The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1898-08-30
Re- INDIAN TERRITORY TUESDAY EVENING AUGUST So l8ss

ncaF from ups more eloquent than
mine. But / cannot forget that l
speak to man tested in the fiery
crucible of battle, who made the
name Confederate Soldier" immor-
tai. You have marched foot-sore
anG weary, ragged, hungry and
homeless through the gloom of
tangled swamps and impenetrable
jungles singing the divine battle
paean of freedom. At Seven Pines
and Chickamsuga; at Shilo, Cold
Harbor and the Wilderness, you saw
the death shot hurled glowing from
the hands of the god of war. At
Fredericksburg some of you saw q
young artillery officer, little more
than beardless boy, plant his can
non upon hill top and while bat
terry after battery of the enemies
guns thundered upon him, face un-
moved the storm of death out of the
jaws of hell and singing the song of
the Marseillaise, echo back their
thunder from his own NapoleoDs
The eagle eye of Lee lighted up as he
said: sit is glorious to see such
courage in one so young" You saw
him again at KeIley's Ford, across
the Rappahannoch, as he was NOV
ing his hat in the front of the battle
cheering his soldiers on, struck on
the head by fragment of shell and
the saddened South gave back to
Alabama the dust of Pelham, the
gallant. Some of you faced the
maelstrom of bullets that dropped
the proud head of Turner Ashby and
you were thrilled by his last ringing,
dying command, 'Virginians,
charged" You rode with ]. E. B.
Stuart around Nc Clellan; you saw the
tall form of that king of cavaliers
towering above the lines of battle;
you followed him in love and in glory
till that black May day in 1884, at
the Yellow Tavern, when the white
flower of his blameless life was with
cred. You barred your breast to the
hurricane of the charge, above the
clouds of Lookout mountain. You
were on that stricken battle
field, where the knightly soul
of Pat Cleburn ascended to the God
of battles. You were with Pickett
in the wild, mad onset up the long
steep of Cemetery Ridge, in the teeth
of raking and bristling cannon, with
Armistead fallen, with Garnett dead
with every field officer lost save one (;
with $500 out of 5000 soldiers swept
down and borne away like winters
withered leaves-never halting, clos
ing up your decimated ranks, NOV
ing right onward, until you planted
the sattered flag amid the enemy's
guns upon the blood-crimsoned
heights of the Hugoumont of Gettys
burg! And you were in the last SAD
scene at Appomattox, when Lee laid
down his prinoely sword.
When with sorrow and heart burn
ings the soldiers of Lee, of Johnston
and of Kirby Smith paroled and dis
banded buttoned about their breasts
their ragged coats of faded gray and
wearily toiled homeward, what did
they hnd7 Their land worthless
their slaves freed; the wild weeds
clambering over the blackened ashes
where once stood their happy homes.
The Indian province of the Carnatic
, wasted by the fire and sword oi
Heyder, all was not SO desolate
What did they dor Did they sit
down silently in the ashes of despair
like the banished Ca1us Marius amid
the ruins of Carthage? When oul
fairest cities had vanished in terri
BILE holocaust; when our harves
fields were barren; when our for
!, tune was broken and the star o
, Southern hope had sunk in blood
the people of the Old South set theil
faces to the future. They toiled lat'
and early and their hearts were il
their work they endured and suffered
. all in silence and toiled on. All a
once the startled North listened
: Over the Southland the whir of fac
tories were heard by many brawl
ing stream; the old plantations re
|. newed, grew white again with cot
!. ton; wheat fields rose golden out o
. the dust of revolution; the silve
bells of the great steamers on th'
: Father of Waters rang out the glat
reveille of q vaster commerce; Bir
mingham was builded like the palace
of an Aladdin; Atlanta rose from it
ashes like the fabulous bird, au'
: cities sprang up everywhere rs
the stroke of the enchanter's wand
Veterans, your thInned ranks groS
L fewer every year; age has thrown II