The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-08-28
CAROLINA, FRIDAY MORNING. AUG. %. 1903.

most it is desrous of laying itself down.
If in our power we would gather the
sacred ashes of each of these cherished
ones from his shallow grave and deposit
them with loving hands around tins store.
The native visitor would then, at tins spot,
as he looked upon this marble, typlc2l oI
the form and characteristics OF the dead
whose virtues it is erected to commemo-
rate. experience an increased sensation os
reverence for he would be standing among
the sepulchers of soldiers who were pa
triots, and who gave their lives for their
country for their love of the same, and
who were Bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh
'The Association whose spokesman I
am, was organized to build, on some
suitable ground, an appropriate monument
in memory of the Confederate dead Of
Warren. This spot already the last rest
| ing place of departed friends, and over
looking the historic old town, was most
aptly selected for its site. The foundation
was laid two years ago.
at has been completed and this day is
unveiled midst a cloud of witnesses. Be
| hold it in its symmetry and beauty, en-
| blematic both of the virtues and the deeds
| it is intended to commemorate, and of the
gratitude of those who have erected it.
LET us hope that it will for ages with
stand the ravages of time. a reminder to
! coming generations of honored worth and
noble ancestry. We are not unmlndful,
| however, of the fact that the tallest and
broadest monuments of stone or brass
are but partial and limited memorials of
great achievements, and likely to perish
| long before the deeds they bear witness
! to grow dim in the pages of recorded hls-
| tory or in the hearts of mankind. We
know that should shafts with foundations
as broad as the pyramids and so tall as
! to reach and pierce the skies be raised
on each of the battle-ields made famous
by the valor of the Confederate troops,
| they would but poorly commemorate the
imperishable feats of those soldiers. and
affct those whose eyes might fall upon
them. And we know, too, that the most
enduring memorials of great events are
not in written history, for its pages are
often times falsifed but are those which
are engraven on the hearts of mankind.
But we intend by this structure to make
an outward manifestation of our apprecla-
ton Of the patient endurance of suffering,
the high courage and the noble self-den,al
of our heroic dead and by offering this
physical tribute of our grateful love to
the gaze of the beholder to produce on
his mind the desire to cherish a high
standard OF life and to encourage dispo-
sition to initiate the principles which con-
trolled the conduct of our dead.
ut win not be thought, for a moment,
that our purpose is the formation or en-
couragement of sectional hostility, or the
disparag cement of those who opposed US in
our mighty struggle for State Supremacy.
1t is infinitely loftier mad nobler. 1t is
of our spirit to speak no SANDER, no, nor
listen to it.
eve have not met to stir afresh the
passions of the Civil War, nor to lament
the results of that strife. From the de-
cision of the God of Battles we filed no
appeal. There is now no promoter Of
Southern independence. No, my former
comrades and friends! We have gathered
today for another purpose than to quar-
rel with the past, to indulge in useless re-
pinings, or to SOW seeds of discord. True
followers of Robert f. Lee and the Starry
Cross are incapable of treachery or malice,
and since the day when that banner was
furled, though the times have been
troublous, trying mems very souls, they
have proven in their lives the truth Of
their leaders, immortal words, Human
fortitude should be equal to human ad-
versity.
"The lineage from which these men
sprung was proud and honorable The
very soil on which they were reared
named in honor of the Boston physician
and patriot who fell at Bunker Hill, seem
ed favorable to the growth of noble self
esteem, of patriotism. and above all the
spirit of hberty-which is at bottom the
love Of home and family. AS when in
Butte in the war of the Revolution, the
committees of safety were formed, one of
each kin was selected to act as one of
the committee, so in that part of the same
territory called Warren, after 1879 in the
war of 1S61-1S65, there was the same
united determination to act together as
one family. AS there were no Tories in
Butte, so there were no Unonists in War
ren after the Secession ordinance of the
convention.
Among the first, if not the very first,
of North Carolinians to buckle on their
armor were the volunteers from our noble
old county. 1t may be entertaining, if for
q few moments, l try to sketch some
scenes of those days, using the imagina
tion and the pencil to a great degree OF
another
"All the States to the south of us had
sdceeded and Fort Sumpter had been
fired on and taken. All the people. men,
boys, women and girls were wild with ex
cltement and clamorous for secession and
war. Speech-making was going on every
where, flags and iag-poles We're raised al
every town and cross-road. War songs,
Dixie and the Bonny Blue Flag! it wasn't
bonny very long-shot and shell, powder
and dust and smoke and battle had marred
ITS beauty, were sung on the streets, in
the court houses and in the homes. The
flag of the South in bars of red white
and blue We're everywhere to be seen. the
women and children as well as the men
and boys wearing them on the lapels of
dresses and coats. Then came the sound
of drums: Fall in! fall in! once on such
day, then the next night, then twice
the day after until it was every day and
every night. High stepping children with
sticks and broom handles for guns fell IN |
line and played soldiers like the Guard, !