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 Report of Committee on Ceremonies Incident to The 
 
 Tlaveiliao of the Soldiers' 6r Sailors' j\^Loaumeat, 
 
 at Richmond, Va., May 30th, 1894. 
 
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 Colonel Thomas Lewis, Grand Commander, and Members of the Grand 
 Camp of Confederate Veterans, Department of Virginia, — 
 
 Comrades : — Your Committee, appointed to give an account of the ceremonies 
 incident to the unveiling of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument at Richmond, 
 would respectfully state that they are largely indebted for the following data to the 
 "Dispatch" newspaper and to the J. L. Hill Printing Company of Richmond, a 
 house whose beautiful souvenir publications have served to perpetuate many memorials 
 of the Lost Cause. 
 
 No one seems to question the fact that Mr. J. B. Welsh, of Richmond, was 
 the first person to suggest the building of a monument to the private soldiers 
 and sailors of the Confederate army and navy on Libby Hill. His suggestion 
 met with the readv sympathy of an old gentleman named Boswell, who has 
 since died. Capt. Frank Cunningham, the present City Collector, talked the matter 
 over with the two gentlemen already named, and they together soon enlisted the 
 interest and sympathy of many other citizens who were neighbors of theirs. Fre- 
 quent conferences resulted in a meeting in the Marshall-Club rooms, in the large 
 old residence which was once the home of a Mr. Lipscombe. This meeting 
 occurred on the 1st of December, 1887, and Hon. D. C. Richardson, formerly Police 
 Justice of the city, and now a practicing lawyer, was called to the chair, and Mr. 
 Carlton McCarthy was made secretary pro tern. On motion of Mr. John A. Curtis the 
 Chair appointed a committee of five to prepare business for the meeting, and the 
 committee named was as follows : John A. Curtis, R. S. M. Valentine, J. C. Dicker- 
 son, W. H. Curtis, and B. H. Berry. The committee soon made the following 
 report : 
 
 " Resolved, That we do hereby organize ourselves into an association to be 
 known as ' The Confederate Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument Association.' The object 
 of the Association is to raise money for the erection on Libby 's Hill, in this city, 
 of a Monument to perpetuate the memory and deeds of the Private Soldiers and 
 Sailors of the Confederate States. ; ;'-• 
 
 1 
 
 / y 3 3$ ^ 
 
The officers of the Association shall be : One President, six Vice-Presidents, one 
 Secretary, one Treasurer, and a Board of Directors, consisting of the above-named 
 officers and six members from each ward of the city — all to be elected by the Asso- 
 ciation for the term of one year. 
 
 Your committee presents the following names for your a<j£ion : 
 
 For President — Hon. D. C. Richardson. 
 
 For Vice-Presidents — Hon. George L. Christian, Robert S. Bosher, Norman V. 
 Randolph, John S. Ellett, Benjamin H. Berry. John A. Curtis. 
 
 For Secretary — Carlton McCarthy. 
 
 For Treasurer — W. H. Cullingworth. 
 
 FOR BOARD OF DIRECTORS. 
 
 Marshall Ward— William J. Westwood, R. S. M. Valentine, J. B. Welsh, T. 
 Wiley Davis, J. C. Dickerson. 
 
 Jefferson Ward — Charles H. Hasker, James E. Phillips, B. F. Cooke, Beverly 
 T. Crump, John F. Mayer, John H. Frischkorn. 
 
 Madison Ward — W. E. Cutshaw, James T. Ferriter, E. J. Levy, J. Taylor Elly- 
 son, Andrew Pizzini, Jr., Sol. Cutchins. 
 
 Monroe Ward—Q. V. Meredith, Lewis D. Crenshaw, T. H. Ellett, C. E. Wingo, 
 Tazewell Ellett, F. H. Habliston. 
 
 Clay Ward— E. D. Starke, W. T. Carrington, Charles L. Todd, E. A. Saunders, 
 E. T. D. Myers, James B. Pace. 
 
 Jackson Ward — Charles P. Bigger, R. Taylor Pemberton, David Wilson, William 
 J. Gentry, Thomas W. Cox, John W. Beveridge." 
 
 At the same meeting it was resolved to hold a mass-meeting in Corcoran Hall 
 on Friday the 9th of December, and a committee of five persons was appointed to 
 prepare a bill incorporating the Association. The Chair named the following com- 
 mittee : William H. Curtis, Benjamin H. Berry, Charles V. Meredith, George L. 
 Christian, and T. Wiley Davis. 
 
 The Chair having suggested the desirability of beginning at once the practical 
 work of raising money, those who were present began liberally to subscribe, and be- 
 fore the meeting adjourned $725 was subscribed by those present. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 8th of December, 1887, Judge George L. Christian, 
 on behalf of the Sub-Committee on Charter, presented a draft of a bill incorporating 
 the Association, which was accepted, and the committee was directed to present the 
 bill to the Legislature. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 29th of December, 1887, a committee of five was 
 appointed to make arrangements for a mass-meeting at the Richmond Theatre, and 
 the Chair appointed for that purpose the following : J. Taylor Ellyson, John A. 
 Curtis, E. T. D. Myers, J. B. Welsh, and W. E. Cutshaw. 
 
 The speakers selected for that occasion were Rev. Moses D. Hoge, D. D., Hon. 
 John W. Daniel, Rev. S. A. Goodwin, D. D., and Oapt. Gordon McCabe. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 27th of January, 1888, the Secretary presented a 
 certified copy of a resolution of the City Council of Richmond appropriating five 
 thousand dollars ($5,000) to aid in the erection of the monument, and donating 
 Marshall Park, on Libby Hill, as a site for the monument. 
 
 At the same meeting Lee Camp of Confederate Veterans was invited to appoint 
 a committee of ten of their members' to co-operate with the Association in the fur- 
 
therance of its purpose, and the Camp was invited to attend in a body the mass- 
 meeting to be held at the Richmond Theatre on Monday the 6th of February, 1888. 
 
 At the same meeting, under a resolution offered by Mr. C. V. Meredith, 
 Chair appointed Committees on Finance, Design, Lectures and Addresses, Concerts 
 and Fairs, Collections, Circular Letters, Press Notices, and Foreign Subscriptions. 
 These committees were formed as follows : 
 
 Finance — George L. Christian, W. J. Westwood, John H. Frischkorn, Andrew 
 Pizzini, Jr., T. H. Ellett, Charles L. Todd, Charles I'. Bigger, and William H. Cul- 
 lingworth. 
 
 Design—John S. Ellett, T. Wiley Davis, Beverly T. Crump, W. E. Cutshaw, L. 
 
 D. Crenshaw, Jr., E. T. D. Myers, and R. T. Pemberton. 
 
 Lectures and Addresses — B. H. Berry, Joseph B. Welsh, Charles II. Hasker, 
 James T. Ferriter, F. H. Habliston, E. D. Starke, and Thomas Cox. 
 
 Concerts and Fairs — 1ST. V. Randolph, R. S. M. Valentine, James E. Phillips, 
 Capt. E. J. Levy, Sol. Cutchins, Charles E. Wingo, Joseph B. Welsh, and William 
 J. Gentry. 
 
