The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1902-01-24
well was greeted with applause HI.
address was as follows:

Ladies and Gentlemen:-I answer to
the call Of an association whose lightest
request IS to me a With all
the traditions OF q consecrated past,
thrilling through my veins, and cherish
ing an admiration most profound for
the character and acts OF him who was
the noblest embodiment of confederate
manhood. and whose natal day we come
to commemorate, I respond as best I
can to the needs Of this occasion and
will speak TO o of the man, Robert
Edward Lee. (Applause).
When Wilkie was in the EscuriaI
studying those famous pictures which
have SO long tracte the gaze of low
ers of art, an old Jeroneymite said to
him: Il have sat daily in sight Of those
paintings Tor nearly four score years
All my contemporaries are are gone.
Many younger tina myself are in their
graves. Still the figures upon those
remain unchanged. ! loo at
them until i think they are realities
and we but the shadows The battle
scenes which the heroes OF the south
have painted upon our memories. Of
loyalty, valor and deathless deeds-the
personages like Johnson, the Bayard Of
the south: Stewart, our Henry of Nav
ARE; Jackson. our military meteor, and
Lee, the most Stainless, with other
thousands Of unmentioned heroes who
have crossed over to the white tents
on the other shore, seem at times to be
the real p~ersonages, while we who re-
main as an old griZZled gray rear
guard, seem but the passing shadows.
1t were impossible within the limits
of this hour TO more than allude to the
leading events in the life and career OF
him whose name is written largest on
the page of our southern history. Born
on Virginia soil of Virginia parents and
reared in the sacred shadows of Mount
Vernon, his childhood and youth were
spent in a community remarkable for
the honorable, courteous and Hospital
BILE bearing of its men, and the chasti-
ty. polish. culture. and loneliness of its
women. In such an atmosphere he
naturally acquired those gallant. ur-
bane, refined, W. and command
ing traits which characterized him
through the whole course OF his bril-
lion career. In his dlgnif1ed form all
recognized the highest type of the
southern gentleman. In person, car
riage, cultivated address and superior
endowments, we hailed the elimination
of our patriarchal civilization. In him
was personified all that was highest,
truest, grandest alike in the hour of
triumph and in the day Of defeat.
Robert E. Lee was the most distin-
guished representative of the lost
cause" Lost cause!" did l say? Nay,
"a cause which electrified the civilized
world by the grandeur of it's sacrifices,
the dignity and rectitude of it's aims,
the nobility of its pursuits, and the
ma gnitude of the deeds of valor per-
formed in it's support" a die.
~(Applause.)
Today 1 would accentuate the man.
Robert E. Lee, rather than the military
c~hieftain. Nor in this would 1 obscure
n bright leaf in the chapter OF Lee as
a soldier. "Soldier'-the very word
quickens the pulse and stirs the blood.
And a confederate soldieri l think l
hear again the throb OF his drums, the
thrilling yell Of his desperate charges.
1 think 1 catch again the CLEAN of his
glorious banners.
No fearing, no trembling thy soldier
shall know,
When here stands his country n yon-
der her foe.
One look at the bright sun. n prayer
to the sky,
One glance where his banner waves
glorious on high;
on, as the young lion ounds on
his prey
Let the sword flash on high, fling the
scabbard away
Rush on as the thunder storm rolls over
He comes back with glory. or he comes
not again."
Because Of soul and action like this
truth has said of he confederate SOL
der: Though fate denied his victory
history has crowned him with immor-
tai glory" (Applause.)
A nations greatness is measured by
the loftiness of it's ideals as embodied
in revered personalities. When the war
ended in 1865, there stood out above the
smoke of battle four distinct stat
uesque characters-Stonewall Jackson,
Alexander H. Stephens. Jefferson Davis
and Robert Z. Lee-the greatest or
these was Lee. These became the
source of inspiration for the PROSTATE
south.
The first of this noble quarternion had
crossed oVer the river to rest under
the trees" From his divine exaltation
the spirit OF Stonewall Jackson looked
down on the southland, fresh baptized in
the best blood of the world. and said
unto us all: Hear We them" God had
provfdentially left Stephens, Davis and
Lee with us for just such an hour in the
Kingdom.
We needed one above, we needed
three below. For then We were enter
ing u darkest Wlley-the period OF
reconstruction. The darkest hour for
the south did not begin With the fall Of
Vicksburg, nor the repulse at Gettys-
burg, no not even at Appomattax.
Our midnight began with the six years
of reconstruction when no negro was
too ignorant or debased to occupy a seat
in our Legislative halls or befoul our
gubernatorial chairs. and no alien car-
pet Dagger was too venai to soil our jul
dicial ermine That was the time that
tried the soul of the south, hen it was
that battle SCARED veterans seized
again the gun and pistol and with
clinched hand and quivering lips looked
again to their old leaders for the word
But from the door of old
Liberty Hail. in Georgia they saw the
hin frail hand of Stephens lifted in
quiet protest From the stone cell pris-
on of avis at Fortress Monroe they
heard but one word out of the darkness
there spoken-"Patience." With POLL
ing blood and in the last desperate re-
sort a half million southern men
looked across to the quiet school room
at Lexington, Virginia, and asked:
But what says Mars Roberto" God
like Robert E. Lee, then the teacher of
southern youth, arose n said: Peace
be STILL" and, men went again to beat
their swords into pillow shares and their
spears into pruning hooks. There was
not n hour during all that black
nightmare of reconstruction but that