The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1899-05-17


'In the greatest battles of the
civil war you contended with men of
endurance, fortitude and courage,
men with the same birthrigbt of
freedom, imbued with the same spi,it
OF liberty, men who were as cons ci-
entiously contendipg for what they
deemed the right of the Federal gov
ernnent, as you for what you just as
firmly held to be your rights.
while our civil war, I may truth
fully assert, was the most sanguinary
recorded in history, it was also the
most remarkable, as in it there was
no element of personal hostility, ard
the soldiers as individuals could not
in the nature of things have enter
tained feelings Ct hatred for each
other. They fought not from re-
venge, not from malice, not from de-
sire to shed blood, but simply be-
cause they felt that there lay the
path of duty.
1T was war fought to settle
questions that for more than half q
century had ( cen matters Of the most
earnest, and I might say, bitter con-
tentions, increasing in intensity until
an appeal to the God of battles was
rendered inevitable, so that no arbi-
trament save that of the sword was
possible. When the south yielded,
it was to numbers, battalions artil-
lery, to the unlimited resources of
the Federal government.
The armies of the south laid down
their arms, but not one iota of their
belief in the tru5h and justice of their
cause did they surrender. With en-
e;gy and determination they met the
new problems confronting them.
Above the carnage, above the wall
of widows and the cry of orphans,
above the desolated homes, above the
fields overgrown with now forests,
there arose a new cl7iliz alton and
new union, one niche in whose temple
holds figure whose name shall be
honored througbt the ages, Lee,
whose matchless skill, whose SOL
dierly spirit, whose wonderful endur-
ance, was only eqaalled by the grand
eur Of soul which accepting the fiat
Of war, lived out to it's full close, the
noblest life recorded in all history
for the admiration OF posterity.
Gas between the soldiers on either
side, there was no real enmity. Mu-
tuaI admiration for each others
prowess is the sentiment of all brave
men, and with admiration, respect
naturally increase.
The lifetime of a generation has
softened the memories of that con-
fict, and side by side, both north and
south have stood together in battle
against foreign foe.
We meet here to cherish and in
tensify the memory of the great
struggle in which you were actors.
Your devotion to duty, your courage
in battle and your unmuvmuring en-,
durance was your heritage frc m your
ancestors.
Gen. Wheeler touched upon the
question of expansion by declaring
that southern statesmen had ever
taken prominent part in all move
ments looking to the enlargement OF
our territory.
History for all time" he said
will record that it was under south
ern Presidents that We have wrestec
from the wild Indians the greater
palt Of the S22,3SS square mile:
which lay between our thin lines O.
settlement on the ocean and the Mis-
sissippi river; and under southern
Presidents that we have added t.
this domain al area nine times a
great as the present arena OF tn
original thirteen States.