Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-09-01
THE %"SEVENTH."
Of the Seventh Tennessee
Confederate Cavalry at Esti-
val Park on Yesterday.
The Big Barbecue-Speeches-Elec
tlOn Of Officers, Etc.

the street parade Of the Seventh Ten
nessee Cavalry Association, and the
programme Of exercises at Esliyal Park.
When the Association and the invited
guests arrived at the Park, order was
called by the president of the Associa.
ton, VIM. Sandford, Esq who delivered
an address Of welcome.
When the applause ceased, President
Sanford introduced Rev. c. C. Parsons,
of st. Lazarus Episcopal church, who
offered up an eloquent prayer.
Hon. John L. T. Sneed was then intro.
duced, and he delivered the following
address:
JUDGE sSEED's ADDRESS.
The pleasant duty has been assigned
me to-day Of bidding you all q heart
warm welcome to the festivities Of this
occasion. In the name Of your comrades,
soldiers, aud in the spirit Of the old.iash.
Toned hospitality Of the good county OF
Shelby-ladies and gentlemen-I gree,
and welcome you all.
To you, who, in the dark and bloody
night Of our late sad wal were of the
dashing cavaliers of the Seventh regi
ment, this reunion has a higher and boiler
significance than such as belongs 10 a
mere %convivial entertainment. There
are consecrated memories that cluster
about it which make it a banquet of the
soul. You stand in the presence OF your
few surviving comrades, and memory
brings back with electric speed the grand
panorama OF the tented field, the weary
marches, the bivouac, the battles and
sieges-the glory and the gloom through
which you have emerged-but pauses
sorrowiully to call the roll OF the glorious
dead, and to drop a tear OF regret that
many o knightly gentleman who followed
your gonfalon to the big wars, m moi
back again to join you here oday. He
alone who has participated in the perils
and privations Of the soldiers lite, can
appreciate the tender tie that binds their
hearts together in all after life, or realize
| the presence OF such q scene as this.
how thrilling and sweet, and yet how
sad,
Are the Q hoes that start,
Nhen memory plays an Old tune on the
heart"
But you are not here to-day to rehearse
The SORROWS or to revive the animosities
and chickering's Of that sad olympiad OF
blood and desolation, but to quaff again
at the fountain Of good feeling, and to
vital re once more the social cheer and
irolic glee OF a life in the field and the
camp, which, even on the perilous edge
OF battle, would now and then smoothe
the wrinkied front OF grim yisaped
war You would forget, il you could,
and rs your great Virginia captain I'D
monished you to do-that we had ever
bad a civil war ID this country. The
men who fought the fight did not create
the war. The figting element of both
armies dep ecated The war and are the
peacemakers to-day. 1t was essentially
the war OF the politicians of the extreme
North and the extreme South, and il is
among a certain class of them 10 day
that there are to be found the pestilenl
harpies, who, having lighted the torch o.
civil discord and adroitly shirked, alike,
its perlls and privaiions, are now the
only implacable enemies Of the public
peace, aud the only stumbling blocks in
the way of national pacification.
The war ought 10 have ended, my
friends, when in good faith and in a
spirit of knightly honor, you laid down
your arms a dozen years ago; but a few
mlschievous men, who live and batten
upon the ofial Of strife and tumult, have
kept the war dogs rampant until the
good year of our Lord 1877, when the
President Of the United States. Welding
to his " convictions of constitutional
right and justice, aud bowling gracefully
and dutifully TO the thunder tones Of
public opinion, from the Penobscot to
the Rio Grande, as expressed at the bal
lot box, at one glorious blow, struck the
shackles from the fair limbs of Louisi-
ana, aud the coronet of sorrow from the
brow of South Carolina, and proclaimed.
in a voice that electrified all good men
with JOY, that henceforth self.government
and equal rights should belong to all the
States alike. Then, aud not till then.
did the torch OF civil war 20 out. And
now, while | speak to you, the spirit OF
political and religious liberty reasserts
itseIi IN the sober, second thought Of the
American people, and the publications Of
thlrty-eight magnificent commonwealth,
proclaim a reconciliation which, | trust
in the God who "maketh men to be of
one mind in an house may endure, "a
the generations come and 20, and as the
centuries 20 by, forever.
The question is not new a practical
one, so tar as the decided issues of the
war are concerned, whether the auton
omy OF these States was Just such as Mr..
Madison and his compeers thought they
had made it, or such as Mr. Hamilton
and his conductors desired il to be. But
! apprehend that in the coming wears
the opinions Of thoughtful men will con.
tinue to differ about it as they do now
old man but the other day was rein.
terring IN the same tomb the bldies of
his two sons, which he had exhumed from
their shallow graves on the battle field
They had offered up their precious lives
sacrifices to their respective convic
tons of right; and the one had fallen in
The unitorm OF the buiternut and the
other in that Of the Union blue. The
old man did not undertake TO play the
umpire between them, or to settle the
Ieud OF opinion which led them both to
death But that there should be no Jar
ring above or beneath the sacred sod
where his heart lay buried with his gal.
ant boys, he gave them a monument ia
common, with the simple inscription.
God only knows which was right"
But have said-and / say it again,
when l hear the quilt of that horrid ,
var charged exclusively either to the Il,
North or to the South, that now that blue.
'yed peace ID smiling upon us, and W.
IAN look at these matters through the
enses Of sober judgment, it is enough
hat we look back upon forty years of an
lngry ieud, eliminating, at last, in the
'hock Of mighty armies-ard then turn
o the men Of Massachusetts and the
men Of South Carolina as they take a
up O kindness yet for Aud Lang
Syne and say to both, let him that
s Without SIN among you cast the first
tone" No, my friends, there is 10th.
ng so friendly to the growth Of charity
n the human soul as a little introspec.
ion. And this is so with peoples and
la~tionallties as it is with men. 1t is the ,
I'D story Of the beam and the mote at
asst. I
| live within the sound Of the drum. !
mi Of tho Eilln nn..innn ~ n.-i