 Collections — B. F. Cooke, E. J. Levy, Tazewell Ellett, W. T. Carrington, David 
 Wilson, W. E. Cutshaw, John A. Curtis, Robert S. Bosher, J. C. Dickerson, James 
 
 E. Phillips, J. Taylor Ellyson, C. V. Meredith, E. A. Saunders, W. J. Gentry, and 
 Charles L. Brown. 
 
 Circular Letters, Press Notices, and Foreign Subscriptions — D. C. Richardson, 
 Carlton McCarthy, J. Taylor Ellyson, John A. Curtis, James B. Pace, George L. 
 Christian, and N. V. Randolph. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 26th of September, 1889, Col. W. E. Cutshaw, on 
 behalf of the Committee on Design, recommended that the Association adopt as a 
 model for the monument Pompey's Pillar, near Alexandria, Egypt, and presented 
 with his report complete drawings of the pillar, giving dimensions, construction, or- 
 namental details, etc , and after a full statement from Colonel Cutshaw the Associa- 
 tion adopted his plan and authorized him to assume full control of the construction 
 and erection of the monument. 
 
 On the 13th of March, 1891, Lee Camp appointed the following committee to 
 co-operate with the Confederate Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument Association: J. 
 Taylor Stratton, N. V. Randolph, James T. Ferriter, John Murphy, and W. P. 
 Smith. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 2d of April, 1891, the Association authorized the 
 appointment of a solicitor for the city of Richmond, and Mr. J. Taylor Stratton was 
 appointed to that position, and through his efforts many contributions were made by 
 the citizens of Richmond generally. At this meeting Col. W. P. Smith reported 
 that Lee Camp had voted the Association a contribution of one thousand dollars. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 2d of June, 1891, the following committee was ap- 
 pointed to solicit special contributions from citizens of Richmond : Lewis D. Cren- 
 shaw, John B. Cary, Robert S. Bosher, George L. Christian, John A. Curtis, J. Tay- 
 lor Ellyson, ami W. E. Cutshaw. The Treasurer reported a balance on hand of 
 $2,094.41. It was at this meeting that, on motion of Mr. T. Wiley Davis, the en- 
 gineer in charge (Col. W. E. Cutshaw) was authorized to contracl with Mr. Nether- 
 wood for the completion of the stone work of the Monument, at a cost of twelve 
 thousand dollars ($12,000), and it is due Mr. Netherwood to say, at this point, that 
 although the Association had scarcely a dollar in hand, he at once commenced the 
 
 3 
 
work and pushed it vigorously forward until the last stone was laid. His confidence 
 in the success of the undertaking was simply wonderful, and he never hesitated to 
 work at any time as cheerfully and vigorously as if the scheme was backed by 
 millions. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 31st of August, 1891, Col. John B. Cary reported 
 that Hon. A. M. Keiley would deliver a lecture at Mozart Hall on the 15th of 
 September for the benefit of the monument fund. The lecture was delivered to one 
 of the largest lecture-audiences ever gathered in Eichmond, and was pronounced by 
 those who heard it a most intensely interesting lecture. It was, moreover, a decided 
 financial success. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 28th of December, 1891, the Association received the 
 cheering information that House Bill No. 39, Virginia Legislature, appropriating 
 thirty-two hundred dollars ($3200) would probably pass to its third reading about 
 the 7th of January. The bill was finally passed by both branches of the Legislature 
 and approved by the Governor, and the amount appropriated was used to pay for 
 the capital of the column. At that same meeting Mr. William H. Curtis reported 
 that arrangements had been made for three performances of the opera " Pinafore," 
 and these performances came off in due time before crowded audiences, and added 
 materially to the funds of the Association. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 1st of November, 1892, the Association took action 
 on two important matters. On motion of Mr. Curtis a committee of three — consisting 
 of Colonel Cutshaw, Colonel Cary, and J. Taylor Ellyson — was appointed to confer 
 with the ladies of the Hollywood and Oakwood Memorial Associations with a view 
 to holding a grand bazaar for the benefit of the monument fund. And at the same 
 meeting the Committee on Design was authorized to secure a model for the statue 
 to surmount the column, and were left at liberty to select their own artist. The 
 committee was, however, required to submit any model they might secure to the 
 Association for adoption. 
 
 At a meeting held in July, 1893, the Association acknowledged the receipt of 
 over fourteen thousand dollars ($14,000) from the bazaar conducted by the ladies of 
 Richmond, and suitable resolutions of thanks were adopted. At the same meeting 
 the Association adopted a design for the statue which was reported by the Committee 
 on Design, and the contract was awarded to Mr. W. L. Sheppard, and the President 
 and Secretary were authorized to execute a contract with Mr. Sheppard for the 
 modelling and casting of the colossal statue in bronze. 
 
 At a meeting held on the 24th of February, 1894, it being apparent that the 
 work on the monument would be all completed and the statue in place by that 
 time, it was resolved to unveil the monument on the 30th of May, 1894, and a 
 committee of five persons was appointed, with full authority to take charge of all 
 the ceremonies incident to that event, the committee to be composed of the President 
 as Chairman ex-officio, and the following : John B. Cary, N. V. Randolph, J. T. 
 Ellyson, George L. Christian, and Charles L. Todd. Subsequently W. E. Cutshaw 
 and William H. Curtis, were added to the committee. At the same meeting a 
 committee of five were appointed, with full power to select an orator for the occasion, 
 and the committee was named as follows : John B. Cary, John A. Curtis, Beverly 
 T. Crump, C. E Wingo, and George L. Christian. At the same meeting Lee Camp, 
 Confederate Veterans, and Pickett Camp, Confederate Veterans, were invited to co- 
 operate with the Monument Association in the unveiling ceremonies. 
 
 4 
 
 I 
 
The cost of the monument was a little over thirty thousand dollars, and it may 
 be justly regarded as a splendid tribute to the brave men who perished in defense 
 of the once-sacred principle of "government by consent." 
 
 The design is a fac simile of Pompey's Pillar, a column of granite rising to a 
 height of niuety feet, and forming the pedestal for a Confederate soldier in heroic 
 size. The monument itself stands on a precipitous steep which juts out into the line 
 of Main street, the whole structure forming one of the most graceful and imposing 
 columns to be found in the world. 
 
 On the great day of the unveiling, Wednesday, May 30th, 1894, Richmond became 
 once more the Mecca of the South — the shrine toward which all hearts were turned 
 — and the tribute bestowed on our untitled heroes was not less full-hearted than 
 the loving reverence which on a like occasion honored and glorified the memory of 
 our peerless leader, Robert Edward Lee. 
 
 From all parts of the South the great gathering came — veterans and cadets — 
 camps, companies and corps — matrons and maidens — prattling childhood and sedate 
 old age — all uniting in one grand procession, and bearing in proud and silent grief 
 their sacred offering of love and tears to the cenotaph of their deathless dead. 
 
 " For graves like theirs are pilgrim shrines, 
 
 Shrines to no creed or code confined, — 
 The Delphic Vales, the Palestines, 
 
 The Meccas of the mind." 
 
