defeat does not always
establish the wrong"—how the organic principles of constitutional
liberty went down in a bloody night—how principle
lost, and force won.
This monument will keep alive in our own hearts the ties
that can only be expressed by the strong grasp of the hand,
the quivering lip, the falling tear, and can only die when our
hearts lie moldering in the grave.
This is a day for memories sad, sweet and hallowed; this
day you perpetuate the heroic deeds of your fallen comrades;
this monument will remind your children's children as they
pass this way of their heroic virtues.
Oh, heroes of life's valiant age,
With patriot visions bright,
There's none so brave as he who fails
Or dies for freedom's right.
The editor of The Local has well said: "The language on
this monument is not only eloquent, but speaks volumes of
history; recalls struggles, war, suffering, devotion to principles
that was not born to die."
What exciting memories this monument arouses, carrying
us back to the days of '61-'65. In it you pay loving tribute
to the boys of Polk, who, with gay and gladsome tread, bid
good-bye to home and loved ones, singing, "Cheer, boys,
cheer, we'll march away to battle," and going straight to
the front, went to their death in a vain but heroic struggle.
Though over a third of a century has passed, recollections
of them as they marched away to battle come crowding
upon us as we gaze on this monument, set here by loving
hands and tender hearts as a testimonial to their virtues.
Aye, when this monument shall have crumbled into dust,
Confederate principles will live a model for generations yet
unborn. "Avalanches of defeat never kill a principle."
Your camp is well named. Among the iron men of Polk
who, with dazzling grandeur, trod the crimson paths of war,
there is no brighter star in this galaxy of glory than Captain
Ike Turner, who sleeps, and glory is his sentinel.
Polk furnished more soldiers than she had voters, and as
large, if not a larger, number in proportion to her white
population than any other county in the State.
In 1861 she sent four companies, three of which were in
Hood's historic brigade, and in Green's splendid brigade.
Company B, First Texas, was the first to respond to the call
to arms—in June, '61—D. D. Moore, captain, and R. B. De-
Walt, lieutenant, inspired with patriotic zeal, organized it.
Company H, Fifth Texas, left for the front the latter part
of August, 1861. John S. Cleveland, captain, always bore
himself with magnificent devotion and courage.
Company K, Fifth Texas, started to the "front September
3, 1861, I. N. M. Tamer, captain, a superb soldier, to whom
I have heretofore alluded.
Company F, Fourth T. M. I., went to the front September
9, 1861, J. M. Crosson, captain.
Three companies were organized in 1862.
Company E, Twentieth Texas, went to the front March
2, 1862, J. H. McCardell, captain, a noble soldier, a learned,
intellectual, polished gentleman, loved by all. It is good for
us to have known so good and pure a man.
Company K, Fourteenth Texas, organized June, 1862,
S. Lyles, captain.
Company F, Twenty-second Texas, I. A. Scruggs, captain.
The last two belonged to Walker's division.
Of the living we say nothing ; they must speak for themselves.
They were earnest, brave men, full of dash and steadiness.
From Glorietta to Appomattox they fell on "the red sands
of the battlefield with bloody corpses strewn."
Comrades, with us there is snow in the hair. The frosts
are whitening the locks the bullets once kissed. We have
passed the summit of the mountain, and are fast hurrying
into the shadows of the valley. We are dropping from the
ranks one by one, and soon will be floating out into the sea
of eternity; and in our hearts the fires of passion have long
since ceased to burn. Whilst a universal charity has thrown the white blanket
of forgiveness over the individual misguided men in blue,
we cannot condone their cruel crime in waging a war against
us, contrary to the teachings of the Declaration of Independence,
and the organic principles of American freedom.
