The age-herald., 1901-05-29

that you were in the right, you fought |
 with a courage and heroism which has |
 been equalled in no country and in no | age. For four long years you marched | and fought over hill and valley and field | leaving your blood and your comrades
 strewn behind you, till overwhelmed by | numbers the stars and bars went down in | glorious defeat
 "When the dust of battle had cleared | away and the cause for which you fought | had been lost you returned to your famil- les and homes. Your ranks decimated,your | fields desolated, your beloved South torn | and shattered by the scourage of war
 but with true heroism. you set your hand to the work of reconstruction, you gath | cred together your families. you rebuilt | your homes, you cleaned the rust from | your axe and blow, and began again the ! development and cultivation of your na- tive land Your courage in the dark days of reconstruction was even greater than your courage on the field of battle. Strug- | gling against the bitterness of defeat 1 within you, and the ruins and waste | around you, you furnished an example | of proof and noble spirits, bending under | a sense of duty and responsibility, the
 like of which the world had never seen | before. You have applied yourselves to | commerce, agriculture and arts For | thirty-1ve years you have devoted your
 selves to the upbuilding of the country In a true spirit of manhood you have | accepted the decision of war.
 You have acknowledged and embraced the whole American Union as your fa- |
 therland. Its fortunes and your fortunes 1
 and you stand ready today to defend the
 whole Union as you defended the south
 in 1861.
 Welcome to Daughters.
 Chairman Gordon then, in happy
 little speech admirably delivered,
 brought forward Hon. Tim E. Cooper,
 of Mississippi who extended a welcome
 to the Daughters of the Confederacy, the
 Confedarated Southern Memorial Asso-
 citations and to the representatives of
 the Jefferson Davis Monument Associa-
 ton. Among other things he said:
 Women of the South. What words
 shall express the respect and love and
 reverence in which our hearts hold you?
 What language shall welcome you to this
 city on this occasion when the twentieth
 century holds out it's hands to greet the
 heroes of the last? No braver heart beat
 beneath the uniform of the soldier than
 beat within the bosom of the mother who
 sent him forth to the field, and patiently
 and with anguish bore with unfaltering
 courage the burden of those years of
 war.
 'If there was danger on the field, there
 was suffering and sorrow in the home.
 If there was hunger in the camp, there
 was poverty in the land; if there was patient and defiant endurance in the
 trenches, there was a yet more patient
 and more defiant endurance at the fire- side. Men and women stood beneath the same flag and bore equal allegiance to all 1t represented.
 'To this reunion of the heroes who upheld that flag. we welcome the sur
 vivors of those heroines by whom it was
 beloved, and their daughters born since it was forever furled but who came into
 low for all it represented and who shall trans
 init to other generations the fireside his-
 tory and traditions of it's defenders.
 The address of Judge Cooper was re- ceived with great applause
 Tender of Hall.
 Gen. George W. Gordon then spoke ten dering the hall to the veterans for their
 use during the convention, and turning it over o>Gen. John B. Gordon of Geor- gia, the Commander-in-chief of the United Confederate Veterans as their representative. He said:
 "Comrades-It now remains for me to salute you and bid you thrice welcome to this city and to this hall. am profound ly gratified to see here today so many of the venerable men who dM battle for the cause for which Lee and Forrest fought and for which Johnston and Jackson
 died.
 Until this hour I have regarded and valued my commission as brigader gener-
 al in the Confederate States army as the
 highest honor have ever achieved, but today esteem it the proudest distinction of my life to meet and to greet the heroic survivors of every important battlefield from the Potomac to the Rio Grande. The followers of Lee and Jackson, Hamp- | ton and Stewart, Gordon and Longstreet | and Fitz Lee and of other leaders of that 1 invincible army of Northern Virginia are of A md cnrah E. Johnston, Bragg, Beauregard and | Hood, Forrest and Van Dorn and Wheeler are here. Those of Kirby Smith and Price and Taylor are here. So that, every
 army and every corps that illustrated the valor and prowess of Southern soldiers | and threw luster upon the Confederate arms is represented here today; and this | fact alone would make this reunion an interesting and glorious occasion. I es- teem 1t a distinguished honor merely to stand in the presence of much less to ad- dress, such an assembly of patriots and soldiers, with such a record as you can justly claim. And allow me to say, with out exaggerated laudation, that in my estimate the world has yet to witness in
 soldiers of the line higher degree of
 martial individuality, prowess. courage and efficiency than that displayed by the
 private soldiers of the Confederate armies. They were often not only generals unto themselves but suggested to their officers
 what to do in the stress and perplexity of some sudden emergency Be proud of your record, private comrades, for 1t has never yet been lowered.
 For four thrilling years the Confed- crates successfully maintained their cause many times fighting battles and win | ming victories against heavy odds when barefooted. ragged and hungry. We may search history fin vain for loftier in- stances of heroic endurance in private soldiers. We have seen them uncomplain- ingly limping barefooted to the front through burning sands and freezing snows, and we would marvel that men of such mold could ever have been van quished if We did not know that they were overcome more by the momentum of numbers than by prowess; more by fam inc than by fighting. The Confederates were outnumbered in white population at the beginning of
 the war by four to one: besides, the north
 received additions to It's army from our territory and foreign countries to the number of more than 900.0OO men, or about one and one-half times as many as the south had in all her armies. From first to last the north enlisted in her arm ies. in round number, 2.s50.0OO men, while the south had. In similar numbers. only 600,0O0 men. or fewer than four to one We not only fought the north. but to some extent we fought the world from which the north largely received both soldiers and supplies. Nevertheless. for four booming and blazing years we made 1t lively for them all. And when the dis parity in men, in means. in war facilities and appliances of all kinds are consid cred. If must be admitted thaf tba uo,,ft,