Unveiling Bennett House Memorial -by Carr C6e Mbmty of ttje Ontoersitp of JBottfi Carolina Collection of jRortl) Catoliniana ftom tfje Eifttatp of *C3lp I E" 1 '"W" M JH PEACE WITH HONOR <*, "Never call that cause lost which at such mighty cost created the larger, broader, greater South and a greater Nation." Julian jB. Qarr Founder and Ex- Commander R. F. Webb Camp, United Confederate Veterans Durham, N. C. Ex-Commander North Carolina Division, United Confederate Veterans Ex-Commander Department, Army of Northern Virginia, United Confederate Veterans Ex-Grand Commander United Confederate Veterans Honorary Commander-in-Chief for Life United Confederate Veterans President Board of Trustees "Battle Abbey," Confederate Memorial 'Richmond, Virginia President, North Carolina Soldiers Home Raleigh, N. C. Director. North Carolina Confederate Woman's Home FayetteviUe, N. C. Chairman, North Carolina Commission Stone Mountain Memorial Atlanta, Georgia Member of Commission to Erect Marker on Vicksburg Battleground Member Manassas Battleground Commission UNVEILING BENNETT HOUSE MEMORIAL November 8th, 1923 Address of GENERAL JULIAN S. CARR PEACE WITH HONOR Durham, N. C. Bennett House Memorial Unveiled November S. 1923 Colonel Bennehan Cameron, Chairman of the Commission appointed by the State of North Carolina to erect a mem- orial at the Bennett Place, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen: ear me for my cause and be silent that ye may hear. Tell it in Dan and publish it in Beersheba that I consider it not only a privilege, but also a high honor to speak for the Morgan family on this occasion. First my life-long friend, Samuel Tate Morgan — we climbed the hill of life together and though he be dead, he yet liveth > and thru the oncoming years thru this magnificent generosity, will speak thru these beautifully pol- ished stones, of the glory of the story that at this spot, the greatest war of modern times found its sepulchre. This timely and patriotic gift to the good old State of North Carolina, will stand to the credit of the Morgans, until yonder sun shall linger in the clouds, forgetful of the voice of the morning. The rising sun will kiss the tips of this beautiful Memorial when the early morning begins to awaken, and [3] 9X+XS9 at eventide the mocking bird and the thrush will in the near-by old oaks, chant a requiem to the memory of our departed benefactor. Sleep on dear departed friend, you have for all time enshrined your good name in the hearts of every liberty loving, patri- otic North Carolinian. And to you, Mrs. Sallie Morgan, beloved wife and noble mother, and to you Mrs. Blanche Morgan Rey- nolds, and Mrs Maude Morgan Ca- bell, and Mr. Samuel Tate Morgan, Jr., worthy heirs of an honored and respected father, I return to you for the State of North Carolina our most profound and sincere thanks. We ieel greatly honored to stand uncov- ered in your most distinguished pres- ence. I thank you. God bless every one of you. 4] On April 26, 1865, in the house whose chimney stands there like a solitary sentinel, Major-General Wil- liam T. Sherman, of the United States Army, and General Joseph E. John- ston, of the Confederate States Army, met and agreed upon the terms of peace, under which General Johnston and his intrepid soldiers laid down their arms. It was the cherished w sh of my late friend and neighbor, the late Samuel Tate Morgan, who at his death owned this property, that this hallowed ground be set apart as a per- petual memorial. Therefore, for him and in his name, I, as representing the Morgan family, present this shrine to the State of North Carolina. I have heard this occas ; on desig- nated a "celebration" and I have heard the query propounded: What cause tor celebrat on can this people dis- cover in the surrender of General Johnston? In answer to that question I would say this: Were not this cir- cumstance part and parcel of the glory of Southern arms, were it not connec- ted inseparably with the history of the 0!d North State, were it possessed only of mere local significance, well might this occasion be a celebration of [5] the birth of our fair city of Durham out of the travail of war to peace and prosperity. But, my friends, it is of far greater import. It is not a munic- ipal celebration, nor is it a State celebration, nor yet is it a celebration of any section, north or south, east or west. It is a national celebration. It commemorates the end of a great civil war and the beginning of a new under- standing. It celebrates the ceasing of the flow of fratricidal blood, the calm- ing of the anguished wails of widows and orphans, the end of restless nights and anxious days of mothers, wives, children, sweethearts; the staying of the economic waste of war and its con- sequential suffering; in short, it cel- ebrates the return of peace and pros- perity, unity and good-will to a country torn for four long years by one of the most hotly contested civil wars waged since the history of man began to be recorded. It calls to remembrance the event when North and South threw down their swords, clasped hands and pledged themselves to unity of purpose and co-operation of effort, having as joint aim the common weal as long as the promises of Almighty God shall stand. It stands a great memorial to the Epochal Event — Peace with Honor. 