The People's vindicator. [volume] (Natchitoches, La.) 1874-1883, 1878-05-25
TIE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER.
What Congressman Wadde!I Had to
Saw Ahout Him to His Union Brethren.
Northern Veterans listening w'th Pleas
me to the Story Of their Gallant
WhilOm Foe.


nre to the Story Of their Gallant
|Thilom Foe.
From New York World, 4th.]
Steinway Hall was about half filed
BY the audience that assembled last
night to hear Mr.. Waddell's lecture Oh
"The Confederate soldier" The plat
form was decorated with the tattered
battle flags of the old Forty-seven
Regiment. On the left of the speak
er's desk was a large basket of cut
flowers. As the lecturer assembled the
platform the band began to play
"Dixie" Among the we'll known per-
Sons on the platform were ex.Goyer-
nor Hoffman, May or Ely, Gen. VIM.
F. Smith, Gen. Viele, Gen. Thos. Z.
Stuart and Major Gen. Kirkland, of
the Confederate Army. The lecturer
was introduced by Mr.. JOS. W. Par
kerr the President of the Veteran
Corps of the Forty seventh. Mr..
Waddell Is of short stature, with a
full beard, sunburnt complexion, blue
eyes and dark hair aud speaks in an
easy and graceful manner. An ex
tract of his lecture is as follows:
Soldiers Of the Union, my Friends
and Count'ymen: The man who could
without mi>givings occupy the posi-
ton assigned me this evening would
be indeed unenviable. frankly con-
TESS that this is to me the most try
ing, as it is one of the most CRAFTY
ing, occasions in my experience. You
asked me to select rs my theme this
evening "The Confederate Soldier"
and the deed was as manly and gen.
erous in you as it was acceptable to
me and to all those who once bore
that name. Be assured that it has
for them, as it should have for others,
Il significance which could never at
tach to any ordinary invitation. 1t
ia welcomed as a good omen of better
day to come, as the dawning Of a
new era which can no Longer be
postponed. Now and then, but less
and less frequently, demagogues, for
sinister purposes, make spasmodic ef-
forts to rekindle the dying embers of
our late cophagration, but public sen
timent condemns all such efforts, and
they will soon cease altogether. 1t
has been carried on both sides
principally by men who, whatever
else they may have shed, did not spill
an alarming quantity of blood during
the war, and are not recognized by
their countrymen as heroes of the
civil strife, by their countrymen as
heroes Of the civil strife, but who il
lnstrate the prophetic witticism of
General Scott, that after the fight
ing was all over the great diffiulty
would be in reconciling the non com.
batants. Let them continue to afford
amusement now, IA they excited our
contempt then. The Union will
probably survive it if the political
career Of the wordy warriors does not.
The Confederate soldier and the
male citizen of the Confederate States
were nearly absolutely Synonymous
terms. 10 no other country, with such
population and territory, was there
ever such an approximation to uni
versal soldierhood as were exhibited
there. No other government was
ever charged with "robbing the era
die and the grave to recruit its melt
ing amies. In the good old conserva-
tive State in which live-and which
was so averse to the conflict before
it was begun-the number of soldiers
exceeded the number of voters by
5000, a fact which, believe, is
without a parallel.
There have been, and still are, very
erroneous ideas as to the motives
which influenced these men to take
up arms. Among them was the no
ton that they were at heart opposed
to the form of government under
which they lived and loDged for a
more aristocratic form. The best
answer to this is to be found in the
fact that they adopted the Constltu-
ton of the United States almost YER
batim, only incorporating into it a
clearer statement of the relative
rights of the States and the general
government, and fixing the term of
the Executive at six years and de.
caring bis ineligibility to a second
term. A more common but equally
erroneous, idea was that they were
inspired by a fanatical love of the in
stitution of slavery, and were deter
mined to risk everything, their lives
and fortunes, to perpetuate it and
great stress was laid upon the utter.
ance attributed to a distinguished
Georgian, but which was gross mis-
representation, that the new govern
| meut was to be founded upon slavery
as it corner stone. Yet only a small
portion of the people Of the South
owned slaves, and l assert here now,
as a fact which no Southern man will
deny, that no one man in one hundred
living there at that time, and per-
haps not one in a thousand, would
have shed one drop of his blood simp-
ly to save that institution.
Twas "a good old REBEL" and would
despise myself if ever denied or
apologized for it before Northern
audience. am only illustrating a
sentiment which prevailed to large
extent in my State at that time and
eudeavoring to prove to you that
slavery was not what the people Of
the South fought for. 1recollect very
we'll that one eccentric old gentle.
man, who was very much depressed
by the turn which events had taken,
gravely informed me iu the spring Of
1861, in a discussion as to tho causes
of the war, that in his opinion, if the
truth should ever be known, a woman