The Ideal Confederate Soldie: 
 
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 Collection of jI2ortl) Caroliniana 
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PP=^==^^=* *= — IT T I II II 
 
 The Ideal Confederate Soldier 
 
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 ADDRESS BY 
 
 Judge Armiftead Burwell 
 
 Unveiling Confederate Monument 
 
 Cornelius, N. C, August 4th, 1910 
 
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My Comrades:— 
 
 
 We have been permitted once more, The custom of assembling at this 
 ^upon this anniversary, to come to place, upon this anniversary, which 
 Vhis place of meeting, and to spend, has today drawn hither this vast as- 
 under most delightful circumstances, sembly, was inaugurated very many 
 hours of pleasant social intercourse, years ago by some survivors of the 
 exchanging with our neighbors and Confederate Army, to keep alive 
 friends the sweet courtesies of life, those feelings of fellowship and af- 
 
 And, thus refreshed and comforted, fection which had been first kindled, 
 and accompanied and surrounded by or, at any rate, had been intensified, 
 this throng of spectators and par- by the testing intercourse of camp 
 ticipants, whose presence attests the and march and battlefield, 
 interest they feel, and does to us "The "reunion," thus established, 
 great honor, we have assembled here founded, as it was, upon mutual af- 
 that, by fitting ceremony, we may fection and esteem, and designated to 
 dedicate to its pious purpose this foster good will and neighborly kind- 
 monument, which stands today be- ness among all who came within the 
 cause of the loving labors of a few sphere of its influence, has grown in 
 devoted members of our little band, importance and attractiveness from 
 and the cheerful contributions of year to year until now, today, the 
 many, whose generosity we would people come with one accord to show 
 now most cordially acknowledge. themselves, not only neighbors, but 
 
 And we have come to formally friends, one to the other, 
 
 commit its keeping to the younger But alas! and alas! of the many 
 
 generation that is now here, and to it was decreed that the places that 
 
 the generations to whose keeping knew them shall know them no 
 
 they must, in turn, entrust it. more forever. 
 
 It is most proper that we should Ten comrades stand where one 
 
 thus do. hundred stood on that August day of 
 
 For it is well that here, upon this the long ago, and time has put upon 
 
 spot hallowed to so many within the all of the survivors of th*se survivors 
 
 range of my sight by precious mem- the sure prophecy of a swift-coming 
 
 ories, a shaft to the honor of the Con- disappearance. 
 
 federate soldier shall stand, surmount- And yet, there is no tremor in 
 
 ed by his effigy, in perpetual remem- your thinned and thinning ranks — 
 
 brance of his virtues, displayed as as there was none when, upon the 
 
 they were, both in war and in peace, battlefield, death, in its most horrid 
 
 and recorded, and told, and sung, as form, seemed often so surely coming 
 
 they are, in the history, the litera- on; and, without bravado, but with- 
 
 ture, the poetry and the music, of out fear, you await the inevitable, 
 
 this great, this glorious, this now only caring now for the welfare of 
 united, nation. the loved ones to whom you must 
 
commit, not only the property which izen in times of peace, and by the 
 
 you have earned for them by your soldier in times of war — if horrid 
 
 labors, but all the honor which lies war must come — from the record of 
 
 in having acted well your part, how- your lives. 
 
 ever humble, in the dramas of life— Honored, therefore, as I am, by 
 that the names you bear may contin- being selected to speak for you, and 
 ue to be synonyms of courage and to y° u > today, I feel that I have un- 
 truthfulness and honesty and honor. dertaken to set forth what the "Ideal 
 
 The projectors of this monument, Confederate Soldier" truly represents, 
 realizing the good effect of this an- For this shaft is surmounted by 
 nual assembling of the people of the em SY of no particular officer or 
 this neighborhood at this place in soldier, but is intended to stand for 
 friendly, social companionship, earn- that composite ideality, and to re- 
 estly desire that the pleasure-giving mind Passing generations of his ,aims 
 custom may be continued for many, his true Purposes, and his wonder- 
 many years, and that here our chil- ?ul accomplishments, 
 dren's children, to the remotest gen- But - before x be S in the enumera- 
 eration. may each year meet in de- tlon of those virtues which this ideal 
 liehtful intercourse. nas represented, and does now repre- 
 ^These "reunions" of the coming sent > J ask your indulgence while, in 
 years you and I my comrades, will thls Presence and at the foot of this 
 not attend. monument, I declare that this "Ideal 
 