 It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon when the President of the Association, Hon. 
 D. C. Richardson, called the vast assemblage to order and said : " Let us begin 
 these exercises by returning thanks to God for all His blessings, and invoke a con- 
 tinuance of His mercies. Rev. Dr. Hoge will now lead us in prayer." 
 
 As the distinguished divine advanced to the front with uplifted hand, every 
 head was uncovered, and the hushed multitude listened with bated breath to the 
 following words : 
 
 Almighty God, we inaugurate this impressive service with the reverential and 
 adoring homage which we pay to Thee, the greatest and best of beings, the high 
 and mighty ruler of the Universe, God over all, blessed for evermore. 
 
 From this hushed and silent throng may there arise, as from one heart, the 
 devout acknowledgement of our dependence on Thee for all that exalts and enobles 
 life: for all that can give sacredness to this solemnity; for all that can fill the 
 future with glad and grateful recollections of this day, consecrated to all that can 
 give inspiration to the purest and sublimest patriotism. 
 
 "We come to thank God for the illustrious commanders, whose knightly valor 
 and supreme devotion to duty won for them unfading renown. We come to crown 
 with the same laurels the patriotic private in the ranks, to whose splendid courage our 
 great leaders ascribed, under God, all their success, and without whose heroic aid no 
 commander could have won the place assigned to him in the Pantheon of our 
 Confederate glory. 
 
 They lie in lowly graves, and the cause to which they gave their lives is lost, 
 but above their dust uprises this enduring column to testify that their memories are 
 not lost, and high above these lofty hills it towers to tell the coming ages our love 
 for the private soldier, who fell in defence of constitutional liberty on the land, and 
 for the gallant sailor, who fringed his country's flag with glory on the sea ! 
 
 5 
 
We rear this shaft of stone ; we unroll the historic page ; each shall be the 
 guardian of our Confederate's story. We print it on the page, we carve it on the 
 column in letters imperishable and luminous evermore. 
 
 Great God, author of peace, and lover of concord, we would rear no monument 
 to perpetuate resentment, or unavailing regret, or unfraternal discord, but we would 
 proclaim to the world that only as we maintain, inviolate, the rights of the States, 
 can we perpetuate an indestructible union of the States — a union founded on justice, 
 constitutional law, and fraternal affection. 
 
 0, Thou, who art full of pity for the bereaved, remember us in our freshly 
 awakened sorrow, as we pay this last sad tribute to our sons, who left our homes 
 to return no more, and who died in defence of all that was to them most dear, 
 committing their souls to God, and their memories to us who survive them. God 
 helping us, we will be faithful to the sacred trust ; we will enshrine them anew 
 in our hearts ; we will celebrate their deeds in sweetest song, as long as winds blow 
 and waters flow, as long as virtue and valor enkindle admiration in all magnanimous 
 souls. 
 
 0, Thou who has taught us to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with 
 those who weep, our commonwealth erects this monument, not for herself alone, but 
 for all her sister States, whose gallant sous together locked their shields and together 
 fell on the bloody front of battle. Beneath the same soil their commingled ashes 
 rest; beneath the same sky, bending over them like the hollow of Thy guardian 
 hand, they repose. With a veneration too high for words, with a tenderness too 
 deep for tears, we consecrate this pillar to our unending love and to their eternal 
 fame. 
 
 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . And let all the people say, Amen. 
 
 There was a hearty " amen " as Dr. Hoge concluded the invocation. Mr, 
 Richardson then presented the poet of the occasion, Mr. Armistead G. Gordon of 
 Staunton, and in so doing, said : 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, — In the heroic ages of the past their bards have sung of 
 conflicts fierce, of dauntless courage and heroic deeds, of hate, revenge, and cruel 
 fields of blood. 
 
 And in our dear Southland — in days heroic as of old — when war brought death 
 and sorrow to our homes, and tears and blood commingling flowed a rich libation 
 to our country's cause — our bards have sung. 
 
 But not revenge nor hate has been their theme. They tell of honor, freedom, 
 love of home ; and of the motives which inspired the heart and nerved the patriot's 
 arm to strike for country and for God. 
 
 They tell of him who heeded not ambition's call, and spurned the rank a 
 patriot could not wear. Of Lee, the peerless, who made duty's star his guide 
 through life to an immortal fame. They tell how Stonewall Jackson's star arose a 
 blazing meteor in the track of war, and dying, left a radiance which will shine 
 when other stars have sunk from human sight. 
 
 And still of others they have sung. Of generals high in rank, who wore the 
 honors they had won on many a field with credit to themselves, their country, and 
 their race. 
 
 But now another theme inspires the song. Lowly it may be, but it awakes the 
 
 G 
 
soul to patriotic pride, to love, and tears. The private soldier ! He who heard the 
 call his State had made to fight in freedom's cause. Who left his home and all his 
 loved ones there, with laughter on his lip, but with a tear-dimmed eye. Who on 
 the march, in heat and cold of summer sun and wintry blast still trod the path ot 
 duty with unfaltering feet — who barefoot, ragged, starving, stood true to his country. 
 firm in freedom's cause. These privates in the ranks ! These famished men ! But 
 see them when the day of conflict comes! With maddening yell they spring upon the 
 foe, and waive their flag in triumph o'er the field, or sleep there with the slain. 
 
 This is the theme to-day. One bard is missing from this mighty throng. 'Tis 
 he whose voice was sweetest of them all ; who tuned his harp to melancholy dirge, 
 and sang of freedom and our " deathless dead." 
 
 The poet-priest ! His harp is laid aside ; his voice is hushed ; his stainless soul 
 has flown up to his God, and with the seraph choir he joins the anthem of 
 redeemed love. 
 
 The poet's dead; but when his soul took flight another caught his mantle when 
 it fell ; and Gordon now takes up the harp and sings harmonious with the inspiring 
 theme. 
 
 MR. GORDON'S POEM. 
 
 Mr. Gordon, a man of commanding appearance, then recited his poem with splen- 
 did effect. It is as follows : 
 
 " Gladly we should rest ever, had we won 
 Freedom : We have lost, and very gladly rest." 
 
 " Weigh not their worth by the balance of battle. These have glorified their 
 cause by the record of noble sacrifice, the simple manhood of their lives, the patient 
 endurance of suffering, and the heroism of death. May such fidelity and patriotism 
 endure for ever." 
 
 I. 
 
 Since that spring morning when the first dread gun 
 
 Boomed o'er the harbor of the seaport town, 
 Fired by Virginia's lion-hearted son 
 
 Who would not live to see his flag go down, 
 Long years have passed away, — 
 Youth's gold hath turned to gray ; 
 The old men fade and die; the young age day by day. 
 
 II. 
 
 But ere pale Death shall stand with equal feet 
 
 Hard by each door — the door of old or young, — 
 That glory can be wrested from defeat, 
 Let an i- Io Triumph!" here be sung, 
 Yielding the meed of praise, — 
 Of laurels and green bays — 
 To young and old alike who fought in those lost days. 
 
III. 
 
 Brighter than any born of time or fate — 
 
 More beautiful than e'er beheld of men — 
 Fronting the nations stood the fair young State; 
 And "rebel" was the splendid badge again 
 Worn by the sons of those 
 Whom Freedom's feudal foes 
 Had learned to bow before, when Washington arose. 
 
