Tazewell Republican. [volume] (Tazewell, Va.) 1892-1919, 1899-07-06
HOW He WAS RECONSTRUCTED.
President Mckinley Freed Him of His Old
Prejudioes and Gave New Light.

Preludlces and Gave ne" Light
vicksburg Letter to St. Louis "Globe Demo
GRAFT"
He was the center of a crowd seated on
the broad veranda of the historical Plzar-
TO Hotel, overlooking the Hateful arm OF
the Mississippi through which Grants gun
boats came up to frown on Vicksburg,
bringing terror in their wake. The scene
evidently affected and impressed him, for
he said:
"You, gentlemen, can have but faint
conception of what an old chap like my
self feels, looking over this scene. 1t 10
now 81 years since gained my first I'M
pressions of this spot. L remember the
siege OF Vicksburg as though it were yes
terday. How we youngsters-for |, too
was youngster then, comparatively
speaking-responded to the call to arms
as schoolboys go to frolic The threat
ened siege was the subject of many a
merry jest. Ali we had much to learn
and We learned it.
He was silent for moment, lost IN re-
trospectioD, then continued
"There were dark days ahead for us,
and they came. 1t was not long before
Pemberton marched out to meet Grant on
that historic hillside, three miles from the
CITY, to sign articles of surrender There
was nothing else to do. Wisdom and
good generalship demanded it, but there
were men in Vicksburg, myself of the num-
Der, who would rather have faced firing
SQUAD and given signal for their own exc
cution than to have surrendered their
arms. This enforced surrender somehow
embittered me and was until recently,
very recently, what is termed an unrecon-
structed rebel. But all that is changed
now.
was down at Atlanta, Ca, when Will
liam Mckinley, the Yankee President,
made his great speech, and l went to hear
him, not because he was President, but
because he was one of those fighting Yam
KEGS. who never looked so well, acted SO
game or fought so desperately as when
their breasts we're right against Southern
steel-one of those men who, in a four
year course at the college of arms, taught
me TO honestly respect them.
''He spoke of a united country and fra
ternal people; of the sons of men who
wore the blue and the gray fighting side
by side for the nations flag, and then he
said something about Northern hands
strewing flowers on the honored graves o.
Southern soldiers, and 1 became recon
structed' iu the astonishingly short perioc
of about thirteen seconds. wanted to &C
mp on to the rostrum and say Mr.. Presi
dent Nc Kinley, you suit me clear dowr
to the ground. Of course, Ishall vote
against you, from both habit and primer
pie, but personally you are just the kline
Of man l like to see at the head of Thu
great and growing nation
Later on, returned home, and wheI
Decoration Day rolled around, lloadet
myself with flowers and went to the Ma
tional Cemetery here for the first time
AS l gazed upon those beautiful terraces
broad drives and rows of cleaning marble
, there was no bitterness in my heart be
f cause many of my Southern comrade
sleep in unmarked graves. So scattered
my flowers and hoped in the great here
after there might be no blue and no gray
only some secret sign by which brave mel
might recognize one another, and that al
enmity might forever be at rest"