The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1870-04-22
cor The M.RrErrA JOURNAL.
IFoR THE MARIETTA JoChS|
THE CONFEDERATE DEAD.

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On Tuesday next hundreds of Cobb's
fair maids and matrons will (doubtless)
throng about the spots hallowed by the
dust of Southern chivalry, bearing their
tender offerings of violcts and roses as
tribute to the memory Of departed valor
The South cannot utter her grief in
stone. No towering mausolcums entonb
the ashes of her dead. No marble col
umn casts its protecting shade over her
new made graves. Though like ancient
Priam she has kissed those terrible,
those bloody hands which slew her chill
dren, yet no generous Achilles allows
her dead the right of sculpture. Alas !
her only permitted tribute is tcar-her
whispered anthem sigh But her
daughters will go with all the devotion
of an eastern pilgrim to mingle their
tears over "picccs of bleeding clay," and
scatter flowers over their brothers
gravcs--gravcs yet moIstcned with
the weeping of brave people. They go
not to tear away the sacred shroud, nor
re-animatc with impure life the moulder-
ing dust of departed controversy. They
would not even "call back to its man
sion the fleeing BREATH" for they are
happier than the bruised survivors who
daily die living deaths in watching the
lingering agonies of expiring liberty =
The dead the immortal dead
"Are past the far
OF future tempests a wreck on shore
Those who survive are still exposed to both"
But they simply go to pay tender trib
ute to the heroes of broken, shackclcd
cause. VIII any one say there is dis
loyalty in thisH Isthere treason and re-
bellion in weeping over the graves of de-
parted virtue, because obloquy and
shame is heaped upon it by carping de-
famersY If so, the tears and bitter
agony of Mary Magdelcne should have
been rewarded only with the torturcs Of
the rack. No! though the South be de-
MED her privileges though she be the
victim of torture and barbarity which
the red-man of the forest has been
taught to relinquish = though her spirit
be chained in shacklcs-shc will claim
the right of sorrow; she will, like
Rachel of old, weep and grieye because
her children are not.
Let not the fair and lovely maldcns
of Georgia forget their duty. Let the
memory Of the buried be the theme of
spirit-stirring song and passionate story.
Let the poet and minstrel shed around
it the splendor and rapture Of genius;
and let all invoke the presence Of those
Virtues which, though departed, still
"ruie our spirits from their Urns," 81
ently ennoblc the human character, and
swell the tide of hdman happiness. The
natural effect Of grief for the dead is to re-
fine and elevate the mind, and in its man
ifestations there is something far more
touching than the cold costly monuments
of art The heart glows with feryor
while the hand strcws the flowers, and
the tear of sorrow falls like a dew drop
"polishcd by the hand Divine" 1t is
one of the last and hottest offices Of love
and tenderness. 1t is u sorrow from
which we should never be divorced
Time heals and soothes all other wounds.
But the dull and mournful clang which
proceeds from tho closing portals of the
tomb, must ever CRATE harShly upon the
ear of grief and affection. Though the
cause of the South be enshrouded with
the pail of defeat, and the sword which
cleaned in its defence be hung high up
on the walls of Fate-though the spider
"hath woven her web in the temples of
her greatness" and the 'owl sings her
watch note" amid her bowers of pleas
urc-yet she will mourn over the cold
and mangled forms of her devoted chill
dren, plant flower upon their graves,
aud ever cherish their ashes as the sacred
emblem of Mothers pride
"WALLACE."
Po,rdcr Springs Camp Ground, 1prii 18th 1870.
-G-
KNOWS HIM