6] Stirred by these memories, I see in vivid retrospect the bleeding, prostrate South as she was in April 1865, when General Johnston addressed General Sherman on the matter of surrender. The Navy of the Confederacy had been destroyed and her ports were in the hands of the enemy; her currency was worthless and famine was ram- pant; General Lee had been forced to surrender at Appomattox, and the trans-Mississippi army was hard pressed. Sources of military supplies and materials had been cut off. Workshops within the Confederate States for the manufacture oi am- munition and the fashioning and re- pairing of arms and equipment had been captured or destroyed by the invader. Marking his trail with de- struction and sorrow, General Sherman had made his famous march to the sea, and now, with 81,000 men, was in pursuit of General Johnston and his gallant little force of 18,000 men. Combat was madness and further retreat folly. General Johnston de- cided to surrender, choosing that al- ternative, as he expressed it, "to spare the blood of his gallant little army, to prevent further suffering of the people by the devastation and ruin inevitable from the marches of in- 7] vading armies, and to avoid the crime of waging a hopeless war. '.'. Mark you, — "And to avoid the crime of waging a hopeless war. " There was now little room for doubt that the Southern cause was hopeless. The South was literally starved into sub- mission. Her plucky struggle, the counterpart of which is yet to be dis- covered in the chronicles of man, will excite the wonder and admiration of generations yet unborn. When Gen- eral Johnston yielded, it was to a force more than four times as numerous as his own, a force better nourished, better clothed, and better equipped. In the light of these facts, who can discover aught of dishonor in the incident of General Johnston's sub- mission? John Hay, in his famous eulogy on McKinley, said: "In coming years, when men seek to draw the moral of our great Civil War, nothing will seem to them so admirable in all the history of our two magnificent armies as the way in which the war came to a close. When the Confederate army saw the time had come, they acknowledged the pitiless logic of facts and ceased fight- ing. And it is to the everlasting honor of both sides that they knew when the war was over and the hour of a lasting peace had struck." No people of any age covered them- selves with greater glory than did the people of the Confederacy in this, the most heroic conflict ever waged in all the history of man. We fought in the face of adverse pub- lic sentiment abroad engendered by the insidious propaganda that we were fighting to perpetuate human slavery. Arrayed against us in the field were superlatively valiant soldiers who fought as none but Americans can, and against whom none but Americans could have contended for four long years as we did. Every battle of that conflict, whether it resulted in defeat or victory, is a monument to the glory of the Southern arms. Though fate laureled the brow of the North with victory, she crowned the "Lost Cause" with a halo of romance and glory whose effulgence shall never be dimmed as long as there is passage through the halls of time. The pages of history record no more heroic struggle in all the existence of man. Remote posterity of our children's children will find delight in the ro- mantic chivalry and glorious deeds of that period. Then, as now, it will be a fruitful theme for song and story. Though the South fought bravely and victory at times seemed to be almost within her grasp, a Supreme power [9] decreed that she should not prevail. She submitted her quarrel to the ar- bitrament of the sword and lost. She offers no apologies for the past. She fought for what she believed to be her rights and has yet to discover doubt as to the justice of her cause. Stigmatized "rebels", we lay claim to the glory thrown round the term by the deeds of our heroes. We make no protest against the application of the epithet to Jefferson Davis, Lee, Jack- son, the two Johnstons, the two Hills, Pettigrew, Branch, Cox, and our other great leaders who walk the halls of immortal fame in company with that arch rebel, George Washington, and other illustrious rebels of every age and country. We take unbounded pride in the appellation; we rejoice in it; we glory in it. We exult in the know- ledge that every patriot who ever ^struck a blow for freedom was a rebel. But while we would keep ever verdant [ the memory of the glory of Southern arms, we would banish from remem- brance forever all bitterness and hate. We challenge the duplicate of our loyalty in any defeated people of" any age. I commend to you the speech General Ransom made in the United States Senate, February 17, 1875. It so beautifully and so eloquently ex- 10] presses what I have in mind that I shall quote a portion of it: v "No, Senators, we are worthy to be your countrymen, worthy to be the patriot brothers of your own ever glorious and honored men who pre- vailed against us. Instead of carping and criminating, and taunting, let us bury deep and forever every recollec- tion of that war that does not revive the common honor and courage and Christian humanity of the North and the South, and the whole American people. If there be any cloud upon the arms of either, thank God, there is glory enough in the arms of both! Are not the victories of Pompey and Caesar the common renown of Rome? Are not the Red Rose and the White Rose now entwined in the Crown of England's history? Is it indelicate for me to remind you that the noble Greeks, the Athenians and the Spart- ans, erected monuments of perishable wood to celebrate victories over their countrymen; but for their triumphs over foreign foes they built them of enduring marble and brass? The brave Romans, whose conquering