After the war, reconstruction. Of this Governor Ross
said: ''Those whose hatred remained implacable were those
who held high carnival in the rear, and snored louder in
their beds at home than they shouted on the battlefield, and
after danger had passed emerged from their hiding places
and gave us the horrid nightmare of reconstruction." They
were politicians who never heard the wild rebel yell, and
placed over us negroes, carpetbaggers (ghouls full of spleen
and arrogance) and scalawags; hellish cormorants, who are
named in the order of their respectability, and who have
sunk so low in the depths of infamy that the eye of fancy
scarce can reach them.
There are two individuals I hate—the devil and the politician.
Two classes I love—the old Confederates and the
women. God bless them!
But peace came when General Grant said, "Let us have
peace," and standing by Governor Coke, tore the hands of
the traitor, E. J. Davis, from the throat of Texas, and stood
by Governor Coke. For this act, honor to General Grant.
Then white-winged peace o'ershadowed our land, and we
buried our passions in pathos as we had buried our heroes
in love.

 

[proud texan]

This dedication of this monument is not a revival of the
war spirit; and whilst we respect the genuine individual soldiers
in blue, who answered to the call of his home State
(not the traitors from the South nor foreigners and hirelings,
who sold their blood for money), we cannot, we dare
not, we will not, esteem them as we do our gallant comrades
"who, when the shot hailed in deadly drafts of fiery spray,"
stood beside us, amid the gleaming of sword blades, the
roaring of cannon, and fought for a cause just and right.
"It is Christ-like to forgive wrong, but not Christ-like to
honor wrong."
The Yanks invaded us, fought for a policy contrary to
the Constitution ; they were traitors to the Constitution. We
fought for a principle—the right to govern ourselves.
They call us rebels, and the G. A. R. and a cloud of pensioners
so nominate us now.
The men of '76 were rebels and their fame is as enduring
as the stars. It is, has been and always will be a glorious
title.
Aye, when beneath some grassy mound I lie sleeping, life's
fitful fever o'er, I want no prouder epitaph than, "Here lies
a ragged rebel."
The grand old patriots of Mecklenburg, N. C,—"the hornet's
nest of rebels"—in May, '75, followed by the Declaration
of Independence, July 4, '76, announced the basic principle
of our liberties, "that governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed," "Liberty is not
the gift of government; it is the gift of God."
Immortal Jeff Davis, from your home in glory, look over
the battlements of heaven, and tell these old warriors, who
loved you while living, and revere you now dead, were they
traitors ?
Hark! Methinks I hear him reply: "Prior to the war,
from Maine to the Gulf the contention of all profound constitutional
lawyers was that the only inalienable allegiance
was that due the State."
RIGHT OF SECESSION.
The United States government was the creature of the
States, with limited powers, delegated by the sovereign
States.
1. New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Massachusetts
inserted the right in their acceptance of the. Constitution.
2. Massachusetts declared that, "to consolidate the States into
one sovereignty would be to transform the republican
system into a monarchy."
3. When the convention was discussing the Constitution,
the term "nation" appeared in one of its clauses; a delegate
from Connecticut moved to strike it out, and it was carried
almost unanimously. On this Miss Adelia A. Dunovant, the
talented historian of the U. D. C. of Texas, wrote truly;
"The elimination of that word, 'nation,' from the Constitution
proclaimed that this government is a federative system
of free, sovereign and independent States. On this foundation
our government rested."
4. In 1811 and 1844 New England claimed the right.
5. Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, in 1811 in Congress,
said: "If Louisiana is admitted the bonds of the Union are
dissolved ; the States are free from it ; it is the right of each
to dissolve it."
6. John Quincy Adams and other Northern congressmen,
in 1845, in a joint letter to their constituents, wrote:
"The annexation of Texas would justify a dissolution of the
Union."
7. In the great debate between Webster and Calhoun, in
February, 1833, Calhoun, with unanswerable logic, established
the truth that the States were sovereign; Webster,
neither then nor at any other time, answered him, but did
modify his opinion. Afterwards, in 1839, in an argument
bfore the Supreme Court, and in his famous Baring Bros,
letter, and in a speech in June, 1851, at Capon Springs, Va.,
fully admitted that the States were sovereign ; that the Constitution
was a compact, and if broken by one party, the
other would no longer be bound to observe the compact.
