The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1875-05-18
Ex.COnfederates in Congress.
New York SUM-

Some of the Grant organs affect to be terri.
bly, alarmed because SO many Confederate
generals have been elected to the next Con-
eress We regard this, on the contrary, as an
excellent sign; for as rule those men who
ranked highest in the Confederate service
were the best representatives of the intelli-
gence of their party in the seeding States.
and we know that the most influential and in
telligent classes in those States desire nothing
so much as a thorough reconstruction Of the
Union in fact as we'll as in name.
races in the South are those who try to keep
alive the animosities engendered during the
rebellion and arising from the former exist
ence of slavery; and they are fully aware that
their own prosperity. as we'll as that of the
North depends upon the complete restora-
ton of harmonious relations between the two
great sections of the country which were
lately arrayed against each other in all the
bitterness of civil war; Nothing but the
mean devices of politicians has prevented q
complete reconciliation.
Gen. w. F. Bartlett, Union soldier, now
living in Virginia, spoke words of truth at
the Centennial celebration at Lexington when
he said that between the soldiers of the two
sections fraternal relations were established
long ago. 1t was only the other day in Lit
tie Rock, Arkansas-in the State which
Grant wished to lawlessly subjugate anew be-
cause the people would not elect notorious
robbers to administer their affairs-that the
with Union officer to invite their comrades
of the blue and gray to join in a common
decoration Of the graves Of soldiers who had
belonged to the two armies.
At Richmond, Va, when Gen. Bartlett WAS
rendered serepade by large number of
distinguished ex-Confederates, in recognition
of his patriotic speech at Lexington, it was
Gen. Bradley T. johnson who was selected to
return him thanks for his manly utterances.
Only q few days after Gen. Bartlett's speech
was delivered, the laying of q cornerstone of
q monument to the Confederate dead IN Au-
Qusta, Ga, was made the occasion for pub
lie declaration by Gen. Evans, another Con-
federate, which was as patriotic in its tone as
that of the Union General at Lexington.
Gen. Evans said:
"Let us do nothing to keep alive the pas
sions of war. To stady its lesson is prudence,
to profit by its teachings is wisdom; but to
stir up the old animosities is madness. The
voice of this monument will not be for war,
but for peace; it will say to us, the Confeder-
the purple tide of blood that flowed from the
hearts of its sons. We have buried it; we do
not intend to exhume its remains. respond
with the truest feeling to-day to the fraternal
words of Gen. Bartlett. spoken at the centen-
NAL celebration of the first battle of the old
revolution"
Equally earnest expressions of patriotic
desire for complete obliteration of sectional
hatreds are to be found in letter from Fitz-
hugh Lee, another Confederate General,
which has Just been published; and these are
the sentiments generally prevailing among
those who were leaders on the Southern side
during the late war. If the seat of every
carpet Dagger who disgraced the last Con-
Qress could be filed with Confederate Gen.
eral in the next, the moral and the political
atmosphere in the Capitol would improve
beyond all measure.