Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-08-22

natures own perfection, bedeckine
] beauty in that which nature, with
infinite bounty, has exhausted hersel
to produce forms of female cOmeliness
so varied, yet each perfect in its kind
that none shall find its like-yet thai
each shall be more lovely to some
beholder than any other. Oh /! that ]
cauld bind in wreaths and chaplet:
and rich cOrOnals the words and
flowers of speech that would dc
Justice to the fair danes and daughters
of Memphis, and scatter them broad.
cast over this assemblageo Of lOveliness
and grace.
One of the objects of this meeting is
charitable. What a happy thought to
coin these smiles of beauty, these
innocent sports of childhood, these
lOve-passages Of the youth, these ten
der looks, and coy, reluctant yielding
to gentle touches of the hands thai
thrill the frame, into aims and bless
ings for the poor Of that loved cause
which each of us will cherish while
memory preserves her domain. Let
us, then, welcome joy and happiness
and gladness, for the pleasure of to-
day may carry comfort and Joy to
many who do not share it with us
now.
One object of our society is to pre-
serve the records of the great struggle
of heroic men for the right to govern
themselves. History: the records OF
the past. These trees, beneath whose
ample shades we meet to-day, what a
history they could deliver if we could
but find traced upon their leaves the
Photographs Of all that they have wit
messed. Generous and lavish of the
present, the tree is the most selfish
and narrow of historians. He care
fully lays up the record of his own
years, but beyond that he recks not
whether DeSOtO rested his head upon
his giant bOle, or what princes OF
dusky hue feasted beneath his shade,
or what council fires sprung beside
his trunk. OF bird or beast or creep
ing thing that sport amidst his
branches, he preserves no trace. But
let US be grateful for his shade, and
that he does record the date when
| John Rice made his survey or old
| Anthony BledsOe marked his begin
ming corner. The mighty stones are
better historians than these; they tell
US of the past, and stretch the figura-
tive days of Moses beyond the small
beginnings of recorded time, clothing
creation with a grandeur and sublim-
ity which dwarfs man and his paltry
six thousand years of time into a
point. a speck, an atom. They tell
US how the beasts of the field and the
birds of the air grew and hOurished,
and we're blOtted out before man was,
and they reproduce the grifins and
monsters and chimeraS dire in the
/ pterOdactyls and the Saurians of the
| geOlogist. Shall nature and thestones
record in imperishable hieroglyphics
the existence of these soulless beings,
and man fail to erect monuments to
his dead heroes and statesmen and
patriots? Egypt has erected pyra-
mids to preserve the record of her
times and greatness that ChampOlleau
might decipher them. Assyria is
yielding up the long closed tOmbs of
her history, and Rawlinson is reading
there the stories Of ages for which
man has hitherto looked to the
words of Moses as the only record.
These record the works of kings and
princes.
We revel in the glories of Greece
and Rome, and in the vivid pages of
Macauley, the delightful books of
Prescott, and the sonOrOus periods of
GibbOn; we see pass before us the
scenes of bygOne ages. No theme for
history has ver yet been found which
will task the powers of the mind
more eXactingly than that of the war
of the South against the oppression
and unjust aggression of the Northern
States. All history viii here find a
parallel. The greatest battles Of an
cient or modern times, the greatest
heroes of the world, the greatest war
riors that ever set squadron in the
field, the greatest patriots that Greece
or Switzerland or Poland have held
up for admiration, will find their
peers in this land of the cotton and
the magnolia, and on their history will
dwell with wrapt attention the youths
and beauties OF an age which shall
stand rs far from us in the vista of eX-
istence as we stand now from the era
of the Pyramids.
The ravage of the Palatinate and
the savage cruelties ofTurenne do not
surpaSs the desOlations of Sherman
and his hosts of bummers. The most
noble names of knight and paladin
convey no idea of man more pure
than Lee, the Marshals of Napoleon,
no name for dash and glory more
splendid than jackson. Contrast
these Christian soldiers with those
who hurled their ranks against them,
in savage warfare, regardful of men
no more than of brutes that perish
and who shall say that these pure and
noble men are traitors, to be made
OdiOus, and that these other myrmi-
dOns of power, soldiers of ambition,
are the good and the great? When
Grant shall be remembered as the sol
dier who, with unlimited means, was
unable to crush his cOuntrymen of one
section, by s~acrafcing without stint,
remOrSeleSS as a butcher, his country
men of his own section, as the Presi-
dent least distinguished by ability, or
any quality of head or heart, legend
and story will p~erpetuate the virtues
of a StOnewall and history will fall
down and worship the god like pro-
portions of Lee.
But the historian viii dwell with
more than loving lingering on the
feasts and deeds of arms of the private /
soldier. Here the true glory of the
war for constitutional liberty blazes
forth. Here was to be found the
highest chivalry, with the nObleSt
selfdenial-here deeds of greatest
daring, with %privations the most try
ing, where he that left his native
rocks and hills, with nOught behind
him but the loved ones at home
fought side by side with equal, if not
superior ardor, to the representative
of afiuence and prineely magnificence.
The world will look to the future for
the parallel of the great and glorious !
deeds of the rank and file of the four
years var Let us lay up industrious
ly the material for history, recording,
the mighty stones record, the
traces of our heroic dean. Let US
write their privations and other tolls;
their deeds in field, in camp, in prison.
While the partial recOrd-makers of
the North lay up against US the ter
rors of AndersOnVille, let us show
how, with no excuses of inadequate
means or scarcity, the prisoners in
prisons of war were wantOn-
Iy starved to the limit of human en-
durance. OF this, / am as near an
eyewitness as a man can be, not to
seen. Five years since, this day,
I was captured by a Federal party,
and found myself in the following
in Camp Chase, having spent
4 norton of the intermediate time at