The Savannah morning news., 1903-01-27
MID THEIR OLD FOES
CONFEDERATE VETERANS HELD
THEIR BANQUET.
BY MEN OF BLUE AND GRAY
ELOQUENT EULOGIEs UPON NOBLE
MEN WE'RE PRONOUNCED

Smiles to the EVent-CharIes
Francis Adams, Henry Waiter
son and William Hepburn Russell
Were Among the Speakers Among
Those Present.
New York, Jan. 26.-The thirteenth
annual banquet of the Confederate
Veteran Camp of New York, held to-
night at the Waldorf-Astoria, was
made memorable by eloquent eulogies
of the great figures of the South and
the North during the Civil War, de-
clared by men who themselves had
fought in the armies opposing them.
Charles Francis Adams of Massachu-
sets, a soldier of the Union, responded
to the toast of Robert E. Lee" and
Col. Henry Watterson, a soldier of the
Confederacy, paid tribute to the char
acter of Abraham Lincoln.
The third toast, to jefferson Davis,
was responded to by William Hep
burn Russell, formerly of Missouri,
and commissioner of accounts of New
York city.
Upwards of 500 comrades of the camp
and their guests were present, and the
presence of many ladies lent brilliancy
to the banquet.
Commander Henry Owen presided,
with Mayor Low at his right, and Col.
Watterson at his left. Others at the
guest table were George H. Taylor,
commander Alex Hamilton Post; ].
Edward Graybill, president Georgia So
Ciety; Gen. A. S. Barnes, commander
Lafayette Post Col. Samuel B. Paul,
lieutenant commander c. V. C. of New
York; Augustus Van Wyck, president
Southern Society; Roger A. Pryor, re-
gent Virginia Society; d. L. Snodgrass,
former chief justice of Tennessee;
James H. Parker, past commander c.
V. of New York; Gen. Thomas Hub
bard of New England Society; Walter
s. Logan, regent Empire State Society,
Sons American Revolution; w w
Fuller president North Carolina So
ciety; Rev. George Baker, chaplain C.
V. of New York; Rev. ]. N. Steele,
president Maryland Society
The opening toast to 1.-The President
and the Army and Navy of the United
States, a Prince among the rulers of
the world and but the servant of a
free people," was drunk standing amid
great applause, the orchestra render
ing, Hail Columbia" This was fol-
lowed by the toast to Gen. Lee, Mature
made him and then broke the mould"
To the Toast of Lee.
Charles Francis Adams responded.
After mentioning the names of
a number of generals who had made
war hell by their barbarous methods,
and called attention to the bitter ha-
tired attached to their memory, Mr..
Adams said: las an American-as
an ex-soldier of the Union--as one
w n Tph
to destroy that fragment of the Army
of the Confederacy to which he found
himself opposed rejoice that no such
hatred attaches to the name of Lee.
Reckless of life to attain the legitimate
ends of war, he sought to mitigate its
horrors. Opposed to him at Gettys-
burg, l here, forty years later, do him
justice. No more creditable order ever
issued from a commanding general
than that formulated and signed by
Robert E. Lee as at the close of June,
1861 he advanced on war of inva-
sion. mo greater disgrace" he then
declared, "can befall the army and
through it our whole people, than the
preparation of barbarous outrages
upon the innocent and defenseless.
Such proceedings not only disgrace
the perpetrators and all connected with
them, but are subversive of the disci-
pline and efficiency of the army, and
destructive of the ends of our move
ment. 1t must be remembered that
we make war only on armed men,"
Lee did not like lilly and Melac, ex-
hort his followers to kill and burn,
and burn and kill, and again kill and
burn; to make war hell. He did not
proclaim that he wanted no prisoners.
He did not enjoin 1t upon his soldiers
as a duty to cause the people of Penn
sylvania to remember they had been
fAo heo hn OF
He, at least, though a Confederate in
arms, was still an American, and not
a Tilly nor Melac.
And here, as a soldier of the Army
of the Potomac, let me bear my testi-
mony to. such of the Army of North
ern Virginia as may now be present.
While war at best is bad; yet its
necessary and unavoidable badness,
was not in that campaign enhanced.
In scope and spirit Lees order was OBJ
served, and 1 doubt if hostile force
ever advanced in an enemy's country,
or fell back from it in retreat, leaving
behind it less cause of hate and Bit
terness than did the Army of North
ern Virginia in that memorable cam
paign which eliminated at Gettysburg.
Because he was a soldier, Lee did not
feel it incumbent upon him to pro-
claim himself a brute, or to exhort
his followers to brutality.
An Epitaph for the Hero.
II have paid my tribute. One word
more and I have done. Some six
months ago, in a certain academic ad-
dress at Chicago, 1 called to mind the
fact that a statue of Oliver Cromwell
now stood in the yard of Parliament
House in London, close to that historic
hall of Westminster, from the roof of
which his severed head had once look
ed down. Calling to mind the strange
changes of feeling evinced by the mem
ory of that grinning skull and the pres
ence of that image of bronze-remem-
bering that Cromwell, once traitor and
regicide. stood now conspicuous among
England's worthiest and most honored
i asked, Why should it not also in
time be so with Lee? Why should not
MS effigy, erect on his charger, and
wearing the insignia of his Confederate
rank, gaze from his pedestal across the
potomac at the Virginia shore, and his
once dearly loved home at Arlington?
He, too, is one of the precious possess
slons of what is an essential factor in
the nation that now is, and is to be.
MY suggestion was met with an an
swer to which 1 would now make re-
ply. 1t was objected that such me-
mortal was to be provided for from
the national treasury, and that Lee,
educated at West Point, holding for
Years the commission of the United
states, had borne arms against the ma
Ilon. The rest I will not here repeat.
me thing was pronounced impossible.
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