The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-03
SOUTHERN ORAYORY.
ROE TAYLOR or
 TENNESSEE.
At Recent Reunion of Confed-
 crate Veterans at Brownville, | Tennessee.

crate Veterans at Brownville,
 Tennessee
 Time in it's tireless fight has brought
 us again to the full leaf and flower of
 another summer. The grass grows
 green about the dust of heroes; the
 roses twine once more about their
 tomb, and the morning glories point their purple bugles toward the sky as II to sound a feveille to our immortal
 shine and its shadows, it's laughter and ! its tears it's sowing and it's reaping,
 Its cradle songs and funeral hymns,
 now lies between us and that dark day { at Appomattox when the star of south
 ern hope went down, and the flag of
 southern chivalry was furled forever
 Another year has added winter locks to
 the temples of those old veterans who
 wore the gray, and deeper furrows to their brows, and they now stand
 among us like solitary oaks in the mid ' ale of fallen forest, hoary with age, < covered with scars, and glorious as the living monuments of southern manhood
 and southern courage.
 But we are not yet far enough away from that awful struggle to forget the Z bloody hills of Shiloh, where where AL
 bert Sidney Johnson died and the fatal field of Charlottesville,
 where Stonewall Jackson fell We
 are not yet far enough away
 10 forget the frowning heights of
 Gettysburg, where Picketts charging
 lines rushed to glory and the grave. We are not yet far enough away to for
 get Murfreesboro, Missionary Ridge
 and Chickamauga, and the hundred other fields of death and courage, where 2 the flower of the south, the bravest of
 the brave and the truest of the true, Fought for the cause they thought was
 right, and died for the land they loved I&iWe are not yet far enough away to forget the agony and the tears of nation that was crushed when the shattered armies of Lee and Johnston, worn and weary, half starved, bare footed and in rags, stacked their arms s In the gloom of defeat, and left the z field of valor overwhelmed and over powered, yet undaunted and uncon- quered. When time has measured off thousand years the world will not forget the sufferings and the sacrifices pf the brave men who so freely gave their fortunes and shed their blood to preserve the most brilliant civilization that ever fiourished in any land or in any age, for literature loves a lost cause.
 Historians will some day sit down on s0ur battle fields and write true history history which will read like the wild sest dreams of fancy that were ever woven into fiction, and poets will lin- ger among our graves and sing sweeter songs than were ever sung before. For zach monument is a volume within it. Self of wild and thrilling adventure, and every tombstone tells a story touching as the soldiers last tear on .kbe white bosom of his manhoods S bride, tender as his last farewell.
 < I would not utter word of bitterness against the men who wore the blue. They fought and died under the old flag to perpeuate the Union, and they were men worthy of southern prowess and southern valor. I would not if could rob Grant, the great and noble chief | tain, of his fame and glory. Every southern soldier ought to stand with Uncovered head when his name is spoken. For when all was lost, in the darkest and saddest moment of south | ern history, he was magnanimous to Lee and kind to his tattered and fam isf1ed army. Along the blue lines of | the triumphant foe, when the unhappy | confederates marched between them | and laid down their guns, there was no shout of victory nor flourish of trum- pets, but only of silence and tears. When the conflict had ended the con- proudly stood among the blackened walls of his ruined country, magnificent in the gloom of defeat and 1 still hero. His sword was broken, his home was in ashes, the earth was red beneath him, the sky was black above him, he had placed all in the scales of war and lost all save honor. But he did not sit down in despair to weep away the passing years.
 His Slaves were gone, but he was etilI Ia master. Too proud to pine, too strong to yield to adversity, he threw down his musket and laid his willing
 
 blow He put away the knapsack of war and turned his face toward the of peace. He abandoned the rebel yell to enter the forum and the court room and the hustings. He gave up the sword to enter the battles of in- dustry and commerce, and now in a little more than third of a century the land of desolation and of death, the land of monuments and memories, has reached the springtime of a erander destiny and the sun shines ssght on the domes and the towers of
 Kcities built upon the ashes of the A, and the cotton fields wave their white banners of peace and the fields . Df wheat wave back their banners of Eold.
 We can portray the possibilities of a country which has produced the Lees afld Jacksons and the brilliant Gordon, and the flashing Joe Wheeler, who is as gallant in the blue as he was glori- )us in the gray, and the impetuous and immortal Bedford Forrest, the Marshal Ney of the confederacy? Who can DOT ray the possibilities of a country | [ which has produced the stalwart and 1 ,inewy men of the rank and file, who { allowed the stars and bars through { he smoke and flame of every desperate ! battle and stepped proudly into his }