8. The elder President Harrison compared it to a partnership.
9. Roosevelt, father of the President, says the resolutions
passed by the Hartford convention in 1814 were so
framed as to justify secession.
10. General Sickles, late candidate for commander-in chief
of the G. A. R., in 18G0 in Congress, said: "In our federal system
the recognized right of secession is a conservative
safeguard. It is the highest constitutional and moral
safeguard against injustice."
11. Senator Lodge of Massachusetts, speaking of Webster,
said: "When the Constitution was adopted by the votes
of the States, and accepted by their votes in popular convention,
it is safe to say that there was not a man in the
country, from Washington and Hamilton on one side and
Clinton and Mason on the other, who regarded the new system
as anything but an experiment, entered into by the
States, and from which each and every State had the right
to peaceably withdraw."
So stood every president from Jefferson to Lincoln.
But why continue further?
Lincoln, himself, in Congress, in 1848, said; "Any people,
anywhere, had the right to shake off the existing government
and form a new one." "This," said he, "is a most
valuable and sacred right."
Passion, revenge, hatred, cupidity, ignorance and fanaticism
have created a great misunderstanding of secession.
It was the cause of constitutional liberty vs. consolidation,
imperialism.
It meant simply an orderly, peaceable withdrawal from
the Union, and justified on the basis that the States were
sovereign, and that the Northern States had violated the
compact.
The continued violation of the federal compact was the
cause of secession—not slavery. It was the pretext under
which those who wished an empire, sought to destroy State
rights, and was used to excite in the North the "unco guid
and rigidly righteous."
Here let us pay a just tribute to the old ante-bellum negro
(not the new issue) for their services to our families while
we wrere at the front.
Lincoln, prior to his election, declared that the States
could not remain in the Union as they had originally agreed
and stipulated. Chase, of his cabinet, said:
"The Northern States would not comply with their constitutional obligations,"
and they did not.
We desired peace; Lincoln inaugurated war, abrogated
the Declaration of Independence and inaugurated a consolidated
government, which Massachusetts in her patriotic
days said would be to transform the republican system into
a monarchy. Our government is now a centralized despotism,
ruled by a plutocracy of wealth.
Since the wild waves of adversity have swept over our
land, the imperial, commercial greed, mercenary instinct
has brushed aside the sentiment of liberty, and charges that
liberty, equality and fraternity are but iridescent dreams.
From that evil day the fundamental idea on which human
liberty is based—"that governments derive their just
powers from the consent of the governed"—has never been
tolerated by our own or any other government.
WHO BEGAN THE WAR?
The firing upon Fort Sumter was not the commencement
of the war. Gregg, the English historian, says: "Lincoln
covertly began the war by a signal of treachery. The aggressor
in war is not the first that uses force, but the first
who renders force necessary."

 

[proud texan]

Governor Seward, the brains of Lincoln's party, in a written
opinion to Lincoln, at his request, wrote
:
"1. The dispatch of an expedition to reinforce Sumter
would provoke an attack, and so involve war.
"2. The preparation for such an expedition would transpire
and precipitate a war.
"3. I do not think it wise to provoke a civil war (not rebellion),
beginning at Charleston. I advise against it."
But seven Northern governors caused Lincoln to break
faith as to Sumter by sending a hostile fleet, the relief
squadron, with eleven ships, carrying 285 guns and 2400 seamen
with orders to reinforce Sumter peaceably if permitted,
and forcibly if they must, thus by a single act violating this word,
and treacherously inaugurated war. They were
just entering the outer harbor when Sumter was fired upon.
The imperialists are so rampant now that our government
stands supinely by and sees struggling republics crushed,
and sympathizes with and aids the oppressor.