 But in our places will come, we Confederate Soldier" was neither an 
 
 hope, from farm and factory, from advocate of human slavery, nor a 
 
 town and city, happy throngs of con- favorer of the disruption of the Union 
 
 tented and patriotic people, who will or ^ ne States. 
 
 thus perpetuate this pleasing cus- I do not speak of, or for, the Con- 
 
 tom. . federate politician or statesman, but 
 
 The little boy who today plays fo rthe ideal of those boys and men 
 about his father's knees, and wond- who, leaving father, mother, sister, 
 ers, perhaps, what all this means, wife or children to the care of that 
 will, at some coming "reunion," be God in whom they had been taught 
 Ihe'man upon whom will rest the to trust, went forth from happy 
 grave responsibilities of life, and homes beneath this Southern sky to 
 girls and boys yet unborn may in the weariness of bivouac and battle- 
 sight of this monument, and beneath fl eld, to find rest only in a soldier's 
 the shade of these oaks, spend hours grave, or in a home to which desola- 
 of pure and joyful intercourse. tion na d come, but into which de- 
 
 To these people, young and old, of s P air was not allowed to enter. , . 
 
 ,,„, ,.., , By force of circumstances the 
 
 the future years, your children and ., , ~, „ f , . ,,. „„„«*„ 
 
 , ., , , , . , , , , ideal Confederate soldier was a de- 
 
 your children s children, you would fender Qf slavery He was not its 
 
 speak by this silent messenger, and, w illing advocate. 
 
 with beseeming modesty, and yet This statement is most eminently 
 
 with pardonable pride, bid them heed true of the ideal North Carolina Con- 
 
 the lessons to be learned by the cit- federate Soldier. 
 
■ The ideal Confederate soldier was ble, but honorable duties to which he 
 not a favorer of the disruption of had resolved to devote the remainder 
 the Union of the States. He had been of his life, disdaining to tread any- 
 taught to love that Union, but he had fBU^rSfe^orTrlBr. 
 
 been also taught that his first alle- THfe ideal Confederate soldfer was 
 giance was due to the State of his not a, favoreA of the 'disruption of 
 nativity and citizenship, and when pa th that honor forbade a hero to 
 that State asserted that the Union tread, and refusing to get riches by 
 was practically broken up by the ac- the bartering of his name and fame, 
 tion of the people of the North, and And as it was of the great Corn- 
 had been then formally dissolved by mander, so it also was of his humb- 
 the legal proceeding of a convention j est s0 ldier. 
 
 of the people of the State— his people The « surr ender," as it is called, 
 
 —blood of his blood and bone of his marke d an epoch in his life. It 
 
 bone— then, and not until then, did changed, and yet it may be said it 
 
 he become an enemy of the Union, did not change, that life. It did not, in 
 
 and a resister of its power. essentials, alter his high purpose, 
 
 But what positive human character- 0r lessen the vigor of those pure mo- 
 
 istics does this ideal Confederate tives that had moved him to ac- 
 
 coldier represent? tion. 
 
 Of what, my comrades, shall his He had not been, and even under 
 
 silence speak to this younger genera- the gtregg and strain ' the circum . 
 
 tion and to the generations yet to stances that surround^him, he could 
 
 come . no t k e a wild-eyed South American 
 
 We are removed from Appomattox revolutionist, bent on "rule or ruin." 
 
 by two score and five fleeting years. He had been a citiz en, patriotic, as 
 
 The rapid march of events and the he thought, armed with gun and sa- 
 
 good sense and good humor of a bre and cannon . He Deca me, by 
 
 great people have borne us a full easy transition, a patriotic citizen, 
 
 century from the defeats and disap- equipped with hoe and axe and pjr.w. 
 
