The Grenada sentinel., 1903-04-11
NUMBER Sc
WORD PAINTING.
Vardaman's Famous Confederate
Peroration.

Vardaman'. Famous Confederate
Peroration.
Water alley Progress, April ~
Among the many beautiful and
touching thoughts that are being ex-
pressed in cbaste and elegant English,
no peroration thus far in the CAM
paign is comparable with the sub
timely magnificent tribute paid to
the heroes of the Lost Cause by Maj
Vardaman. The sweetest and most
touching words have been culled, as
choice blossoms are plucked from =
garden full of flowers, and woven into
sentences that thrill every heart
Every word is a gem, each period
poem and the whole is a masterpiece
of eloquent thoughts, words and
|speech.
Vast audiences sit GREATNESS with
emotion under the magic sway of the
peerless orator, and those who wore
the grey in the long ago sob with full
hearts as 1.-The past rises befOre''
them.
No other Of the candidates for gov
ernOr could deliver the address as Mai.
Vardaman does, and we are equally
sure that neither of them would if
they could.
1t will be of interest to many who
have sat under the spell of the witch
ing words and to the nobly, honesty
loving old veterans in particular to
learn who was the author and what
the occasion OF the first delivery of
the limpid sentences that fell so
smoothly from the lips of the elo-
quent Vardaman who gave birth to
the, sublime thoughts?
They are from the pen of the gifted
Ingersoll, poet, soldier, atheist: Robt.
G.. Ingersoll, Col. of the eleventh H.
linois Cavalry, man who hated and
who in his atheiStic teachings has
done more to retard the advance of
Christianity than any other one man
were spoken at Grand Army Repub-
lie reunion in Indianapolis Sept. p,
! 1876.
They were written and spoken in
eulogy and praise OF the northern
army. At the very time when Mis-
sissippi and the other war-swept
states of the south were throwing off
the yoke Of carpetbag mjsTuIe and In
some Of the states were still voting at
the point of Yankee bayOnets, Col
Ingersoll was delivering the soul-stir-
ring boastful welcome to the host in
blue at Indianapolis.
Mr.. Vardaman has paraphraSed
Col. Ingersoll's speech and shifted
the scene from the north to the south,
but throughout the manner and style
of composition are retained, and In
the main the exact words and precise
language are used for sentence after
sentence.
AS an illustration, see if you re-
member the opening words, THE
past rises before me like a dream.
Again we are in the great struggle for
confederate life. We hear the sounds
of preparation-the music of bolster
GUS drums-the silver voices of heroic
!: bugles.'' In the text the word
national" was written and not con-
federate. Or, is there familiar ring
about this sentence, I'VE see them
all as they march proudly away under
the Haunting flags, keeping time to
the wild grand music OF war, march
> ing down the streets of the great
cities, through the towns and across
the prairieS, down to the fields OF
+ glory, to do and to die for the eternal
right" Or, this, ''The past rises be-
fore us. We hear the roar and shrek
of the SHE'LL" etc.
Then, try and recall this sentence
in Mr.. Vardaman's speech, The past
rises before us and we see four mil
lions of human beings governed by
the lash, we see them bound hand and
foot; we hear the strokes of cruel
whips; we see the hounds tracking
women through tangled swamps; we
: see babes sold from the breast of
: mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Out
rage infinite!
Or this, Instead of slaves, we see
men and women and children. The
. wand of progress touches the auction
block, the slave pen, the whipping
post, and we see homes and firesides,.
and schoolhouses and books, and
where all was want and crime and
cruelty and fetters, we see the faces
of the free" ..@.s-. ..-..
No, you did not hear those biting
words in Mr.. Vardaman's impressive
!. tribute to the Grey, but they and
many more lfull as false and full
. as bitter were spoken along with those
D Iyou did hear when Col. Ingersoll
0 spoke to the Blue that fall day, more
0 than eleven years after the sounds Of
0 war had passed away.
oil The whole Of Col. Ingersoll's adj
O. dress and that portion OF Major Var
o daman's may be found in Vol. !.
o pages 2852-3. The Worlds Best
o Grafton by Brewer.