 IV. 
 
 They gathered round her beautiful bright form 
 
 With glittering bayonets fixed to ready guns, 
 Stirred by that passion Liberty keeps warm 
 In every pulse of all her patriot sons, 
 Offering upon her shrine 
 The sacrifice divine 
 Of Love ; and each man swore " Her holy cause is mine ! " 
 
 V 
 
 Her cause was their's and Freedom's. For such cause 
 
 Men have died gladly since that ancient day 
 When the Three Hundred gave a Myriad pause 
 For Grecian freedom at Thermopylae ; 
 These drew the Spartan sword ; 
 These knew the Spartan word : 
 " With it, or on it ! " These the Spartan spirit stirred. 
 
 VI. 
 
 On the most glowing page of human story 
 
 Are writ in lines of light their deathless names. 
 Our heritage is their eternal glory; 
 
 Their record of undying deeds is Fame's : 
 The immemorial roll 
 Of her resplendent scroll 
 Their honor and their valor shall extol. 
 
 VII. 
 
 O'er that first field, made red with their first blood, 
 
 Rang through the tumult as a bugle call 
 His kingly voice, who royally bestowed 
 
 On Jackson's soldiers "standing like a wall" 
 The battle-accolade ; 
 Knighting the grand Brigade 
 And him who at its head had drawn his sword and prayed. 
 
VIII. 
 
 Booted and spurred, his troopers riding ever 
 
 Ready for the fierce fray, entwined around 
 His brows the laurel-leaves that made forever 
 
 Thenceforth the name of Stuart glory-crowned: 
 They followed where he led ; 
 They conquered where he bled ; 
 Gladly had each one died in the lost leader's stead. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Can you not hear booming across the years 
 
 The thunderous echoes of young Pelham's guns? 
 ' There went to war than her red cannoneers 
 
 None higher-hearted of the South's true sons; 
 Whatever else betide, 
 Down the dim years they ride 
 Who joyous rode to death as bridegroom to his bride. 
 
 X 
 
 Beyond the vast of time we can descry 
 
 In memory the white foam and the sweep 
 Of the great Ram, Virginia ; and on high 
 
 The Southern pennant fluttering o'er the deep ; 
 And hear the sullen roar 
 Of the grim guns she bore 
 Proclaiming Freedom's fight from listening shore to shore. 
 
 XI. 
 
 In many a battle on the wandering wave 
 
 The sailors whom this shaft commemorates 
 Wrote high on Glory's record that the brave 
 
 Who fall for Freedom's sleep at Fredom's gates ; 
 That after life lived free, 
 Life lost for Liberty, 
 Is God's most gracious gift that hath been or shall be. 
 
 XII. 
 
 For Freedom ! aye ! for Freedom ! ' Twas this hope 
 
 That sent the steady steel-tipped line of gray, 
 Fringed with hell's fires, up the steep, slippery slope 
 Of Gettysburg, on that most fateful day 
 That found our pathway crossed 
 By an outnumbering host ; — 
 That witnessed high hopes flown ; that saw the dear Cause lost. 
 
 9 
 
XIII. 
 
 Unfaltering in their grave fidelity — 
 
 Steadfast in purpose to the bitter end, 
 They closed their ranks, and set brave eyes to see 
 
 And dauntless hearts to bear what Fate should send ; 
 Not looking vainly back 
 Along the traversed track, — 
 But facing War's last blast, its hurricane, and wrack. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 When came the bitter end, the bugle blew 
 
 Its last sad note, that brought the blinding tears 
 Down wasted cheeks from eyes that only knew 
 
 Honor and Death through all the weary years. 
 The long, hard fight was done ; 
 Silenced was every gun ; 
 And what we lost, e'en now they do not dream, who won. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Let not the worth of any such be weighed 
 
 By battle's balance. They who glorified 
 Their righteous cause and lived, and they who made 
 The sacrifice supreme, in that they died 
 To keep their country free, 
 Alike gave men to see 
 What hero-hearts were their's who thus loved Liberty ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 They did their duty in the leal fearless fashion 
 
 Of antique knighthood's flower, each man a knight ; 
 Careless if Death, dividing peace from passion, 
 
 Whispering should greet them in the roar of fight, 
 Or Life to ceaseless pain 
 Should lead them forth again ; 
 Knowing that duty done is never done in vain. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Time shall not dim their memory. The web 
 
 The spider weaves may hang across the mouth 
 Of the dismantled cannon, and the ebb 
 
 And flow of erstwhile battle in the South 
 Be but the shadowy gleam 
 Of a long vanished dream ; 
 But ever over all this shaft shall loom supreme 
 
 10 
 
XVIII. 
 
 Silently telling in majestic beauty 
 
 Through all the years the story of their faith, 
 Their love of Truth, of Freedom, and of Duty — 
 Transcendent Love, triumphant over Death ! 
 Harm now can reach them never ; 
 Their fame is sure forever 
 While stands the sacred Hill, or flows the shining River. 
 
 Mr. Gordon had to suspend several times on account of hearty applause 
 showered upon him, and when he concluded the demonstration was most gratifying. 
 As soon as quiet was restored Mr. Richardson introduced the orator, Rev. R. C. Cave, 
 in these words ; 
 
 Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen. — We have assembled on this occasion, more 
 than twenty-nine years after the last reverberations of the thunders of battle have 
 died away, on this beautiful spot in our historic city, with the arch of God's mercy 
 bending above us, surrounded by scenes of natural loveliness and in a time of peace, 
 to do some measure of justice to the heroic men who suffered and gave their lives 
 for the land they loved by unveiling this monument, which has been erected to 
 commemorate through coming years the patriotism, the fortitude, and bravery of the 
 private soldier and sailor of the Confederacy. 
 
 Veterans of the Confederacy, all hail and welcome! We have met here to-day 
 with enmity towards none, but with no pardon to sue for and no apoligies to make 
 for our action in the glorious past, but we come with pride and pleasure to do this 
 honor to the brave men who took up arms in defence of principles dearer to them 
 than life, who defended those principles with such courage as to challenge the 
 admiration of the world, and who, yielding only to " overwhelming numbers and 
 resources," laid down their arms without the stain of dishonor. 
 
 Seven years ago this association was formed for the purpose of erecting this 
 monument. By the generosity of our men and aided by the noble women of the 
 South, by whose patriotic efforts we were enabled to accomplish our cherished 
 designs, we are here lo-day to witness the fruition of our hopes by dedicating this 
 monument to the private in the ranks. 
 
 The story of their endurance and valor has often been told. It has been the 
 theme of the historian and orator in other lands than ours, and poets have sung in 
 lofty strains of their heroic deeds. 
 
 That story will be repeated to-day. To those who participated in the struggle 
 it may cause a glow of pardonable pride ; to all who hear, it must give pleasure 
 and gratification ; but let the story be truthfully told, that our children and our 
 children's children may learn the lesson of how their sires loved honor better than 
 life, and deemed no sacrifice too great to be laid on the altar of their country. 
 
