ow ve Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library 8061 ‘12 ‘NYE ‘Ld "AN ‘asnoerds L161—H41 SIDYeV YT ‘so1g p1oyfey E. FORREST, Adjutant Genpra? Sons of Confederate Veterank MEMPAIS TERN. CONFEDERACY AFTER JULaw 4, 1863 9 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY MR. C. P. J. MOONEY YN 5 ge Is MEMORIAL DAY EXERCISES IN MEMPHIS NINETEEN HUNDRED THIRTEEN MEMPHIS WANTS THE VETERANS IN 1915 PUBLISHED BY THE CONVENTION DIVISION OF THE BUSINESS MEN’S CLUB oe . @ 4 * = a) x. = aA ms ro 4s ry re 29 Ap 18 a7; THE CONFEDERACY AFTER JULY 4, 1863 “This is to many of you a day of memory and tears. We are gathered here to pay tribute to those who died and to do honor to those Confederates who live and to the cause for which they fought. ‘““The war is a half century gone. Another generation, whose members are now in the noonday of life, has been born since the flag of the Confederacy was furled. The living Confederate soldiers, the youngest of them, are around three score and ten. “T desire to-day, with your permission, to call your attention to certain lessons of this war which are now being studied by the philos- ophers of history and certain facts in the struggle to which military experts are giving close attention. “To the student of history, to the student ‘af war and to the student of the endurance of men, the history of the Confederacy pre- sents some striking problems. ‘““Those who are in the midst of things often fail to see that chain of incidents which turns the currents of human actions. The contem- porary is not a good historian. He is inter- esting in writing his experience and his me- moirs. “*T think this is a time when men who study the progress of government and the progress of civilization should begin to give attention to an analytical discussion of the history of the Confederacy and begin to draw from it con- clusion, in which they may be greatly as- sisted by those Confederates and those Fed- erals who survive. “The history of the war has not yet Been written. But when the commentator fin- ishes his study of the Confederacy he will give to the world a story of the most marvel- ous struggle that men ever sustained. “And he will wonder how it were possible for the Confederacy to maintain itself from July 4, 1863, until the disbanding of Lee’s army at Appomattox in the spring of 1865. “What matchless quality was it that en- abled the soldiers of the lost cause to carry the Confederacy aioft upon the points of their swords through the year 1864? ““The climax fact of the Confederacy is its duration. With your permission I will briefly discuss certain things in that period of the Confederacy when by all af the rules of war the trial of strength should have been over. ‘To my mind the fate of the Confederacy was sealed at Vicksburg and ‘Gettysburg. Then let us see how it was, and why it was that this titanic. struggle lasted 22 months longer. ee Hour of the Supreme Striiggle “Fifty years ago this month the Confed- eracy was in the supreme struggle for its life. “The strongest of the fortified places on the Mississippi held by the Confederates was Vicksburg. In the month of June, 1863, Pemberton was shut in and Grant’s army was pressing him from the east. The Fed- eral gunboats were sending their messages of death into the beleaguered city from the reaches of the river. The Confederates had not lost hope of relieving Pemberton by an attack from toward Jackson. During the warm days of that terrible June, Grant, hav- ing learned the foolhardiness of direct assault, set down to the less brilliant but more effect- ive method of a sustained siege. The Fed- erals held the river at New Orleans and above Vicksburg. Johnson could not draw enough 4 men away from the lines that protected the Confederates’ northern outposts in Alabama and Georgia to give him strength that would enable him to strike Grant in the rear. “The spirit of the men within the trenches at Vicksburg was the same spirit that was a peculiar mark of the Confederacy. ‘Those who had studied the rules of war knew that in the end there must be a surrender. All during this month of June they fought on with the same steady valor that marked the Confederate whether he was charging to vic- tory or defeat. “In the east the Federals were uneasy. In -every pitched battle, except that of Sharpsburg, they had been beaten. Each side claims a victory at Sharpsburg. The student of history will probably call it a drawn fight, for while McClellan held the field and Lee withdrew, the Federal com- mander did not pursue him. McClellan was censured for this by the editor-generals of the north and by the politicians who fought the war from the safe recesses of the speakers’ stand at barbecues. McClellan gave up his command and those who followed him, when they did attack