The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1866-12-27

Ithatf ana 4 nave helkhootn WHO nave
plenty. What must | dot" All don't
build monuments 70 these dead men and
leave their wives and children 60 suffer, See
to il that they get food and shelter and
raiment, and that those boys and girls,
whose fathers and brothers names are en-
| craven on this shaft, get the nurture and
admonition of the school-house and church,
| This will honor the dead and ennahle the
Lost Cause" far more than shaft and urn
and tablet. And your own hearts will re-
ioice as orphans eyes sparkle and widows
hearts sing for joy. And children's children
| will rise up and call you blessed.
| | know that this is 20 you day of saddest
recollections. You live amid desolations de-
spoiled and bereaved. When | read Of
| leniency TO the conquered, rs that word
sometimes appears, think of that whole
| sale act of confiscation, which at one blow
be0pared a people. An imp0verishmen
without parallel-four billions of property,
| for these slaves were our property, wrenched
| from us by q stroke of our conquerors pen,
think, too. Of a land, which, before inya-
| ding hosts, was las the garden OF tine Lord
and behind them a desert" And then the
vision of blood rises. ! know, fathers ana
mothers, that to-day the vivid remembrance
Of your boys' lives are freshened in your
minds the infant that lay in your arms,
the child that prattled at the knee, tue
stripping that grew at your side, the young
man ON whom your age ie0ked to lean, the
soldier who went to the war with your
blessing and your fears; ! know wife, that
the lover who looked unto your
ewes. the husband who folded you
to his breast, the father OF your
babes aud the stay of your house
| know, sister and brothers that the boy
who romped with you in the home, and sat
| = Ia wifi Nn
church. and went frem you in his manly
strength; and | know, son and daughter,
that the father whom you loved and honor
ed, All | know, father, mother, sister, bro.
ther, son, daughter, how all these, who will
never come back, are with you to-day, and
how, as | speak, you are thinking, thinking,
the ouick coming memories that throng and
throb through the sensitive brain and the
loving heart, and yet know, too, that yenI
dropping eyes must rise and your bleod
course proudly through your VEINS and your
souls glow with triumph as you recall tneli
devotion to their land, their trials and suffer
ings. and deaths, all endured and braved foI
YOU and her, for their homes and their affairs
Oh as these come to mind, can you not lay
them on the altar of sacrifice, ennobled and
embalmed, your hearts richest offering to
truth honor and duty. As the glorious ca
reer of those two gallant armies, the one evei
conanering while battling on Virginia's soil
encircling as living wall beleagured Rich
mond, until its thinned ranks make skill ant
yalor and devotion powerless against out
numbering hosts. The other, ever over
marched and vet as valiant and as true
I ever renewing itself after disasters, and
though driven and bafled, true to its LEADER
and its colors.
Soldiers of the war / know your heart
are full to-day, burdened with the memories
of brave men You are burying your deat
friends over again, and pale faces and cole
forms come wildly to mind. And the camp
the hiyopac .atlRieS; Tiie battlesiin though
, You live these over again.
And you, comrades of our old command
do not Shiloh, and Vicksburg, and Murfrees
; boro and Chickamauga, and Chattanooga
pass in review before you to-day2 Ant
: those later eventful campaigns. when from
Dalton to Atlanta you contested, step b.
step, the advance of mighty host, under
, trusted leader. whom you would have follow
ed to the gulf; with an army wrapped IL
gloom because of his removal, and the quicl
, following disasters of Peach Tree Creek, At
lanta, Jonesboro continued by that fata
onward movement to the Tennessee; TIN
crossing that Rubicon by brave little army
flushed with expectation, which disappointed
of its rightful prize, by the fatal inaction o
Spring Hill, broken by the vain slaughter a
Franklin, and frozen in the cold trenches a
; Nashville. was hurled back to that fatet
stream; its rear guard, its forlorn hope beat
ing off its puTsuers at Anthony's Hill ant
Sugar Creek-this dread work all wrought II
one disastrous month-the little Tennan
) forming again under its great General, Whose
; presence renewed its life, to close in tn
Carolinas under his wise head and careful
hand the unequal struggle ! know you re
| III. l. -,
ever forget il, with the seventy stiifeneC
forms that I'VE laid away in their wintr,
sleep And here stands general, ('fhomai
: NJ Scott,) who, leading another brigade o
our division, shares with ms the memories
of that dread day. And can we ever forget
the noble people of Franklin, and those nobl,
women and has not our division embalmeC
in its heart that prince of men, Col. John
McGavock, whose home was opened to it'
wounded, his house and grounds field hos
pital for three hundred bleeding men
grounds since hallowed yet more as the rest
, ing place of all the Confederate dead buried
: on that fatal field, and removed at his de
sire
Alas but few Of our great fields will gel
for their dead such noble and generous care
but wherever our slain soldiers lie, that q
us is hallowed ground. Yes there uncovered
bones may bleach beneath the sky, and thu
needless farmer turn them over with hi
pillow, yet, Just as wind and sun and rain
shall whiten these neglected bones, so theiI
names which to-day may be cast out, viii
in the keeping of time, which is the shrine
of virtue rather than its tomb. be rendered
fair and clear"
We of the South were once power. ON
conquerors for four years conceded that; one
of their highest judges defined our limits az
compact and bounded by a line Of bayOnet'
that could be crossed only by force. We are
a power no longer Yet the men and deed
of those four years viii live while the world
stands famous in its history. Poland J.
crushed, but KOsciusko's name is immortal
Ireland is enthralled, but Emmet's memory
lives in song and story. Think you that the
land of Lee, and the JOhnsOns, and Jackson
Of Davis and Beauregsrd, Of Forrest and
Semmes, viii go down to Othes times IN
went, unhonored and unsungf No tbess
nahes and this land will live through
ages, and, embalmed in great epics, and re
sounding in martial odes, viii move the
hearts Of gentle women, and stir the souls Of
brave men.
This monument. whose cornerstone viii
be laid to-day by this noble and ancient OF.
I d<.uEill become . pilgrim shrine, 70 which
1dren and your children's children
80 hald communion with tbs mar.
II. their race. But day viii
memorial shaft viii fall and
ret the memory Of tbese
asR not perish. Man i