 And who is better fitted to recount the suffering, the sacrifice, and valor of 
 the private soldier than the orator selected for this occasion ? When the tocsin first 
 sounded the call to arms he marched away as a private in the ranks. As a private 
 he served with conspicuous gallantry throughout the war, was twice wounded in the 
 
 11 
 
contest, and only laid down his arms after trie sun of the Confederacy had gone down 
 in refulgent splendor behind the hills of Appomattox. 
 
 I take pleasure in introducing Rev. R. C. Cave, once a private soldier of the 
 Confederacy, but now a faithful soldier in the army of the King of Kings. 
 
 MR. CAVE'S ORATION. 
 
 Mr. Cave said : When I was honored with the invitation to speak on this 
 occasion of the valor and worth of those in memory of whom this monument has 
 been erected I felt somewhat as I imagine one of old felt when, contemplating the 
 infinite, he said: "It is high, I cannot attain unto it." I felt my inability to rise 
 to "the height of this great argument" and fitly eulogize the soldiers and sailors of 
 the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 And yet I felt impelled to speak some word, however weak, in honor of those 
 tried and true men who fearlessly fronted the foe in defence of home and country, 
 and battled even unto death for a cause which was dear to my heart while its 
 banner proudly floated over victorious fields, and which I have regarded with an 
 affection sanctified and strengthened by sorrow since its banner was furled in the 
 gloom of defeat. 
 
 As death paints our loved ones in softer and fairer colors, and brings us to see, 
 as we did not see before, 
 
 " Their likeness to the wise below, 
 Their kindred with the great of old," 
 
 so the overthrow of the cause we struggled to maintain gave me a still higher 
 appreciation of it, and brought me to realize more deeply its oneness with the cause 
 of human freedom in every age and land. 
 
 I am not one of those who, clinging to the old superstition that the will of 
 Heaven is revealed in the immediate results of " trial by combat," fancy that right 
 must always be on the side of might, and speak of Appomattox as a judgment of 
 God. I do not forget that a Suwaroff triumphed and a Kosciusko fell ; that a Nero 
 wielded the sceptre of empire and a Paul was beheaded ; that a Herod was crowned 
 and Christ crucified; and, instead of accepting the defeat of the South as a divine 
 verdict against her, I regard it as but another instance of " truth on the scaffold 
 and wrong on the throne." 
 
 Appomattox was a triumph of the physically stronger in a conflict between the 
 representatives of two essentially different civilizations and antagonistic ideas of 
 government. On one side in that conflict was the South led by the decendants of 
 the cavaliers, who, with all their faults, had inherited from a long line of ancestors 
 a manly contempt for moral littleness, a high sense of honor, a lofty regard for 
 plighted faith, a strong tendency to conservatism, a profound respect for law and order, 
 and an unfaltering loyalty to constituted government. Against the South was arrayed 
 the power of the North, dominated by the spirit of Puritanism, which, with all its 
 virtues, has ever been characterized by the Pharisaism that worships itself and is unable 
 to perceive any goodness apart from itself; which has ever arrogantly held its ideas, 
 its interests, and its will to be higher than fundamental law and covenanted obliga- 
 tions; which has always "lived and moved and had its being" in rebellion against 
 
 12 
 
constituted authority; which, with the cry of freedom on its lips, has been one of 
 the most cruel and pitiless tyrants that ever cursed the world ; which, while 
 beheading an English King in the name of liberty, brought England under a reign 
 of oppression whose little finger was heavier than the mailed hand of the Stuarts ; 
 and which, from the time of Oliver Cromwell to the time of Abraham Lincoln, has 
 never hesitated to trample upon the rights of others in order to effect its own ends. 
 At Appomattox, Puritanism, backed by overwhelming numbers and unlimited 
 resources, prevailed. But brute force cannot settle questions of right and wrong. 
 Thinking men do not judge the merits of a cause by the measure of its success ; 
 and I believe 
 
 "The world shall yet decide 
 In truth's clear, far-off light " 
 
 that the South was in the right ; that her cause was just ; that the men who took 
 up arms in her defence were patriots who had even better reason for what they did 
 than had the men who fought at Concord, Lexington, and Bunkerhill ; and that her 
 coercion, whatever good may have resulted or may hereafter result from it, was an 
 outrage on liberty. 
 
 I cannot here discuss at length the merits of the southern cause, but in justice 
 to the memory of those who died in the struggle to maintain it, I wish to protest 
 against the aspersion that they fought to uphold and perpetuate the institution of 
 slavery. Slavery was a heritage handed down to the South from a time when the 
 moral consciousness of mankind regarded it as right — a time when even the pious 
 sons of New England were slave owners and deterred by no conscientious scruples 
 from plying the slave trade with proverbial Yankee enterprise. It became a 
 peculiarly southern institution, not because the rights of others were dearer to the 
 northern than to the southern heart, but because conditions of soil and climate made 
 negro labor unprofitable in the northern States and led the northern slave-owner to 
 sell his slaves " down South." 
 
 With slavery thus fastened upon them by the force of circumstances, the 
 southern people sought to deal with it in the wisest and most humane way. They 
 believed that the immediate and wholesale, emancipation of the slaves would be 
 ruinous to the whites and blacks alike ; and that, under the then existing conditions, 
 the highest interests of both themselves and the colored wards committed to their 
 keeping demanded that the relation of master and servant should continue. 
 
 But it was not to perpetuate slavery that they fought. The impartial student 
 of the events leading up to the civil war cannot fail to perceive that, in the words 
 of Mr. Davis, " to whatever extent the question of slavery may have served as an 
 occasion, it was far from being the cause of the conflict. That conflict was the 
 bloody culmination of a controversy which had been waging for more than a gen- 
 eration, and the true issue in which, as far as it pertained to slavery, was sharply 
 stated by the Hon. Samuel A. Foot, of Connecticut, when, referring to the debate on 
 the admission of Missouri to the sisterhood of states, he said : " The Missouri 
 question did not involve the question of freedom or slavery, but merely whether 
 slaves now in the country might be permitted to reside in the proposed new State, 
 and whether Congress or Missouri possessed the power to decide." 
 
 And from that day down to 1861, when the war-cloud -burst in fury upon our 
 land, the real question in regard to slavery was not whether it should continue in 
 
 13 
 
the South, but whether the southern man should be permitted to take his slaves, 
 originally purchased almost exclusively from northern slave-traders, into the territory 
 which was the common property of the country, and there, without interference 
 from the General Government, have an equal voice with his northern brother in 
 determining the domestic policy of the new State. The question was not whether 
 the negro should be freed or held in servitude, but whether the white man of the 
 South should have the same privileges enjoyed by the white man of the North. It 
 was not the desire to hold others in bondage, but the desire to maintain their own 
 rights that actuated the southern people throughout the conflict ; and it behooves 
 us to insist on this, that the memory of those who " wore the gray " may be handed 
 down to posterity freed from the slanderous accusations that they were the enemies 
 of liberty and champions of slavery who plunged the country into a bloody war 
 that they might the more firmly fasten fetters on human limbs. 
 
