The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-05-22

est fruits which such liberty can Oestow.
It was a form of liberty attained by as
heroic valor as that which drove the
Persian hosts from the shores of Greece,
On its absolute principle was erected a
superstructure of government every at
tribute of which tended to preserve and
perpetuate that liberty and purify, adj
vance and exact civil and social virtue.
Its prcrogatives and its responsibilities
were regarded as perfect for all the pur-
poses of government. For q time it
seemed to give active reality to the
dreams and aspirations and the toll and
struggles of mankind in all the preceding
ages. Other nations became confident
in its perpetuation, and that confidence
was seemingly justified by fifty years of
enlightened and progressive order. To
its own people it had become an article
of religious faith, and it was to uphold,
advance and pcrpetuate this sacred form,
10 maintain that absolute truth, and to
realize that destiny, that these men, iii
that immortal faith, went forth to the
death grapple. They died for the incar-
nate principle their fathers had given
them in sacred trust; they rebaptized it
in their life blood, carrying with them
in death nothing but immortal honor.
And here to-day defy you, and these
women defy the world, to look through
its history and find people who, in de-
votion to that truth, in heroic valor in its
defense, in calm endurance and fortitude,
in meek submission to, and humble reli-
ance on, the God of all truth, in the
very religion of patriotism, stand before
the men whose names are on this monu-
ment. No, my countrymen, human ac-
tion bears no record of higher virtue and
Drawer sacrifice than that which tells the
struggle, the fall and the woe, of the
Confederate soldier. The assertion is
beyond contradiction that never in the
history of national defence was there dis
played higher and purer purpose and
courage than was manifested in the Con-
federate States; that never in four. years
was there crowded in the annals of war a
more brilliant record than that which
marked the career of the Confederate
armies. These armies, contending against
an enemy who, having the world for a
storehouse, was multiplied by defeat for
three years, won incessant and glorious,
though fruitless, victories. Their lines
were not once broken by their assailants.
The tension of distance may have opened
them; it was never done by retreat.
The reason was that every Confederate
soldier felt that not only his country's
liberty but his own personal honor was
at stake in the defense of that liberty. !
see here men who led these soldiers from
the first gun at Sumter to the last feeble
flash al Appomattox. We all saw the
wild enthusiasm with which they began
the fight and the stern religious courage
with which they met all its terrible trials.
You women saw the armor cleaning
bright, polished by your hands, and you
saw the battle shields and the broken
javelins. I ask you, did you ever see one
trembling Aristodemus" come skulking
back to Columbia? Is there a Carolina
mother here who, Spartan-like, denied
her son, or wife who cried "shame" to
her husband? Here around this monu-
ment you see the mutilated remnant of
that soldiery. Let them answer to this
generation and to posterity. Did you,
sir, at Trevillian, or you, sir, at Rapidan,
or in any of your hundred battles, see
the back of Carolina cavalryman? Did
you, sir, at Sumter see trembling hand
or q whitened cheek? General, when
ten thousand pounds Of powder tore the
earth to pieces at Petersburg did you see
Carolina soldier skulking behind the
marred and shattered deiences? No,
every ghastly crevice was instantly filled
by the remnant of the South Carolina
brigades driving back ten times their
numbers and strewing the gronnd with
their dead. And when Lee at Appomat-
tox surrendered his eight thousand empty
guns and broken sabrcs, the ragged REM
nants of the South Carolina brigades
were there, as their full rolls had been
among the first at Manassas.
Women of South Carolina, these are
the men to whose valor you dedicate this
monument. They are your fathers, your
brothers, your husbands, and your SONS.
Are you justified in building this monu-
ment and noistening it with proud and
sacred tears? The Athenian statesman,
in his Grafton over the dead of Salamis
and Marathon, said but one word of the
women of Athens it was: "Your great
est glory is to keep the virtues the gods
have given you."
So let it be. But neither Athens, nor
Rome, nor the world, has given to strug-
Cling liberty women whose glory eXcels
these now here by this monument in
deep devotion, in earnest, active, effi-
cient, working sacrifice. l offer but one
illustration. 1t is in view from where
we stand. Recall to memory that hos
pital down there by the railway station,
in which these monument builders fed
clothed and nursed seventy-fve thousand
wounded and sick and dying soldiers
Had that hospital escaped destruction.
its walls would have been as grand q
monument to these women as that gran.
ite and marble is to the dead soldier. II
was rare spectacle of moral sublimity
They shared their own clothing, they
stintcd their children's food, not to send
by hirelings or slaves, but to take in theil
own hands, on their own shoulders, food
clothing and medicine down that hill tc
the hospital. These dainty, gentle wo.
men bore those burdens down there, and
even to the hour when Sherman's shells
aimed at the hospital and the State
House, were bursting over their heads.
You men have seen these fair, delicate
women wasted, haggard, tottering be.
meath burdens which might have crushed
the stoutest of us. Amid all the ghast'i
ness of that woful pageant, year altcl
year they waited, praying for the sici
and wounded soldier and staunching hi:
death wounds.
But it is not only here in Caroline
these things were done. My office anc
duties in the service gave me the fullest
knowledge, from the Potomac to the
Mississippi, of their labors and their suf'
fcrings, their sacrifices, their heroic cou
rage, their sublime, almost superhumar
fortitude. 1t is tame tale to me now t.
read of Spartan and Roman wives ant
mothers. ! have seen with my own eyes
hundreds, yes, thousands, of Confederate