toward the end of the year, saw their armies cut to pieces on the heights of Fredericksburg. ‘“‘Another general, in the fall of ’63, did what McClellan did in the fall of ’62, but he was not blamed. Grant, however, had a victory to his credit; McClellan had none, only a drawn fight. The forces under Grant beat Bragg’s army at Missionary Ridge, but the Federals did not follow up the fight until April of the next year. Grant in the mean- time was transferred to Washington and the work. of taking up the thread of war in the west following Missionary Ridge was not begun until Sherman started to Atlanta. Gettysburg in ’63 “Fifty years ago to-day if the Federals were gaining confidence in the west, they were sorely troubled in the east. General Lee, who was far-seeing, felt that a chance for victory and for ultimate peace was an inva- 5 sion of the North. Fora month before July 3 of ’63 his adversaries could not divine his purposes. ‘They felt his army, but they could not grapple with it. Their strategy would have been to have fought with him in Vir- ginia, but so eager were they to protect Wash- ington that Lee crossed into Maryland with- out opposition. And then the armies march- ed in parallel lines. Hooker was removed and it fell to the lot of Meade to fight Gettys- burg. The place was neither Meade’s nor General Lee’s choosing. General Lee knew that a great army was in front of him and that at some point in his march to the north it would lie across his path. And the Federals knew that a hitherto unbeaten army under the command of a matchless leader was coming headlong at them and that a victory would result, not from superior bravery nor superior marksmanship, not from the enthu- siasm that with courage conquers victory, but must come from force of numbers. ‘You know the story of Gettysburg. The invading army of the Confederacy spent its force there. Sullenly the Confederates fell back. ‘Leisurely they- retracedtherm steps into Virginia. The Federals did not folllow. The Confederates may have received their death wound at Gettysburg, but they con- cealed the hurt from the adversary. Might Have Ended in ’63 “By all the rules of war Vicksburg and Get- tysburg should have marked the collapse of the aggressive fighting strength of the south. The Confederate States were cut in two by Federal armies commanding every bend of the Mississippi River from Cairo to New Orleans. The Federals had driven their line down to North Mississippi to the Tennessee River and to Chattanooga. Following Vicks- burg and Gettysburg an offer of a settlement might have been made. Jefferson Davis, the head of the Confederacy, might have said, ‘We have fought a good fight. The fortunes of war are against us. What have you to offer?’ “The Federal fleet was at the mouth of every river that empties into the sea. Only two Confederate flags were on the high seas. One was borne aloft and defended with a knightly valor by Admiral Semmes, who’s own daughter every year is present in this cemetery at this service and who to-day sits on this stand. Later another Confederate flag was unfurled on the ocean, was carried into every sea by a band of gallant men, one of whom has the honor to-day of commanding the uniformed Confederates sitting in front of us. Two Confederate ships could make but small progress against a fleet which could patrol the Atlantic coast from Maine to Mexico with a line of ships so close that one was always in sight of another. ‘‘A cordon of Federal troops was drawn from Arkansas, across Tennessee and up the valley of Virginia. The only supplies that could be imported were those that came from intermittent landings of blockade runners. The Confederate soldier could have surrender- ed in July of ’63 and the world would have said he fought a good fight. ‘‘And the leaders from that time on knew that the chances were against success and the private soldiers had little hope of ultimate victory. “T desire to suggest for your consideration this thought: The glory of the Confederacy ismineits cereat.. cs Jaint. hope for success was in sustaining a defensive warfare so long that the patience and the spirit of the north- ern soldier and the northern people might wear away. There might have been a fur- ther hope that conflicting political opinions in the North would finally divide the people and, aweary, they might be content to recog- nizesthe.@onlederacy as“agseparate entity. But to the glory of the Confederate soldier he did not trust to these forces. “He trusted his cause to the arbitrament of the sword and he was willing to decide it by shot and shell, by force of arms, if you please, and not by the indirection of diplo- macy. Victory After Defeat “The marvel to me is that after Gettysburg and after Vicksburg the Confederate soldier had the heart’ to fight gf