 And it also behooves us, in justice to the men who served under the banner of 
 the Confederacy, to insist that they were not rebels, fighting against lawful authority 
 and seeking to destroy the Union formed by our fathers of American independence. 
 That Union was dear to the hearts of the southern people. They regarded it as a 
 fraternal federation, founded in wisdom and patriotism, and in no case were they 
 disloyal to the obligations which it imposed upon them. 
 
 The impartial student of American history will find that the sons of the South 
 were always among the foremost in the battles of the Union against foreign foes, 
 and that they were ever readiest to make sacrifices in the interest of harmony 
 between the sections. 
 
 For the sake of maintaining the Union the South made concession after con- 
 cession ; surrendered right after right; submitted to unjust taxation; consented to 
 compromises, every one of which tended to weaken herself and strengthen the 
 North, and for more than forty years clung to the national compact, in spite of 
 flagrant violations of its spirit and letter by northern men.' 
 
 If history affords an instance of loyalty to an established form of government 
 more unswerving and self-sacrificing than that of the southern people to the Union, 
 I fail to recall it. Mr. Davis voiced the feeling of the South when he said in the 
 Senate chamber; "If envy and jealousy and sectional strife are eating like rust 
 into the bonds our fathers expected 10 bind us, they come from causes which our 
 southern atmosphere has never furnished. As we have shared in the toils, so have 
 we gloried in the triumphs of our country. In our hearts, .as in our history, are 
 mingled the names of Concord, and Camden, and Saratoga, and Lexington, and 
 Plattsburg, and Chippewa, and Erie, and Moultrie, and New Orleans, and Yorktown, 
 and Bunker Hill." Had the South loved the Union less and clung to it less 
 tenaciously ; had she refused to make concessions and sacrifices for its preservation ; 
 had she instead of weakening herself by compromises for its sake, withdrawn from 
 it when first her rights were assailed, then the pen of the historian would never have 
 recorded the story of Appomattox. It was her attachment to the Union — her 
 unselfish loyalty and patriotism — which caused her to so long endure northern 
 aggression, yield again and again to northern demands, and place herself in a 
 position in which her defeat was possible. 
 
 But the Union which the men of the South loved, and which they were willing 
 to make concessions and sacrifices to perpetuate, was that formed by the fathers "to 
 establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, 
 
 14 
 
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty." It was a fraternal 
 federatian of sovereign States, guaranteeing equal rights to all, and leaving each 
 free to regulate its domestic affairs in its own way. It was a union in which, in 
 reference to questions of foreign policy, every citizen would echo the sentiment 
 expressed by Patrick Henry, when, after Concord and Lexington, in a message to 
 Massachusetts, he said: "I am not a Virginian, I am an American," and yet it 
 was a union in which, in reference to questions of domestic policy, every citizen, 
 like that same great orator and patriot, would recognize the right of his own State 
 to his highest allegiance. It was a union in which the people of each State would 
 enjoy the blessings of local self-government, and find in home rule a safeguard 
 against any possible attempt of the Federal power to interfere with their peculiar 
 interests. 
 
 "When it became evident that this Union was to exist in name only; when its 
 essential principles had been overthrown and trampled in the dust; when the spirit 
 of fraternity had given place to a bitter feeling of sectional hostility ; when New 
 England speakers and writers were heaping abuse and slander upon the South and 
 teaching the people that they " would be poor children of seven years' disobedience 
 to laws " if they supposed that they were obliged to obey the law of the land which 
 protected the southern people in the peaceful possession of their institutions ; when 
 the men of the North, instead of permitting the South to enjoy that domestic peace 
 and tranquillity which the union was intended to secure to every section of the 
 country, were persistently striving to stir up insurrection in the southern States, and 
 glorifying those who attempted to carry outrage and massacre into southern homes ; 
 when the tendency to centralization was threatening to destroy State independence 
 and build on its ruins a despotism akin to that which enslaved France, when it 
 was said that " the government was sent down to the subject provinces by mail 
 from Paris, and the mail was followed by the army, if the provinces did not acqui- 
 esce" ; when the reins of government had passed into the hands of a purely sectional 
 party, avowedly hostile to southern interests, and declaring the Constitution to be " a 
 covenant with hell and a league with the devil," which ought to be supplanted by 
 a so-called "higher law"; in a word, when it became evident that northern power was 
 to sit on the throne in Washington and make the Yankee conscience, rather than the 
 Constitution, the fundamental law of the land, the southern people felt that the 
 preservation of community independence and liberty, won at Yorktown and bequeathed 
 to them by their fathers as an inalienable birthright, demanded the resumption of 
 the powers intrusted by them to the Federal Government. 
 
 Not as a passion-swept mob rising in mad rebellion against constituted authority, 
 but as an intelligent and orderly people, acting in accordance with due forms of 
 law, and within the limit of what they believed to be their constitutional rights, the 
 men of the South withdrew from the Union in which they had lived for three-fourths 
 of a century, and the welfare and glory of which they had ever been foremost in 
 promoting. 
 
 They did not desire war; nor did they commence the war. It is true that tli>\ 
 fired the first gun ; but every one who is familiar with the history of those stormy 
 days knows that the North committed the first overt act of war, which justified and 
 necessitated the firing of that gun. They made every effort consistent with their 
 safety, self-respect and manhood to avert war. They parted from their northern 
 
 10 
 
brethren in the spirit in which old Abram said to Lot : '• Let there be no strife, 
 I pray thee, between me and thee." 
 
 But the North would not have it so. Every proposal looking to peace was 
 rejected by those in power at Washington. Says an English historian of the time: 
 "Twice the Republicans were asked simply to execute the existing law and sustain 
 in the future that exclusive constitutional right of the States over their internal 
 affairs and that equality in the common Territories which scarcely admitted of 
 rational disputes, and twice the party pronounced against the least that the South 
 could safely or honorably accept." 
 
 At length, on April 15, 1861, the newly-inaugurated President, transcending 
 the authority vested in him by the Constitution which he had just sworn to support, 
 issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 men to coerce the States which had with- 
 drawn from the Union. 
 
 This call for troops destroyed the last lingering hope of peace. It left no doubt 
 as to the purpose of the party in power. It meant war of invasion and subjugation. 
 It left the South no choice but between cowardly surrender of rights held sacred 
 and manly resistance to the invading foe. Between these alternatives she was not 
 slow to choose. States which had been hesitating on the ground of expediency and 
 hoping for a peaceable adjustment of issues wheeled into line with the States 
 which had already seceded. 
 
 Virginia — mother of States and statesmen and warriors who had given away an 
 empire for the public good, whose pen had written the Declaration of Independence, 
 whose sword had flashed in front of the American army in the war for independence, 
 and whose wisdom and patriotism had been chiefly instrumental in giving the country 
 the Constitution of the Union — Virginia, foreseeing that her bosom would become 
 the theatre of war with its attendant horrors, nobly chose to suffer rather than 
 become an accomplice in the proposed outrage upon constitutional liberty. With a 
 generosity and magnanimity of soul rarely equalled and- never surpassed in the 
 history of nations she placed herself in the path 6f the invader, practically saying : 
 Before you can touch the rights of my southern sisters you must cut your way to 
 them through my heart. 
 
