Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-10

NSSWEI1A tne rayages and de-
TEM1 Vastation of the North
W. ern army in Sher-
mans March to the
Sea-, through some pathetic sentiment on
his part as to its holding within its cemetery
the remains of much-loved child, and ow-
ing to the fact of his notably warm side for
the Roman Catholic convent, which was the
abode of relatives or dear friends. Whether
this oft-told tale is true or not, the fact re-
mains that while Aiken and other places
were shelled and subjected to tribute by
Sherman's soldiers, Augusta escaped and
suffered but little in comparison with At
lanta, Charleston, Savannah and other cities
of the South.
Augusta here is thought to be quite a
considerable city, but as compared with
Pittsburg or Allegheny it is only an ex-
aggerated country town. Its population, as
shown by the last census, is not much over
10000, which is said to be less than it was
before the war, so that as measured by the
250, 900 or 300, 900 that Pittsburg can count,
it will be seen that this cotton city must
sing small when our trumpet is sounded.
A BEAUTIFUL AVENUE.
1t has, however. what Pittsburg has not
beautiful wide avenues planted with trees.
Broad street, the main business portion,
looks to be about 200 feet wide. Down the
middle of the avenue is double row of
lovely shade trees, which, taken with those
that line the sidewalks, form a beautiful
park-like appearance, and with in many
parts interlacing branches must in summer
be refreshing and grateful as shade to man
and beast. No street in Pittsburg will
compare with it in beauty, nor even Broad
street in Philadelphia. The sidewalks are
very wide and give noble appearance OF
space and liberal elbow room.
Most of the hotels look old, and are
rather on the decrepit order, but new one
the Arlington-is beautiful structure of
modern style, that can hold up its head
with the best and make our old Mononga-
hela House look as plain and hopelessly
ugly as a square. old Puritan meeting
house beside the beautiful and costly
Gothic edifces that the descendants of the
STRAIGHTFORWARD fathers find only adequate
to their conditions and needs for prayer
and praise and Presbyterianism.
About midway in this handsome street is
splendid soldiers monument dedicated to the
Confederate dead of Augusta and Richmond
county. This monument is placed upon
solid base of granite, reached by three or
four broad steps, and commands attention
from everv point in the street. Around it
is a neat iron fence with gates wide
open. A careful look showed that
this beautiful monument, in the open
street, has never been defaced or
mutilated by modern Goths or vandals as
has that on Monument Hill in Allegheny.
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War, but the old ideas and principles still
live. If the women of Augusta who raised
this monument had been as wise as they
were patriotic and devoted to JEFF Davlsism
they would have let the dead past bury
their mistaken notions and their wrong
ideas.
WOMAN MARTYRS.
But women have made the best martyrs
to "the Lost Cause" as they have exhibited
EXTREMIST devotion to what they deemed
right all down the ages of history. Chris
tianity found its most ardent disciples i'll its
early days among women, just as they were
the most faithful adherents of the worship
OF the Pagan gods. The Puritan mothers
and the Huguenots were no less devoted to
their principles and articles OF belief, and
the women of the South have shown the
same spirit of heroic endurance in their
"cause," as was the crowning virtue of the
early Quakers and Methodists and Luther
ans, when under persecution for their
opinions. But with more intelligence
reason and logic, they would have accepted
the situation philosophically, and would, at
least, have hesitated to place upon enduring
marble the fact that though conquered, they
still cherished and upheld the unwisdom,
maintained the same narrow notions, and
were determined in words, at least, to show
that thev cherished the same sentiments that
led to the dreadful war waged on one side
to maintain slavery, and on the other the
supremacy of the Union. On one front of
this noble monument to the Confederate
dead of Georgia is the inscription:
''Worthy to have lived and known our graft
tude.
Worthy to be hallowed and held in tender re-
membrance.
Worthy the fadeless fame which Confederate
soldiers won."
On another side is cut into the enduring
marble the following:
ITO the Confederate dead who gave them
selves in life and death for us.
For the honor of Georgia,
For the rights of the States.
For the liberties of the people,
For the sentiments OF the South.
For the principles of the Union, as they were
handed down to them by the fathers of our
common country"
Northern readers rather smile over this
utterance of devotion to the rights of the
people, when the war was undertaken BY
the South to maintain 1000, 900 of it's citi-
zens in slavery, and overturn the principles
of the Union which they made so desperate
a struggle to destroy.
Another inscription is to the honor of the
Confederacy in these words:
No nation rose so white and fair,
None fell SO pure of crime.
A MISTAKEN IDEA.
The blindness of bigoted and mistaken
patriotism could scarcely find. vent in
greater "whopper." What nation could be
white and fair that rose up to defend the
barbarism of slavery, and what greater
crime could be committed than to plunge a
country into wicked and destructive war,
a war that cost millions of precious lives on
both sides, that brought mourning and
suffering and direst poverty into hundreds
of thousands of homes.
But in the growing together, the increase
of fraternal feelings, the better knowing of
each other that now are being promoted BY
closer social relations, the sentiments and
motives that inspired this monument will
die out and be lost, and it will become lit
tie else than matter of amused wonder to
the citizens of the future that their ances-
tors could have been so greatly concerned
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