 points that culminated at that his- And with thege it may be bettRr 
 
 toric spot— that place which marks, armgi he waged foj . thig Southlan(i; 
 
 not the disappearance of the Confed- and for Mg home and firegide ., nd 
 
 erate soldier, but his entry into a for Ms loyed oneg & contest against 
 
 newer and, perhaps, more heroic ca- naverty and want> such as man has 
 
 reer. Lee was truly majestic on the geldom waged 
 
 battlefield of Gettysburg, but, in tne Re h&d turned frQm ^ fifeIdg of 
 
 light of subsequent events, may not blf)od &nd carnage with the iyxinm 
 
 we say that this hero of a hundred th ht that the God of his fa :- levs 
 
 battles — this typical Southerner — this . . * . _. . . ... . , ,.._ 
 
 highest type of the American man- had deserted him; but in his new Me, 
 
 was in truth even more majestic as about his stricken home and his deso- 
 
 he rode away from the presence of lated fields, God's sunshine an.i uod s 
 
 his great and generous foe, to take care were found, and with course, 
 
 up burdens of life such as he had compared with which the braverv of 
 
 never borne, and to assume the hum- the battlefield is as naught, he has 
 
been victorious. South then, as in the days when 
 And beoaise of his patient ami he trod the blood-stained fields of 
 fearless labors in the half-sco^e years Virginia, may show to the world the 
 that immediately followed the "sur- endurance, the dashing bravery, the 
 lender"— Ins stand, in time of so calm courage which he evinced.' 
 called peaoe, for his race, his people And if carping critic shall ask by 
 and his land— the South in the full- what authority he shall so speak, 
 ness of tine was ready, other [iiqlt- history, whether written by friend or 
 lems having been solved, to take up foe, will answer, for on her pages are 
 that work of material advancement names and events, put there by hi3 
 in which she is now so successfully prowess and the guarantee of his 
 engaged. perpetual fame. There will be found 
 Therefore let this silent messen- the names of Lee, and Jaekson, of 
 ger speak for you, my comrades, to Forest and Stuart, of the Kills, and 
 the men and women of this time, and of Longstreet, of Johnson and Polk, 
 to those coming after them, of cour- Q f Branch and Pender, and Ramseur 
 age— not only of that spirit which —and of many others of glorious 
 disdains danger, but of that better memory, to mention whom time" fails 
 spirit which stands calm and unmov- me. And there, too, will be found 
 ed as well in defeat as in victory, in the story of Manass«s, of Fredericks- 
 darkness as in light, in povert/ as burg, of Sbaipsbtirg, of Gettysburg 
 in wealth, and impels its possessor :,nd of Chickamauga. 
 under all circumstances, however And when you, my comrades, no 
 humble, or however exalted his place 'onger can command him, history 
 may be, to do the full duty of a will bid nim speak of these names, 
 n-an. and of these events of whicn you 
 
 Let him also speak of patriotism — were a part 
 
 not the false patriotism in whose Men and wo; len of chi-s younger 
 
 name so many crimes have been time, heed, we beg you, the lessons 
 
 committed, but that love which ex- h^ would teach. 
 
 erts itself first in affection for ones Be reminded by this silent soldier— 
 
 neighbors and friends, and then ex- who, great as he was in war, was 
 
 tends itself to other people and other greater in peace— to be b.-ave when 
 
 places — of the just enforcement, ai danger appears, to bear with fortitude 
 
 law and civil order— of honesty and the ills of life, if ills, under God's 
 
 economy in the management of the providence, shall come — to loye home 
 
 business of the public — of love of and its purity— to protect from taint 
 
 race— his race— for the protection of the Saxon blood that courses in your 
 
 the purity of the home— for the main- veins— to be, in fine, men and women 
 
 tenace of schools and churches— worthy of the heritage of fame which 
 
 and, with all these, for the preserva- this "Ideal Confederate Soldier" won 
 
 tion of a martial spirit among the for his Sunny South, and gave to her 
 
 people that, if war must come people, and to the people of all this 
 
 (which God forbid) the men of the great nation. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/idealconfederateOOburw 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
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 FOR USE ONLY IN 
 THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION 
 
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