The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-11

at last surrendered, nVe thousand OF
these were Tar Heel soldiers.
What sufferings they represented,
what hardships they had endured,
what heart-aches they left behind are
matters for the psychologists of the
pain that is dumb. 1t is enough. for
us that they were there. That they
constituted the larger part of those
faithful to the end. That empty bel
lies filled with husks did not deter
them from the firing line for the
wayside forage, nor limbs cramped
with the squatting before death in the
Petersburg trenches keep them from
the muster at the dramas close.
Grimes was there. planning the last
assault in force, the man on whose
bravery the gods had seemed to smile!
Roberts. that boy general. intrepid in
the moment of disaster. Cox. SCARED
by a dozen wounds, fashioned by ma
ture in the sculpture of the ideal war
rior barring the way to foes who,
glorying in the certainty of victory,
labored to be first in at the death.
face of thousands fighting on after
the nation for which he struggled had
already died. All these make a SPLEEN
did story They and what they did IN
days of a sore trial give to another
generation the index of it's greatest
pride.
The glory, however, of North Caro-
lina's part in the war as that of every
other one of the States which seseded
from the union was in the rank and
file of the men who followed the
beacon light of their love of country.
without thought of price or fear of
consequence. 1t lies in the ragged
veterans hurried hither and you over
frozen roads. mired in mud. fording
breast-high streams. fighting battles
by day, marching by night to fight
again at dawn. After all the empty
haversack is the chief test of patriot
ISM Who can fight on an empty
stomach has the divine spark. Who
can find his courage strong-armed in
a morning after a sleepless night.
horrid with waking dreams of stealthy
DEATH is the man on whom the fate
of armies and of nations rest. These
things the South endured until they
are by repetition as the custom of a
by-gone day. They cut to the soul.
Before Appomattox there was the re-
treat from Petersburg; before that
there was the life in the trenches: at
Appomattox there was the full-blood-
ed courage which would not recognize
defeat. 1t was the private soldier
magnificently led, divinely trustful,
superbly brave, who made the page of
the Confederacy. each letter of which
was a cipher to a panegyric.
What light in his soul caught his
.untutored eye, what intuitive faith
nerved him to face exigency I'M
flinchingly with his life, we of a mild
er generation will perhaps never
know. There is in this edition a
simply written, modest narrative by
one of the women who staid at home
which touches the strange point at
which brave men forget their all in~
war. The highest virtue is that which
at pinch may become inhuman, Such
We're the five thousand North Caro-
linians who gave up blood to Fate at
Appomattox. The sequel shows their
worth. Their heroism was not Incl
dental to mere carnage. After defeat,
the strange. light led them still. 1t is
the heritage of today. 1t is the foun
dation of present hopes. 1t looks on
ward through young eyes, confident in
their ancestry. 1t is the thing where
on we build.
The last charge" at Appomattox
has borne it's legitimate fruit in the
invincible faith of today.
II was not at Appomattox and know