 From the Potomac to the Gulf, from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande, the sons 
 of the South sprang to arms. From stately mansions and from humble cottages, 
 from the workshops and from the farm, from the storeroom and from the study, 
 from every neighborhood, and from every vocation of life, with unanimity almost 
 unparalleled, they rallied for the defence of the land they loved, and of what in 
 their inmost souls they felt to be their sacred and inalienable birthright. 
 
 Traitors and rebels verily they were not. They were true-hearted patriots, 
 worthy to rank with the noblest souls that ever battled for freedom. They fought 
 for home and country and to maintain the fundamental principle of all free govern- 
 ment — that the right to govern arises from and is coexistent with the consent of 
 the governed. 
 
 And if patient self-denial, and cheerful self-sacrifice, and unquailing fortitude 
 and unfaltering devotion to country, and unwavering loyalty to duty, and dauntless 
 courage in defence of the right make heroism, the men whom we honor to-day, and 
 whom we would not have our children forget, were sublime heroes. History has no 
 more illustrious page than that which tells of their achievements. Poorly equipped, 
 poorly clad, poorly fed, and virtually without pay, they confronted at least three 
 
 10 
 
times their number of as well-equipped, well-ck thed, well-fed, and well-paid soldiers 
 as ever marched to battle ; wrested from them a series of victories unsurpassed in 
 brilliancy ; and for four years, stormy with the red blasts of war, successfully resisted 
 all their power. In clangers and hardships that "tried men's souls" the defenders of 
 the South were tried, and always found " true as tempered steel." Laboring under 
 disadvantages which even their friends can never fully appreciate ; supplementing their 
 scanty rations with weeds and grasses ; their bare feet often times pressing the frozen 
 ground or blistered on the burning highway ; their garments as tattered as the 
 battle-torn banners that they bore, they bravely fought on for the cause they loved 
 and sealed their devotion to it with their blood. 
 
 I need not name the many glorious fields on which the soldiers of the Con- 
 federacy, by their splendid courage, hurled back army after army, each one greatly 
 outnumbering them and supposed by the North to be strong enough to crush them. 
 I need not recount the battles in which the sailors of the Confederacy made up in 
 skill and daring for lack of equipment, and fought with a valor unsurpassed in 
 naval warfare. On the land and on the sea they made a record to which their 
 country may point with a just and noble pride. History bears witness to their 
 unrivalled martial qualities. By their deeds they " set with pearls the bracelet of 
 the world," and won for themselves a place in the foremost rank of mankind's 
 Legion of Honor. And although worn out by ceaseless conflict, half farr.ished and 
 overwhelmed by numbers, they were at last forced to yield, those tc whom they 
 surrendered might well envy the glory of their defeat. 
 
 And the glory of that great struggle for constitutional liberty and home rule 
 belongs not alone to those who wore the officer's uniform and buckled on the sword, 
 but as well to those who wore the coarser gray of the private and shouldered the 
 musket. We do well to honor those who served in the ranks and faithfully and 
 fearlessly performed the duties of the common soldier and sailor. It was their valor 
 and worth, no less than the courage and genius of the officers who led them, that 
 won for the battle-flag of the South a fame which — 
 
 " on brightest pages, 
 
 Pennec 1 by poets and by sages, 
 Shall go sounding down the ages." 
 
 In intelligence and thought they were, from training and associations, far above 
 the average soldiery of the world. Notwithstanding all that has been said about 
 the illiteracy of the South, I believe that no country ever had a larger percentage 
 of intelligent and thinking men in the ranks of its army. Thousands of them were 
 highly educated, cultured, refined, and in every way qualified to command. Sitting 
 on the brow of the mountain overlooking the winding Shenandoah, and the little 
 town of Strasburg, and the beautiful valley stretching away towards Winchester, 
 and, at that time, dark with the blue columns of Federal soldiers, a Louisiana 
 private, idly talking of what he would do were he in command, gave me almost 
 every detail of the plan which, afterwar 3 perceived and executed by the command- 
 ing officer, carried confusion and defeat to the Federals. Had the need arisen, as 
 in case of the Theban army in Thessa.v, Eoaminondas might have been found 
 servin b as a private in the Confederate ranks. 
 
 And I believe that no army was ever composed of men more thoroughly imbued 
 with moral principle. As a rule, they were men who recognized the obligation to 
 
 17 
 
be just and honest and merciful, and to re?p< ct the rights of others, even in time 
 of war. Never flinching from conflict with armed foemen, their moral training and 
 disposition forbade them to make war upon the weak and defenceless. To their 
 everlasting honor stands the fact that in their march through the enemy's country 
 they left behind them no fields wantonly laid waste, no families cruelly robbed of 
 subsistence, no homes ruthlessly violated. " In no case," says an English writer, 
 " had the Pennsylvanians to complain of personal injury, or even discourtesy, at the 
 hands of those whose homes they had burned, whose families they had insulted, robbed, 
 and tormented. Even the tardy destruction of Chambersburg was an act of regular, 
 limited, and righteous reprisal." The Pennsylvania farmer whose words were 
 reported by a northern correspondent paid to the southern troops no more than a 
 merited tribute when he said of them : "I must say they acted like gentlemen, 
 and, their cause aside, I would rather have 40,000 rebels quartered on my premises 
 than 1,000 Union troops." 
 
 And they acted like gentlemen, not merely because the order of their com- 
 manding general required them so to act, but because the spirit within themselves was 
 in harmony with and responded to that order. In the ranks of the southern army, 
 uncomplainingly and cheerfully performing the duties of the humble soldier, with 
 little hope of promotion, where intelligence, ability, and daring were so common, 
 were men 
 
 " True as the knights of story, 
 Sir Launcelot and his peers." 
 
 And these humble privates, no less than their leaders, deserve to be honored. It 
 was Jackson's line of Virginians, rather than Jackson himself, that resembled a stone 
 wall standing on the plains of Manassas while the storm of battle hissed and hurled 
 and thundered around them ; and, if I mention the name of Jackson rather than 
 that of the ruddy-faced boy who fell, pierced through the brain, and was buried, on 
 one of Virginia's hills, in a lonely grave, over which to-day the tangled, wild weeds, 
 are growing, it is not because the one was mure heroic than the other, but because 
 Jackson, by his great prominence, more fully embodies before the eyes of the world 
 the patriotism and courage and heroism that glowed no less brightly and steadily 
 in the heart of the beardless boy. These noble qualities, possessed by both and 
 displayed by each as his ability and position permitted, bind them together in my 
 thought, not as officer and private, but as fellow-soldiers and brother patriots. 
 Exalted virtue, like deepest shame, ever obliterates rank and brings men into a 
 common brotherhood. 
 