How different from the times when on Webster's resolution
of sympathy with Greece, Clay said, "Are we so humble,
so low, so debased, that we dare not express our sympathy
with suffering Greece; that we dare not articulate
our detestation of the brutal excesses of which she has been
the bleeding victim, lest we might offend one or more of
their imperial and royal majesties?"
On the same line, ex-President Harrison said : "I am an
American, but my sympathies are with the Boer Republic.
I cannot help it. If we have lost the capacity to weep when
a republic dies, it is a grievous loss."
By congressional legislation, our president now holds in
his hands the destinies of ten million people whom he taxes
without representation, and governs without their consent.
The Supreme Court, in, its palmy days, said: "Congress
cannot delegate legislative powers to the president, and that
this is a principle vital to the integrity of the republic."
Our present Supreme Court, against the express declaration
of the Constitution, by a majority of one, said: "Congress
can do anything not expressly prohibited by the Constitution."
Jefferson well said : "The great object of my fear for the
republic is the Federal judiciary."
This consolidation—centralizing all power in Congress
and the president, disregarding the Constitution. Imperialism
is the cause of our defeat.
"Facile descensus Averni," the downward road to consolidation
and imperialism, has been easy since Lincoln inauguated
war. Our highest aim should be to redeem our country.
Comrades, to do this we must return to the principles upon
which the Federal Union and the Confederacy were based.
Comrades, the G. A. R. and the cloud of pensioners demand
that we teach our children that we were traitors.
As Senator Bailey says : "I would rather be branded a traitor
forever than dishonor a Confederate grave/' General
Gordon has well said, "I can no more do so than I can
write dishonor on my mother's grave."
President Davis said : "I would have our children's children
to know, not only that our cause was just, but to have
them know that the men who sustained it were worthy of
the cause for which they fought/'
When the hell-hounds of hate were howling around Fortress
Monroe, clamoring for the blood of Mr. Davis, and General
Miles, without orders, was placing shackles on him
and insulting his wife, the opinion of Chief Justice Chase
and all great Constitutional lawyers was that Mr. Davis was
no traitor. He was released, not as an act of mercy, but
because he could not be convicted.
Comrades, the stars and bars that so proudly floated over
scenes of courage, with no stain upon it but the stain of its
heroes' blood, went down in the night, leaving the memory
of its stainless purity.
Thirty-six years have passed since war's stern alarm startled
the ear. Over one-third of a century have flowers
bloomed and moss grown green over the graves of the
world's bravest soldiers.
Who can portray the patriotism and valor of the Confederate
soldiers, the bravest men that ever trod the fields of
fame, the best soldiers that ever marshaled in any country
or for any cause, the glory of whose achievements is above
and beyond eulogium, and will halo all the cycles of time?
They followed the stars and bars wherever they floated, from
Sumter to Appomattox, unappalled by anybody, and gave
their lives for their country on over 2200 battlefields.
They gazed into the red hell of battle like a boy on a laughing girl,
with powder begrimed faces, flashing eyes, tattered
uniforms, and wild rebel yells they rushed on the foe's dark
line where death shouted in the onset, with the joy of a
bridegroom to the bridal bower.
No higher eulogium can be passed on them than that it
took 2,874,272 enlisted men, perfectly armed, 700 war vessels
clouding our coasts and rivers more than four years to
overwhelm one-fifth of their number, with no war vessels
and armed with shotguns, squirrel rifles and arms captured
on the battlefield.
Senator Blaine wrote : "No army has ever been organized
on earth with fighting qualities superior to that of the Confederacy."
General Hooker, in Vol. 1, "Conduct of the War," writing
of Lee's army, said: "That army has acquired a character
for steadiness and efficiency, unsurpassed in my judgment,
in ancient or modern times. We have not been able to rival
it." "Fighting Joe" knew, for he was there.
After General Scott's futile attempts to take Richmond,
Lincoln summoned him and said: "General Scott, will you
explain why it is that you were able to take the City of
Mexico in three months with 5000 men and have been unable
to take Richmond in six months with 100,000 men?"
