Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1868-04-22

grantdiy down 10 death rather than yield
10 wrong; history will not forget him.
But had he a mother, wife. q child, what
of them? He leaves memory; what
becomes of their memories? They sent
him forth-prayed for him--watched and
waited for him-suffered the deep anguish
of suspense for him-he is remembered
they are forgotten. His deeds are hand
ed down-theirs, consigned to oblivion.
His brow is crowned with = wreath OF
glory, and flowers are strewn DER his
Srave-but they! no one knows of them;
n no one asks for them. AND who suffered
more-they or he Which is harder
death to him in the front Of battle, or life
to them when he is gone? Which is
greater-his glory or their grief?, And
if the light of his glory flashes along
many a page of history, why does not
their grief cast:its shadow there?
History is wrong. Women and chill
dren help to make it. They are actors
in the drama. They are part Of every
scene. Beside every event they stand.
There never was deed done with which
they have not been connected. But their
story is unchronicled-their flames un.
sounded-their names eclipsed in the
glare of the names of men. Their hearts
are beating under every page of history;
their hands, unseen, are working at every
monument of human glory. Amid the
nations they are moving to and fro, full
filling their mission, but the ranks of men
hide them from view and the writers of
the deeds of men leave them in their OBJ
scurity.
Who will write the story of the -wo-
men and children of the South9 Who
will describe their sacrifices Cor our cause! I!
Who will record their enthusiasm as long
as there was hope-and their fidelity
when hope passed away? Who will tell
the world, in fitting words, of their woes
and the wrongs they endured? We are
shrining in story and in song the flames of
our .nen-shall we forget our women and
children? They are keeping our memo.
ries-shall we let. their memories perish !?
They are treasuring in their hearts our
tradtions-they cling to them-they will
pass them down they are making them
household words and if they do this
for us, shall we fail to record their praises ?
Proud pages in history shall the men
who wore the Grey ave; but their
mothers, wives, sisters, children, shall
they remain unchronicled and unknown
No! they were true to US, and history
must be true to them. Devotion to a
cause, greater than theirs, the world
never witnessed. Does the ivy cling as
faithfully as ever to the crumbing tower !
so they to the lost cause. Was the blood
of our soldiers, shed in our defence, holy
and pure? Not less pure and holy were
Meir tears. Were the handships borne
in battle, siege and skirmish, in camp, on
the march, in the trenches and hospitals
grand and worthy of remembrance ? Not
less grand nor less worthy of record were
the sorrows of our women and children
in twice hundred thousand homes.
Where was the higher heroism-on the
battlefield, or far away at the lonely
hearth Who bore more-gave more
suffered more for country-thc soldier
with sword of steel girded to his side, or
the soldier boys mother with the sword
of grief transpiercing her heart? Was
he worn and weary, that soldier of Lees
army in the trenches of Richmond? But
thousands of comrades surrounded him.
What of his wife, with the woe-worn face
and the weary heart in her far-oif home:
looking into the eyes Of her little girl,
who, tomorrow may -e fatherless =? Is
it sad-that grass.grown grave, without
name, in the shadow of the woods of
Tennessee? A boy without coffin or
shroud, with only his grey suit on. is
resting there; and.his sorrows are over.
But there is grave in that uoy's only
sisters heart, away down in some little
village of Georgia, and her sorrows slill
endure. Is that not sadder? Was il
not mounrful-that dying cry of the poor
soldier in a Northern prison? But the
means of his mother in the silence of the
night, when his pale face fits through her
dreams are they not more full of agony I?
A. J. II.