 As my mind recalls the persons and events of those years in which the Con- 
 federacy struggled for life, there rises before me the majestic figure of the great 
 southern chief — the peerless soldier and the stainless gentlemen; the soldier who 
 was cool, calm, and self possessed in the presence of every danger, and who, with 
 marvellous foresight and skill, planned masterly campaigns, directed the march of 
 war, ruled the storm of battle, and guided his men to victory on many a well-fought 
 field ; the gentleman who was as pure as a falling snowflake, as gentle as an evening 
 zephyr, as tender as the smile of a flower, and as patient as the rock-ribbed mountain. 
 I need not name him, for his name is written in ever-enduring letters on the heart 
 of the South, and honored throughout the civilized world. Around him I see a 
 company of intrepid leaders, whose achievements have surrounded their names with 
 
 18 
 
a glory which outshines the lustre of coronets and crowns. I would not pluck one 
 leaf from the laurel with which the) are garianded. I would, if I could, lift to a 
 still higher note and sing in still loftier strains the pseaDS that are chanted in their 
 praise. But I see also the men whom those noble captains led — men unswerving 
 in their devotion to a noble purpose, self-forgetful in their fidelity to what they 
 saw to be right, and sublimely self-denying and self-sacrificing in their adherence to 
 the cause they espoused ; men who loved their country with a love stronger than the 
 love of life, and with no thought of compensation beyond that country's freedom 
 and honor and safety, bravely toiled and suffered and endured, and gave their 
 bodies to be torn by shot and shell, and poured out their blood like water to the 
 thirsty ground. 
 
 I see the battle-scared soldiers and sailors of the Confederacy, and, with 
 uncovered head and profoundest reverence, I bow before those dauntless heroes, 
 feeling that, if the greatest suffering with the least hope of reward is worthy of the 
 highest honor, they deserve to stand shoulder to shoulder with Lee and his 
 lieutenants in the brotherhood of glory. 
 
 They are honored by all the true and brave who have heard the story of their 
 valiant struggle. Courageous self-sacrifice, resulting from honest conviction of duty, 
 touches an answering chord in all manly hearts. The heroic soul greets all heroes 
 as kindred spirits, whether they are found fighting by its side or levelling lance 
 against it. It is the narrow, ungenerous, and selfish soul that can find nothing to 
 admire in the courage, devotion, and heroism of its enemies. Hence the northern 
 writers who have disparaged and ridiculed the valor and devotion of the southern 
 troops have shown themselves to be wanting in true nobility. In vain have they 
 sought to dim the fame of the Confederate warriors. That fame will emblaze the 
 pages of history when they and all that they have written shall have perished from 
 the memory of man. 
 
 " Though the earth 
 
 Forgets her empires with a just decay, 
 
 The enslavers and the enslaved, their death and birth ; 
 
 The high, the mountain majesty of worth 
 
 Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe, 
 
 And from its immortality lock forth 
 
 Into the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow, 
 
 Imperiskably pure above all things below." 
 
 Yes the high, majestic worth of the Confederate soldiers and sailors shall be 
 "survivor of its woe,'" and, surviving, shall help to lift the world into higher life. 
 Although they were defeated, their struggle was not in vain. In the world's life, 
 wrong has often triumphed for a season. There have been many times of oppression, 
 when human rights were trampled in the dust by despotic power and the hopes of 
 men seemed dead. But the student of history will find that every chaos has been 
 followed by a cosmos. The agony and sweat and tears and blood of every age have 
 brought forth a new and better era. 
 
 " Step by step since time began 
 We see the steady gain of man." 
 
 19 
 
And reasoning from what has been to what shall he, I believe that not in vain 
 were the battles, and not in vain was the fall of those who battled and fell under 
 the banner of the Confederacy. Having by their glorious deeds woven a crown of 
 laurel for the brow of the South that drew to her the admiring mind of the world, 
 by their fall they entwined in that crown the cypress leaves that draw to her the 
 sympathizing heart of the world. The land in which we live is dearer to our hearts 
 since it has been hallowed by their sacrifices and watered with their blood. Though 
 dead, they speak, admonishing us to prove ourselves worthy of kinship with them, 
 by being heroes in peace, as they were heroes in war. 
 
 In our country "the war-drum throbs no longer and the battle-flags are furled." 
 The quiet stars that thirty years ago looked down on sentinelled camps of armed 
 men, resting for the morrow's conflict — 
 
 " midst flame, and smoke, 
 
 And shout and groan and sabre-stroke, 
 And death-shots falling thick and fast, 
 
 now look down night after night on quiet homes, where the sleepers, disturbed bv 
 no call to arms, peacefully slumber until singing birds wake them to the bloodies 
 labors of a new-born day. Fields that thirty years ago were clouded by the smoke 
 of battle and trampled by charging thousands, and torn by the hoof-beats of the 
 war-horse, and ploughed by the shot of cannon, and drenched with the blood c£ 
 dead and mangled men, are now enriched by tillage and contributing their fruits to 
 sustain the life and increase the prosperity of the people," " Peace folds her wings 
 oe'r hill and valley." But peace, as well as war, demands of us high devotion and 
 unswerving loyalty. If, with peace, we have decay of patriotism and loss of virtue, 
 and the triumph of private over public interests, and' the sacrifice of law and justice 
 to secure partisan ends — if, with peace, we have the accumulation of wealth at the 
 cost of the country's welfare and the honest manhood of its citizens, our peace must 
 prove but the downward path to ruin in which so many nations, once great and 
 prosperous, have been swallowed up. Better far the desolations and horrors of war 
 than such peace. 
 
 From such peace- — peace joined with corruption and enjoyed at the expense of 
 true and noble manhood — the soldiers and sailors of the Confederacy, speaking 
 through this monument of their self-sacrificing and heroic devotion, shall help to 
 save our land. Their spirits, glory crowned, hover over us and beckon us on in 
 the paths of patriotism and honor. Their example bids us nobly live for the 
 principles for which they bravely fought and died — the principles of State sovereignty 
 and home rule on which this government was wisely founded by our fathers, with- 
 out which no vast territory like ours can possibly remain democratic, departure from 
 which is rapidly hurrying the country to a choice between anarchy and imperialism, 
 and return to which is essential to the preservation of the life of the republic. 
 
 In the fourteenth century, when the sturdy sons of Switzerland confronted their 
 Austrian oppressors at Sempach, Arnold von Winkelried, commending his family to 
 the care of his countrymen and crying, " Make way for liberty," rushed forward 
 with outstretched hands, and, gathering an armful of spears into his own breast, 
 made an opening in the seemingly impenetrable line of the enemy, through which 
 
 20 
 
his comrades forced their way to victory. Thus falling in the cause of liberty, he 
 won imperishable fame, and liis deed, immortalized in song, has awakened noble 
 and generous emotions and nurtured the love of freedom in the hearts of millions. 
 So shall the story of the men who battled for the Confederacy go down through the 
 ages, kindling the tires of patriotism and devotion to the principles of free government 
 in the hearts of generations to come. 
 
 " Thinking of the mighty dead, 
 
 The young from slothful couch will start, 
 
 And vow with lifted hands outspread, 
 Like them, to act a noble part." 
 And so — 
 
 "The graves of the dead, with the grass overgrown, 
 
 May yet jDrove the foot-stool of liberty's throne." 
 
 Respectfully submitted, 
 
 John Cussons, 
 T. W. Sydnor, 
 John Murphy, 
 
 Committee. 
 
 2] 
 
1 
 
 
 

t/f 
 
 Should old acquaintance be forgot, 
 And never brought to mind? 
 
 Should old acquaintance, be forgot, 
 And the days of old lang-syne? 
 
 
> M 
 
 
 EM 
 
 
 wti