Scott replied : "Yes, I will. The men who took me into the
City of Mexico are the same men who are keeping me out
of Richmond."
U. S. Surgeon General Barnes computes 270,000 Federals
in Southern prisons during the war, 220,000 Confederates
in Northern prisons. The Confederates had 5000 more prisoners,
yet 400 less deaths in prison. Less than 9 per cent of
Federals died in Southern prisons, while over 12 per cent
Confederates in Northern prisons. This gives the lie to the
damnable slander for which Captain Wurz died.
The War Records show 110,000 Federals killed and 74,500
Confederates. In other words, we killed 35,570 more of them
than they did of us. Aye ! For four blooming, blazing years
we made it lively for them. The truth is, we outgeneraled
and outfought them, for example:
In Johnson's retreat before the brute, Sherman, the greatest
retreat either before or since that of Xenophon and his
10,000, Johnson riddled and wounded more of the brute's
army than he, Johnson, had men.
Here we may remark, the British seek to justify their
brutal atrocities in South Africa by citing the brute's march
through Georgia as a precedent and well they may.
Aye, comrades ! You well remember when two armies
crouched like lions, ready to pounce upon each other, the
skirmishers pressing well to the front, then a shot, another,
what a graveyard sound! Then the rattle of rifles and hissing
balls, the solid column close up, the earth quivers under
the roar of battle, a pitiless storm of shot, shell and
canister fills the air, the wild yells of charging soldiers, an
engagement terrific; death rides on the sulphury breeze, red
battle stamps his foot, the path passed over, strewn with
dead and wounded, scores falling at every blinding flash of
iron and leaden hail.
Aye, comrades! You were there. Now you shudder to
think of that terrific rain of death. But then filled with enthusiasm
and blood hot, you heeded not the battle's roar,
but with a maddening joy pressed on the foe. The batteries
are taken with a wild rebel yell, and you hurl back the dark
masses of blue. Exultant with the joy of battle flashing
from your eyes you turn to a sad scene. Where are my mess
mates? Here and there lies one wounded, another dead.
Blood bespatters you, 'tis the blood of your bed-fellow, there
he lies dead. Two of mine, St. McCormick and W. H. Matthews,
fell on the battlefield.
Saddened and tearful, great waves of sorrow welling up
from your soul, you forget the excitement of battle, and
with heavy heart you' bury them on their field of glory.
Aye, comrades! You were there. Viewing this monument,
our thoughts turn to those who sleep in distant fields,
Beyond the slopes up which they charged, on the hills once
crowned with death-dealing artillery and flashing guns; in
the lovely valley, red with their blood, sleeping peacefully
under the green grass, under the silent stars and the shadow
of the clouds, the gentle dews—like pitying tears—falling
on their lonely graves, and flowers blooming above them
—
They fell devoted, but undying,
The very gales their names are sighing.
It Is usual on occasions like this to magnify the great leaders,
and I can join you in all the praises that you may give
them. You may take them for your heroes, but the man of
the rifle is mine. As Judge Reagan says, "They were uninfluenced
by ambition or expectation of public honors, but
by pure patriotism."
Mrs. Beers, an angel of charity in our hospital, said ;
them : "The private soldiers of the Confederacy, God bless
them ! Every man of them bore in his bosom a heart of oak
;
they bore the brunt of the battles, the heat and burden of
the day. Their blood nourished the laurels—which otherwise
had never bloomed— to grace the brows of our great
leaders."
After the battle of the Wilderness, General Hill said to
Colonel Stone: "You have won laurels today, and I hope to
see you a major general." Stone replied: "The glory belongs
to the men standing here and their comrades left on
the field. They did the fighting; they deserve the laurels."
This monument, in the words of Governor Ross, "Sends
our thoughts trooping back along the vanished years, recalling
a long series of brilliant exploits, wild adventures
by day and by night, a generous unwavering ardor, that
never found any peril too hazardous, any suffering too unendurable
in the toil and watch of that four years' fearful
holocaust."
