Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-02-15
THE PRIVATE SOLDIER.
I'm Eloquent Address by Rev. Moses ID.
Hoge, ID. ID.


ment on Libby Hill, in Richmond, in homo
of the private Confederate soldiers who
: fell in defense of the South in the late wal
between the States.
, After being felicitously introduced by
| Gov. Lee, the distinguished and eloquent
orator of the occasion, who was Chaplain
! of the First Va. Regiment of Volunteers
during the war, spoke as follows:
; 1t is said that on each of the four sides oi
, , the monument to the memory of the Con-
federate dead, in New Orleans, is carved a
calm and noble face.
One is that of Albert Sidney Johnston,
another is that of the warrior bishop, Gen.
Polk; the third is the face of Stonewall
Jackson, and the fourth is that of R. E. Lee.
But on the top of the monumental shaft,
looking down upon the heroic group below
is the fgure-the typical figure of the Con-
Ifederate private soldier, type of the men
worthy to follow such leaders as those
whose faces are seHlptured on the column,
and without whose following even these
great leaders would not have won the posi-
tions they occupy on the shaft and on the
pages of immortal history.
1t is to the memory of such men that /
come tonight in obedience to your call to
pay the tribute.
LII 0oiuS oO du Ouly SNiuS OApiCosluu
to your emotions. recognize the fact that
the greeting you have just given me is be-
cause l am the channel through which
your own best feelings are flowing. I am
but voice, the spirit which animates ii
comes from this splendid audience, and you
honor me in making me the medium OF
your own generous, grateful and loving
tribute to the memory of Confederate dead.
OUR OBLIGATION TO THE FALLEN.
1t is we'll that we give this expression of
our uudying regard for them. For what
did they give us? What did they not give
US. What was there dear in the homes they
left behind never to be revisited again
what was there precious in the ties of affec-
tion sundered never to be renewed on earth
again, which they did not sacrifice for us !?
What was there of privation or peril in the
camp, on the march, on the bloody front of
battle, in the hospital where they languish-
ed when the battle was over, which they
did not endure for us ?
We can never pay the debt we owe them,
but we can cherish the recollection of all
that made them worthy of our love; we can
treasure their names and enbalm their
memories with all our hearts can give, our
praises and our tears
The privates who, at the first tap of the
/
commenced were not professional soldiers.
They did not go to the field seeking the
bubble reputation or the glory which is won
by feats of valor, but they were men who
came from the sanctities of home, from the
peaceful avocations of business or profess
sional life-many of them merchants or
mechanics, most of them farmers, some of
them students in schools, colleges and the
illogical seminaries, yet all of them, every
man of them, every boy, at the sacred call
of duty perilled all, and for principle sacri-
| feed all. committing their souls to God and
their memories to us who survive them.
And we will be faithful to the trust. We
will not permit even time, which buries go
much in Oblivion, to diminish our sense OF
obligation, or our appreciation of what they
were and what they suffered. As after the
battle of the first Manassas, General Jack
son declined to have the sentinels posted
Saying, "Le5 the weary fellows sleep; I will
guard the camp" so we, who survive,
mean to stand guard over the honor and
fame, not of the Confederate living, for
they can protect themselves, but over the
honor and fame of those who sleep on the
field of duty and glory. SO we will keep their
memories fresh and green where they can
best be perpetuated, not by flowers strewn
on their graves for these soon wither and
are scottered like leaves in wintry weather,
but by the flowers of loving remembrance
| which grow in our hearts, and which are
watered only by tears. These are immortal,
and bloom in beauty and fragrance forever
Aud yet thtre is something more that we
may dove can give some nisible express
sion Of sentiments we cherish in our hearts.
When two hundred feet above the sum-
NIT of Libby Hill, on the top of the tower
ing monumental shaft we are going to erect
there, the noble image of the private SOL
dier as standing as if surveying the ram
parts of Drewry's Bluff and battle fields of
the Chickahominy, we will have that visible
expression in granite or bronze which all
men may see and understand.
QUESTION ANSWERED.
The question has been asked-I would
not repeat it we're it not so often asked
Why erect such monuments at all The
Confederacy is dead and can never be re-
vived. Why keep alive memories that had
better be buried in oblivion Why perpet-
uate the memory Of a lost cause ? Why /?
Indeed, respond. If that were the object
in erecting such monuments, if that were
the result in rearing them, then /, for one,
would never lift finger or utter word in
favor of such memorials. But l most en-
phatically deny that there is any such de-
sign, or that there will be any such result.
A soldiers monument in every city, town,
and village in the South would have no po-
litical or sectioaal significance now. The
interests of the South now lie in the preser-
vation of the Union. AS it prospers, so do
we. To stir up sectional strife would be
blunder on the part of the South. 1t would
be suicidal. 1t would be equally so on the
part of che North, which fought four years
to maintain the Union. And were it to en-
courage sectional strlfe-the tendency of
which is to weaken and disrupt the Union
it would be to confess judgment, for it
would contradict the logic of the war, and,
If possible, demonstrate its absurdity.
sECTIoNALIsM REBUKED.
No true patriot no gallant soldier is ever
found tanning the fires of sectional animos-
ity. Only demagogues do that; only men
who pander to the basest prejudices of the
basest people in the mistaken hope that
there are enough of such people to watt
them into power on the wave of sectional
passion. To foment sectional strife is not
only to attack the unity of tbe States, it is
la crime against Christian civilization,
lagainst the God of peace and lover Of con-
Icord. 1 gratefully recognize the fact that
some of the truest friends of the South are
, to be found among Northern statesmen and
among those who fought against. US in the
Northern army. You had striking Illus
Itration of this when at the unveiling of the
) Jackson statue on the Capitol Square a
noble Senator of Northern State was one
, of the first to lay wreath on the pedestal
of the monument; you have it in the words
of a gallant citizen of Massachusetts when
he said, 1.-THE time may yet be when the
, Northern as we'll as the Southern heart
will throb reverently to the proud words
upon the Confederate monument at
Charleston, these died for their State. :"
What, then, is the use of erecting monu-
ments to the Confederate dead? OF what
use to us is the lost cause? 1t is lost, EN-.
phatically lost; but does it follow that what
is lost should be forgotten? We say, truly,
let the dead past bury its dead. Yes, let
us bury all that is really dead in the past,
But there are some things in the past that
cannot die, and we don't want to bury
what is still living. The Confsderacy is
dead. but the memories of the men who
idied with it and for it are not dead; theiI
yalor, their endurance, their self-sacrifce,
f their sublime devotion to duty, these are
not dead.
The pathetic line of the old Roman poei
comes back to us-a line worthy to be in