The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1894-05-16
Memorial Day.

closed at 4 O'Clock, and the Sumter Light
Infantry and the committee OF ladies and
little girls with flowers assembled at Armory
Hall soon. after that honr The S. l.. L.,
marched from the Hall to the Cemetery and
the ladies and girls rode in large wagons.
At the Cemetery the procession was formed
with the S. l.. l., n trent, the Confederate
Veterans following, headed by Col }. D..
Graham. Commander of Dick Anderson
Camps, U. C. V.
4 halt was made near the stand, and after
prayer by Rev. N. W. Edmuads, D. D, the
graves were decorated by the little girls.
Dr.. J. A. Mood, who presided, introduced
in a few well-chosen words, the orator OF the
day, Rev. j. W. Daniel, who spoke as fol-
lows:
ADDRESS OF MR.. DANIEL.
At the recent unwilling of q monument to
Major General John B. Magruder, C. S. A,
at Galveston, Texas, the GRAFTON was deliver
ed by Gen. T. N. Waul, who said 1.-THE
day is not distant-its dawn is near-wben
the conduct of the Confederate States in their
subli me contests for right will be admired,
honored, and justified by all who have the
facts before them and the nobleness to appre-
ciate love of country, patriotic conduct, and
gallan, bearing"
so far as the South is concerned. History,
I veribly believe, will one day accord to the
Southern people that place in the annals Of
nations which justly belongs to us. The
future historian, Invested Of that prejudice
and Partially which have characterized the
writers of history since the war;, Will be
driven BY the record itself, which the North
ern historians have left US: to investigate
more fully the one-sided statements, which
have passed for twenty years already as facts.
When one reads the commonly received
histories Of that great civil struggle in which
these soldiers whose graves we decorate to-
day, fell, he is impressed with the inferiority
of Southern arm AS compared with the North
ern soidiery and the question very naturally
arises in his mind rs to how it WAS possible
for the Confederate troops to keep from
under the ,riumphipg war-chariot of the
North for four long years. Even where there
is no possibility of denying a victory won By
Southern arms, an ample excuse has been
invented by the fertile brains of Northern
writers to cover all the shame of defeat. !
have been amused at the statements Of some
Northern historians relative 10 the disastrous
defeat of the Union army at first Manassas.
The statement is grave!y paraded that the
Union army was composed Of raw, undis-
cipliued militia aud that therefore it was
routed as if the Southern soldiery had not
been even more raw and undiscipllned.
Such statements, | say, as these, will drive
the future historian to Investigations which
will result in giving to Southern soldiers that
praise aud glory which is justly due to them,
and to US their descendants.
Henry Wat,erson, in some structures re.
lative to the Southern Confederacy published
in the Cbau,auquaa Of May, 1892, says:
"Ouce, in Prais, Mr.. Slidell told ne that
Louis Napoleon had said to him, in sub.
stance: France sincerely desires the success
Of the Confederacy. So does England. We
have .our interests with respect 10 Mexico.
The English have their American possessions.
Both are menaced by the United States. But
neither England nor France dare 60 before the
world as the hackers of q power based upon
African slavery. We do not ask or expect
the conftderacy TO abolished slavery. All
that We ask is a guarantee that III q term Of
years-say twenty-the institution shall pass
out Of existence by the process of gradual
em ancipation. Give Us this, and we can call
a congress of the nations with some assurance
of cooperation in n general European plan
of intervention. Otherwise we could not
ever rely upon our own people," This
proposition, made through Sir. Slidell to the
Confederate authorities at Richmond, was
positively rejected. Mr.. Watterson seems to
think that from that moment the Confederacy
was doomed that benceforth ''illogical it
could not stand as an argument" The
short-sightedness Of some brainy men is
startling! If the Confederate government
bad accepted the proposition of Louis Napo-
leon then | for one, would have been
ashamed to own that l am a Southron.
Would that distinguished editor have bad the
South to have forever perpetuated the false
hood that the Southern Confederacy was a
power based on African Slavery? What
Southerner to-day is not glad that the South
did not purchase her independence at the
price of dishonesty and falsehood? Every
true Southern man must feel prouder of the
fac. that his fathers did not pusillanimously
accede and assent to a vile SANDER, than be
would have felt il their arms had been
victorious over the soldiery Of the North.
The time will come when impartial historians
shall write pages Of our country's annals,
and then the fact that the Confederacy chose