Well the records at Washington show that for four blooming,
blazing years we made it lively for them. Now, Daughters of
the Confederacy, a word for you,
Oh, woman, dear woman, whose form and whose soul
Are the light and the life of each spell we pursue,
Whether sunned at the tropics or chilled at the poles;
If woman be there, there is happiness for two.
For 'tis woman's charms that lull our cases to rest,
Dear woman's smiles that give to life its zest.
In the days when the earth was young, there stood a man
sad and dreary. He gazed upon the mountains capped with
iridescent snow glittering in the sunlight. Its beauty touched
not his soul. He viewed the sky, like an ocean hung on high,
bespangled with isles of light; the stars, the poetry of heaven,
yet is he sad. The rosy-fingered morn, in dazzling beauty,
opens the gates of day, and up rises her glorious king rejoicing
in the east, driving darkness away, still is he sad.
All the beauties of nature spread out before him, but awaketh
no joy in his soul. He looks around in startled amazement,
gazed upon a lovely vision, gazes spellbound, his pulses
throb, his heart beats wildly, a wilderness of beautiful curls —
in lengthened coils—stray over the well-rounded shoulders,
a brow of alabaster, teeth like pearls, cheeks like the
petals of a fresh rose, eyes like dew drops in the morning sun,
a rosebud mouth—made to kiss, little loves nestling
in every dimple. The vision beckons him with a lovely smile.
With a joyous heart he springs forward, with a warm embrace
presses the lovely vision to his throbbing heart and
rains kisses to mouth, hair and cheeks. Ah! He has found
his mate. How sweetly the poet expresses the idea:
The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And man, the hermit, sighed, 'till woman smiled.
Comrades, grand as the Confederate soldier was in all the
attributes of heroism, his glory fades before the sublime
devotion, steadfastness and faith of the women of the South
in the days of wrath that poured out their desolation on our
Southland.
Mothers of the South, language is dumb, and thought impotent
to pay just tribute to all they did, suffered and endured,
the deep fountains of their souls, welled over with tears.
Their bosoms heaved with anguish and womanly tenderness,
but they never let the loved ones fighting at the
front know what their grief and sufferings were,
What they endured is traced in gold,
Across a cloudless sky;
The honor of our women true
In records now on high.
And when the roll on high is called.
And justice claims its worth;
In foremost ranks will peerless stand
The women of the South.
When the war closed the few of us that were left came
home, weary-worn, bare-footed and in rags. They met us
with open arms and pressed us to their loving hearts.
At the bugle's first call they gave up their dearest and
best; sent their fathers, sons, husbands, brothers and lovers
to join the army of patriots following the stars and bars.
We had heroes many, but heroines more;
'Twas the fair, lovely woman of Dixie who bore
.Half the sorrows that came o'er
Our land in that terrible fray.
Gold help them, we love them, as when they were fair,
Before the frosts of winter had whitened their hair;
Not a record of history with theirs will compare.
When they cherished the boys in gray.
As for an example:
A noble wife standing on her porch, with her infant in
her arms, to bid farewell to her husband, said: "Go, God
bless you, and when this war is over let not this boy be
ashamed to call you father." The door closed, overcome
with emotion she fell insensible to the floor, and bein^ restored
to consciousness, her first inquiry was, "Did he see
me faint?" Such was the Spartan heroism with which the
wTomen of the South were possessed, to walk the earth with
bleeding feet yet smile.

 

[proud texan]

THE WAR CEASED.!
Gone like a meteor through the cloudless skies,
The hopes with which we fought the stubborn fray.
Think of the foot-sore comrade as he turned his face
homeward in '65, after four years of unparalleled hardships
and heroism, ragged, half starved, heavy-hearted, enfeebled
by want and wounds! This hero in rags with a heart of
gold, having fought to exhaustion, stacks his gun, wrings
the hands of his comrades, and lifting his tear-stained and
sorrowful face for the last time at the graves of his fallen
comrades, begins his slow and painful journey home to his
loved ones.
