The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-09-21

- Ia cIcAC oAi y oo
though with the aroma of flowers they
would do homage to the guardian An
gels who keep watch and ware over
their country's noble dead in the camp !
ing grounds Of the Great Beyond. The
women Of North Carolina charge me
to-day, noble women Of the Shenan-
doah Valley to say that as they were
in sympathy with you when Sheridan's
hosts ranged this valley, %pillaging and
burning, so will they never forget your
great tenderness and womanly devo-
ton, which prompted you as fast as
one set Of wooden head boards would
rot away to replace them with others
carefully marked with the name and
company Of each silent sleeper Of
North Cardinals dead. The noble wo-
men Of my native State wish me to say
| to you, fair women of the Shenandoah
Valley that you have been true to the
high commission Of the three Marys
at the s%epulchred garden, when
(though It be said reverently N a low
er plane) you have strengthened the
living by fidelity to the dead-you have
discharged one Of the noblest duties of
life in giving tender assurance to the
jewellers in all the fair valleys of
North Carolina hat the few women Of
Virginia were keeping their holy vigil
| over the ashes of our dead. We know,
fair countrywomen, that our dead are
safe in your hands, and one Of my high
duties to-day, perhaps the sweetest and
the tenderest, is formally to transfer to
your guardianship the 497 silent forms
Of North Cardinals citizen soldiery
which sleep in this lot. I am charged
by the women Of North Carolina to say
to you hat they are grateful to you for
that sweet courtesy Of yours which &C
corded to North Carolina the lot Of
honor, the plot Of sacred ground which
lies to you right az you enter under
the archway Of Stonewall Cemetery. It
Is simply a pre-eminence which your
| courtesy has accorded us, not because
of any difference in the value Of the
sacred dust which lies in each of these
State lots, but simply because Of the
greater number Of our dead. Surely
the silent forces Of WOman's most
| beautiful courtesy emulate, If they do
not surpass even the coming dizziness
of Nature in the distillatiOn Of the dew
| drop, and the beautiful inter-mingling
of rich colorings with which our old
mother Nature illumines your sunsets
and kindles her glories at the opening
Of morning. And now that we have
been able after a long lapse of time
l amid our poverty and the blighting
I upas three of Holdenism, BrOwnlow-
ism, Carpetbagism, and Reconstruct
| ion on our State, from which the man
l nOOQ Oh NOrlH SdIOllld Has SlOWiy
emerged, to place living stones at each
and every one Of these graves, We
here to-day, in the name of the Faith
! er and of the Son and of the Holy
| Ghost, our ather's God, commit them
to your loving care and tender guard
ianship. Guard them we'll. This I
. know you will do as long as the
healthful correlation between the two
sexes exists, between a patriotic man
hood, and a faithful womanhood, all
over our Sunny Southland.
! And now to you, sir, Graded in
Maryland, nurtured and developed in
Virginia., underbuying n underselling
with wonderful success in New York,
the fair women of my old state bid
me say that with grateful hearts our
portion of the southland and we be-
lieve the whole from the Susquehanna
to the Rio Grande will cherish the
memory of your noble benefactions
with which you have sought to tender
ly drive away the wolf of want from
the doorway Of a thousand southern
homes. You, sir, have given bread
to the living, and lave fifty sepulcher-
ed our dead. You have surrounded
this Gods acre in your munlflcence
with a beautiful iron fence which will
defy the tooth of time. You have
caused water to spring up in this val
g ley with it's refreshment for the sick
and dying. You nave fortified the in
habitants of his old town of Win
chester against the fiend by day and
night, and in your annual gifts to the
Shenandoah Valley Agricultural Fair
you have taught the farmers of this
beautiful section to SOW in hope that
they might reap in joy. Nay more.
sir, you have not forgotten Virginia's
great shrine Of learning, for in the
dark hour Of her University's loss
from fire, with a sons high pride and
joy, you have poured your treasures in
her lap. You have gone still further
in your far reaching tenderness for
the south. You have expressed your
willingness. nay, your fond desire, to
meet the whole southland more than
half way in building upon a magnif-
cent plan and scale a great Battle
Abbey, in which might be preserved
the relics, the trophies, the insignia
of her splendid heroism on battle field
in tattered flags. bullet pierced and
shredded, but ever glorious; upon
whose walls might hang the portraiture
Of distinguished heroism, and along
whose aisles in chiseled stone might
stand sculptured tatures of Albert
! Sidney Johnson, Ashby, Stonewall
Jackson, and our peerless Lee, and in
whose safe repositories might be plac-
ed the record of the lane you loved
\ n IOuSHl 1Ol, I u6S1IA6 ~ NC
Nor have you stopped here, but to
show how deeply you loved the south
ern soil, you have brought the remains
Of cur noble boy from the great en-
porium of the continent and given him
Christian burial in the soil of Old Vir-
ginia. Nay more, with
stone you have marked the spot, gath
ering around it the ashes Of your dead,
where, after life's itful fever is over,
and your roll of splendid benefactions
shall have ceased, o yourself. sir, a
Confederate Veteran, waiting for the
reveille of the Resurrection morn, hope
to lie. The women Of North Carolina,
sir, have sent by me a few flowers to
lay upon the grave Of your crushed
hopes where sleeps your son., n If
only among the herbs which spring
into life among the valleys Of North
Carolina they might find one whose
+ medicinal properties would restore
,;.ht to vonr ewes. the would be great