The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-05-12


these thousands of confederate throats
are veritable echoes Of the inspiring
resolutions of welcome unanimously
adopted by your general assembly:
While those resolutions have cheered
and thrilled every southern soldiers
heart. they We're not needed to tell Us
of the reception that awaited US il
South Carolina. Her whole history and
that of her commercial capital were the
promise and guarantee Of this magnif-
cent reality. For more than two hun
dred years, made memorable by heroic
struggles in war and brilliant achieve
ments in peace, the names of South
Carolina and of Charleston have been
the synonyms Of hospitality, Of chival-
ry and of valor.
What else could be expected of
people in whose veins are commingled
the blood of the proud English Cava-
liers? the blood Of those devoted and
resolute men, who protested against
the immoralities and grinding exac-
tions Of the Stuarts; the blood of the
stalwart Dissenters and of the heroic
Highlanders of Scotland and of the
sturdy democratic Presbyterians of
Ireland; the blood of those defenders
Of freedom who came to your shores
from the mountain battlements of
, Switzerland, and lastly, but no less
pure and sacred the blood Of the high
souled Huguenots Of France, whose
| martyrs, by q glorious fidelity, even
unto death, have made SWeeter and
richer the record of human devotion to
conscience and liberty.
mo resolutions, l repeat, by which
this great commonwealth extends it's
! loving welcome were needed to assure
! these remnants of the souths immortal
armies that the freedom of the state
was theirs, and that every heart with
| in her borders was a soldiers shrine.
! We had but to remember that South
| Carolina was the nursery of heroes, as
we'll as of statesmen and of patriots
| that no one state, except that she be
endowed with an almost boundless af-
f1uence Of greatness, could in one GEN.
tury have given to the cause of liberty
and the republic such a splendid galaxy
as South Carolina presents in her Rut-
ledge, her Sumter, her Moultrie, her
Middleton, and her Marion; in her But
ler. her Pinckney, and her Pickens; in
| her McDuffie and her Calhoun; in her
Himilton, her Hayne, and her beloved
Hampton.
IF we turn from this incomplete ar
ray Of her noble sons to the contempla-
| ton of the scars upon her bosom, re-
| ceived in her battles for American
freedom at Cowpens, at Camden, and
| Charleston; at Eutaw Springs. Fort
Moultrie and Kings Mountain, while
gade, roasted their rations of sweet po-
| tatoes in her forests al night, and by
| their sudden sallies, now from the
mountains and now from the marshes,
amazed and bewildered the British in
! vaders; if We add to this survey of her
past the record of her princely liberali-
| ty in the donation Of her soil to the gen.
eral government, we shall gain a still
| better conception of the lofty charac-
| teristics and unchallenged patriotism
! Of her people.
| ITO me, personally, whose associa-
| tions with South Carolinians through
| the civil war and the still more Calling
| period of reconstruction and rehabili-
| tation, gave clearer insight into their
motives and future aims, it is a proud
| privilege vouchsafed to me today to
| stand in your presence as the represen-
! tative of these battle-bruised veterans
and tell this people how fully we recog-
nize their worth and how gratefully
We acknowledge our Indebtedness t1
| them.
| Il feel empowered by your confidence
| to send to every patriot in every section
and state the fraternal greetings of
| this convention and of the whole peo-
| pie; to pledge in the name of every con-
federate and son and daughter of a con-
| federate, the sOuthS eternal loyalty to
every cause for the uplifting of Amer
lean manhood, the perpetuity of Amer
| lean freedom the unity of the Ameri-
| can people, that by all these agencies
| we may accelerate the onward march
of the republic in its benign mission to
| humanity"
MRS. JACKSON PRESENTED TO
| THE ASSEMBLY.
After the applause\had subsided Gen
| eral Gordon led Mrs. Stonewall Jack
! son to the front of the stage and she
| AMI hIrS 10 or Ia nd cd Ac =,
presented Mrs. Jackson and in the first
Huh, General Gordon said:
L will shake her hands for you ALL y
| and in an instant he added: No, will
do more than that; I am going to hug
her for you,'' and with that did what
he said he was going to do, which met
| the hearty approval of the vast throng
GENERAL LEES RESOLUTION.
1t was at this stage General Lee pre-
Sented his resolution, the full text OF
| which is as follows:
Whereas, In Atlanta, Ga, on De-
cember IA, 1898, the president of the
| United States of America, gave utter.
| ance to the sentiment:
That the time has come when the
| United States should share in caring
for the graves Of the confederate dead
and
| Whereas, This utterance of the chie1
| executive of the nation demands from
US, the survivors of our dead comrades
| in arms, a frank and generous response
to so lofty and magnanimous a senti
| ment; therefore be it
| Resolved, By the United Confed
| crate Veterans in annual convocatior
! assembled, that in this act of Presiden
McKinley's and in it's reception by oul
brethren of the north, we recognize au
thoritative evidence that we are agaiI
a united people and one in determine
H., - - Il 1,1 Ia
as well as the sterner traits of Ameri