leg- ions made the world their empire, never permitted a triumph to any victor in their civil wars. Shall this Christian Union be less magnanimous than the republics of the idolatrous ages?" [11] Such my friends, was the temper of this people a decade after the close of the war; such it still is today, nearly three score years since that heroic struggle ended. Have we been faithful to our pledge? History answers yes. Look at the record of our Southern boys in the Spanish American War, the first su- preme sacrifice of which was made by a gallant son of North Carolina. See the old Confederate General, Joseph Wheeler, a Major General "in the United States Army, as he charges up San Juan Hill at the head of Mas- sachusetts troops (the first time, by the way, a Union army had ever_seen his back). The World W r ar is so fresh in our memories that I need hardly direct your attention to the fact that hun- dreds of thousands of the clotted cream of Southern manhood fought shoulder to shoulder on the crimson fields of Franc^ with the choicest soldier stock afforded by our Northern States. And side by side thousands repose in the last sleep of the soldier under the soft skies of France. 12 "In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place .... We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields." It is the proud boast of us Durham folk that when the Allies were brave- ly fighting with their "backs to the wall" two Durham Soldiers, Colonel Sidney W. Minor, and his associate Officer, Major Sidney W Chambers, (the two Sidneys), Commanding the 120th Regiment of the 30th Division, and Colonel, now General Albert L. Cox of Raleigh, N. C, of the 113th Artillery of the 30th Division, broke the Hindenberg Line at its strongest point. We are one. There is no South, no North — save as greater luster was add- ed to American arms by fearless heroes in Blue and Gray. One section re- sponds as the other when the national safety is threatened. The present occasion is but another evidence of the sincerity of the South's purpose to keep her pledge of devotion to the Union. She pledges every en- deavor, every resource, every life, to preserve it from danger. The South 13 is primarily and essentially patriotic. She had no mean part in the founding and fashioning of this great nation. By | the circumstances of fate when she i relinquished to the North the govern- J ment which the South had administer- ; ed for seventy years, she borrowed from the No. th the doctrine of seces- sion. The sword having declared that doctrine heresy in American politics, j the South accepts its dictum as final and resumes her original place in the sisterhood of States. A true patriot is ever a brave man, and a brave man always has the mag- nanimity to forgive. Franklin said that there never was a good war or a bad peace. General Sherman was somewhat more emphatic, though per- haps a trifle inelegant. Doubtless each had the same thought. Certain it is that war begets ill will and hatred, rancor and animosity; while brother- hood and love, unity and co-operation are the children of peace. How can we ask the great Keeper and Preserver of the Universe to be with us if we keep not his injunction to love our enemies ? Can we approach Him with hatred in our hearts and supplication on our lips, asking him to "forgive us our trespasses as we for- give those who trespass against us?" I would remind you of the fact that [141 General Joseph E. Johnston, who, on this spot, April 26, 1865, surrendered to General W. T. Sherman, acted as pallbearer to both General Sherman and to General Grant. (General John- ston's death on March 21, 1891, was due to a cold brought on by exposure while acting as honorary pallbearer at General Sherman's funeral.) Pardon, please, a personal mention. At the unveiling of one of the world's greatest memorials, the splendid testi- monial to General Ulysses S. Grant, erected by a grateful nation at the foot of Capitol Hill in the beautiful city of Washington, your unworthy speaker, who was invited to speak as a Con- federate Soldier, occupied no incon- spicuous place upon the program and no remarks on that occasion received more liberal applause. The Memorial unveiled this day at the Bennett House in time will become as celebrated as the Bunker Hill Monument, and very justly so. If there is a spot on this green earth where a Confederate Soldier can stand, his head uncovered, and hear it said, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant", 'tis here, for the reason that for four long bloody years of war, half fed, and half clothed, he gave the best he had and all he had against a foe that outnumbered him more than four [15] y to one, and yet he came to this spot without dishonor. I am speaking as a Confederate Soldier who followed Lee to Appomat- tox. Please let it be clearly understood that I do not purpose to ask pa don tor, or make apology to, any one for the Confederate Soldier. History can be trusted to justify him. "The World shall yet decide In truth's clear, far-off light That the Soldiers who wore the Gray and died With Lee, were in the right." No Confederate Soldier has ever been asked to sacrifice the principles for which he fought. The basis of our surrender was, lay/down our arms, as General Lee told us in his Farewell at Appomattox; to go home and make ^good citizens in peace as we had made brave soldiers in war. No Confed- erate soldier has ever surrendered nor has ever been asked to surrender the principles for which he fought. Over- whelmed in numbers, he lay down his arms and sheathed