The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1900-06-01
FOR THE VETERANS.
Bill Arp and the Heroes of the
Lost Cause.
Says Atlanta VIII Raise the Money
to Send the Manned Battalion
to the Reunion Mt Louis
Vile, Ky.

OF course Atlanta will raise the
money to uniform the poor old con
federate veterans and pay their way tc
Louisville. That battalion of one.
armed, one-legged, one-eyed heroes OF
the lost cause will be the most sig
niticant feature of the reunion and
will make more lasting impression
upon the rising generation than any
thing else. That is genuine" they
will say. Those old fellows were GER
tainly there and they have not re-
pented of it. In fact, they are proud
of it. 1t will teach the youth of
the other side that our boys were
terribly in earnest and that neither
time nor poverty has obliterated a
single feeling or emotion that pos
sessed them when they faced the
guns of the enemy nearly 40 years
ago. They are established in the faith
and will die, not believing they were
right, but knowing it. That word
believing" is a misnomer, a kind OF
compromise. 1t does not fit us. We
knew we were right then and we
know it yet. Believing is a word that
fits the other side. \ good many
of their soldier boys believed
they were right and knew no
better, for their politicians fooled
them, but more than half of
them didn't believe anything about it
and didn't care, for they were hire
lings and fought for ten dollars a
month and nothing else. They were
hungry. 1t seems to me if | was a
northern man l would say to my peo-
pie: I'VE can't do anything with those
confederate veterans. just let them
alone. They were conquered and that's
all. We piled four to one on them,
and wore them out, and that's all.
but such fighters the world never
saw. They never had but 100000 men
in the field, all told. from the begin
ming to the end of the war, and they
have put 100000 of our folks on the
pension rolls, besides all that they
killed. Good gracious, boys! Let's
quit talking and quit Dragging, and
when them fellows down south want
a reunion let's bid them godspeed and
say: Go it. Boys We are betting
on you. Get together by your camp
fires, as it were, and retell your old
war stories, and let the tears from
your old watery eyes glisten again,
and after it is all over then go back
home and tell it all to your wives and
children, and then-yes, and then
and then lay down and die" Well. |
that's just what the old vets are do
ing. They are dying pretty fast now,
and there will hardly be enough left
for another reunion. Our hope and |
faith is that our boys will keep the |
burning, and gather around |
hem and tell what their fathers did. |
Let those memories survive the flight |
If time, just like the historic and he
'oic deeds we read of. The older the
better. We have in our family an old
'aper that gives an account of Lex
ngton during the first revolution,
nd along the margin across the top
re pictured II collins. and on each
otfin is name, and one of these
ames is very dear to us, for it is the
anne of an ancestor who fell in that
ght. That ancestor never fought for
juster cause or on greater provo
alton than we did, and our children
hould be proud of it.
And so let the old battle Scared
eterans go to Louisville and have per
APPS their last love feast. Atlanta
ill raise that money. We love to
'ok over the published names of the
ontributors and to rejoice that there
re noble men and women left who
lay have forgiven, but have not for
often. We measure people by their
iarities, their willing responses when
llled on for a cause like this. and |
ould be ashamed TO see my name in !
he column with less than dollar at
ched to it, If couldn't or wouldn't
We more than a dime or 25 cents, | !
Guild say mark it cash and go on. A :
an who can't afford TO give a dollar !,
Iould not be called on. !.
Louisville is going to give royal
elcome to the veterans, and | hope ,
eryOne who can will go. Louisville !
the most intensely southern city in
e union-more SO than Nashville or
lattanooga or Atlanta. or even
larleston-and its people never do b
ings in healf-hearted or penurious
~. The last time l was there | saw s.
e blue and the gray each about 300 o
rong sitting in the same hall listen iC
2 to an address for the benefit of
moderate veterans. Yes. the same