Honor those matchless heroes, whose bloody footsteps
marked the path of patriotic valor—from Sumter to Appomattox—
whose flaming swords and stainless characters
wrote the deathless record of a nation doomed to die.
They returned when the stars and bars were shriveled at
the cannon's mouth, all their hopes desolate, but with proud
memories of valor and endurance, unparalleled in the history
of war.
They were not conquered. To show their spirit, a lady
standing by her ruined home, sad and disheartened, saw a
ragged soldier approaching, singing, Jed Stewart's army
song, "Old Joe Hooker." She said to him, "How can you be
so light-hearted, singing when all is lost and ruined?" "Cheer
up, fair lady," quoth he, "we are overcome, but not dismayed;
overpowered, but not conquered: I am going home,
kiss my wife, Sally, raise a crop and if the Yanks fool with
me I'll whip 'em again," and he went on singing.
Again, all honor to the glorious women of this Southland^,
who, when all was lost save honor and glorious women, rags
and brave men, cheered and aided us as we took up the tangled
threads that war had left and aided us to revivify this
Southland.
Sons and daughters, you should be proud that you are
the children of these glorious women, proud of their heroic
virtues of the Confederate soldier.
Comrades, the goal is just ahead of us. How rapidly we
are approaching it ! Tis a slab of gray or white stone. We
are old men standing in the gateway of the great hereafter.
We are nearing the sunset of life. Beyond the pulses' fever
beatings we shall be soon. Let us remember all the paths
of life lead but to the grave.
Life is real, life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Death cannot destroy us. We shall live within the stars
shall fade away, the sun grows dim with age and nature
sinks in years.
Tell me, my secret soul. O. tell me faith and hope,
is there no resting place from sorrow, sin and death;
Is there no happy spot where mortals may be blest,
Where grief may find a balm and weariness a rest.'
r-akh, hope and love—best boon to mortal given—
Waved their bright wings and whispered. Yes, in heaven.
Shall we rise to that beautiful city where the poet sings
—
I have read of a beautiful city,
Far away in the Kingdom of God;
I have heard how its walls are of jasper,
How its streets are all golden and broad.
In the midst of the street is life's river,
Clear as a crystal and pure to behold,
But not half of that city's bright glory
To mortals has ever been told.
Comrades, enlist in Immanuel's army and you shall reach
that city, and receive a victor's crown in an eternal home.
In the words of Prentice: "There is a home where the
rainbow never fades, where the stars will spread out before
you like the islands that slumber in the ocean; where the
beautiful things that pass before you "like shadows will stay
in your presence forever."
Think of it—come! No sorrows, no sighing, no tears, no
death, but home ! Sweet home ! Beautiful home ! Everlasting
home! Glorious home! Home with each other! Home with the Good!
Home with the angels! Home with God!
Home! Home!! Home!!!
May each of us rise to that beautiful home, and rest under
the shade of the trees.
In conclusion : This monument is dedicated to the brave
and true ; it stands for the organic principles of human freedom,
for the historic past in which we were participants ; it
commemorates memories that are glorious in spite of defeat.
The Confederates were never conquered. They fell gloriously
overpowered by numbers, but not dishonored. .
In the language of the Charles-Confederate monument
:
Whom power could not corrupt.
Whom death could not terrify,
Whom defeat could not dishonor,
They were faithful to the teachings of their fathers
—
Died in the performance of duty,
And have glorified a fallen cause.
Comrades, our birthright is the possession of the brightest
land, the bravest men, loveliest women, the truest hearts,
the finest military record on earth.
Keeping these things in mind, God grant that we may be
true to the principles of your fallen heroes and may we never
forget them, nor the grandest land on earth
—
Dear "Dixie" Land.
By J. E. Hill,
J. M. Alexander,
T. P. Meece.
Committee on Publication.

 

[Karen Lips]

Thanks for posting.