his sword, but he has never run away from, nor repudiat- ed the principles for which he stood and for which he fought four long years of bloody war, and these principles today rule the world and they are the founda- tions on which all civilized govern- [161 merits have their being — self-deter- mination. (State's Rights). Martin W. Littleton, president of the Southern Society of New York, speaking at the unveiling of the statue of Lee declared that the Confederate general was the embodiment of a cause which was lost, but the representative of a principle which will never die. "The Cause", he said, "was the right of a state to withdraw from the Union; the principle was the right of a state to withdraw from the Union; the principle was primary and patri- otic loyalty to the sovereignty which he acknowledged. It meant, perhaps, more happiness to mankind that the cause be lost, but it meant perpetuity to civilization that the principle should i survive. " To the credit of the Confederate Army, Chancellorsville will live as long as Chepultapec and Cerro Gordo, and Manassas and Bull Run will deserve honorable mention while Thermopylae or Austerlitz is celebrated in song and story. "No country ever had truer sons; no cause nobler champions; no people braver defendants, no age more valiant knights, no principle purer victims", than our immortal Confederate dead, whose life blood encrimsoned the trenches around Petersburg and Vicks- 17' burg, the hills and valleys around Richmond and Franklin, the wooded knobs and dells around Atlanta, the shadowy forests of Chickamauga and Chancellorsville, the dark ravines of Shiloh and the Wilderness, and the rock-ribbed heights of Sharpsburg and Gettysburg. The Southern Confederacy met the inevitable in the spirit of General Murphy's farewell order to the men of the Southwest; "Conscious that we have played our part like men, con- fident of the righteousness of our cause, without regret or apology for our past, without despair of the future. " There are no words that I have been able to find in the vocabulary of the English language that fittingly express my feelings when I permit myself to speculate upon the glory of the story of my fellow-comrades of the Storm Cradled Republic that fell. It would take a thousand volumes to record the heroic deeds of the Con- federate soldier. In my dreams I see him yet, amid the flame and smoke and battle shout and sabre strokes and shot and shell and cannon roar and leaden hail and bloody bayonets, as he plants the Stars and Bars on a hundred fields of victory. 18] 0, what if half fell in the battle infernal? Aye, what if they lost at the end of the fray? Love gives them a wreath that is fadeless eternal, And glory envesteth the thin line of gray:' I sincerely desire that when my epitaph is engraved upon the stone that will likely mark my last resting place, there shall be inscribed there- on the grandly suggestive and im- pressive words, than which none im- port more exalted honor: "He was a Confederate Soldier." IX CONCLUSION, allow me again, if you please, to declare with all the thrill and enthusiasm which this large assemblage of patriotic American citizens arouses, that this beautiful Memorial is needful to call the world back to the thought that the wage of battle was lost, but the principle for which a proud people vaged that war was triumphant. WE LOST BUT AYE WON and this memorial marks the spot for oncoming ages where the Confederate Soldier after having discharged his duties during four years of untold suffering and hardship, outnumbered- starved and ragged, found here Peace with Hoxor. 1191 In dosing, I take the liberty of plagiarizing Mr. Lincoln's beautiful thought so timely for this occasion: "With malice towards none, with charity for all, with faith in the right as God gives us to see the right." - And now, fellow North Carolinians, ' this memorial is yours. May it stand as a witness of eternal love between North and South. If this stone be a marker, may it mark the perpetual banishment of the prejudices of war from the hearts of a re-united people. If it be a monument, may it perpetuate this sentiment; the men of the South salute the Stars and Stripes as the em- blem of Sovereign States, united for- ever, One Country under one flag, cemented by the blood of our brothers and sanctified to each other by mem- ories of the past. For one I would salute the day when 'Old Glory" floats from the Isthmus of Panama to the North Pole. I thank you. 20 ONE OF MANY Raleigh, North Carolina November 10, 1923. General Julian S. Carr, Durham, N. C. My dear General : I attended the unveiling of the "Bennett" Memorial accompanied by Mrs. and a party of Lady friends, and we were all delighted with it, and your interpretation of the spirit of the occasion was entirely cor- rect and most loyal to the lost cause, and put the affair in a light that made every patriotic Southerner present feel manly and contented that the right thing had been done by erecting such a Memorial at the place where the War was ended by the capitula- tion of Joseph E. Johnson. I doubt if any other in our state could have so completely and gloriously explained what was really implied by the marking of this spot. Many had previously felt that such a cele- bration was a misnomer and out of place, until they heard your patriotic and eloquent presentation of this marker. With every good wish Sincerely your friend UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 00032757437 i FOR USE ONLY IN THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION ,'.'.,' I