The Greenville times. [volume] (Greenville, Miss.) 1868-1917, 1905-06-03

survivors of that dreadful drama be-
come more and more dear to US; the
memory of those passed from earth
IS more and more tenderly cherished.
We tax our ingenuity for plans and
ceremonies to show this reverence
and love We celebrate their deeds
with almost sac~4mcntal observance
in annual reunions, We honor their
memories with monuments. Not only
IN our chief cities, but in every coun-
ty o fthe South from which men went
forth to battle there will be, in time
to come, an enduring shaft raised to
perpetuate their deeds and testify the
love and honor in which their chill
| dren and their children's children hold
them
There IS, in this feeling, no senti-
ment of disloyalty to the Republic of
which each Southern and Northern
State forms a component part. We
! are a peculiar people. There is
wide and deep feeling of patriotism
F.; for the great nation which our States
collectively comprise,-p perhaps the
greatest andm ost powerful on earth
today; but there is also another pa
triotism, more intimate, more intense,
that animates each individual for the
State of his birth
The tv"o ceilings n no way inter
fere with each other The first may
be correctly styled patriotism. the Sc
cond love
There Is no disloyalty to America
in the love and pride which is felt for
his own State by the Virginlan, the
Carolinian, the Louisianiar, Missis-
sippian Kentuckian, Ohioan, Calfor-
Man, or native OF Massachusetts or
Connecticut. The deeds of our re
roes were the deeds of men of Vir-
einia, or Carolina, or Tennessee. or
! Louisiana, or Kentucky, not the dee is
Of soldiers in arms against The flag
Tor which our young men are to-
day ready to fight as their fathers
were ready to fight against.
And we honor these men in pag-
eants and banQuets; in orations, in
careful teachings to our children. We
cover their graves with flowers. We
erect monuments to their memory
But what of the women of those
days ?
Do we love and honor them less.
these heroines who gave their happi-
ness without a tear, who unfaiser-
ingly sent first their husbands and
then their fathers and then their
, schoolboy sons to battle and to al
most certain death; and who, when all
was lost save honor, took upon their
own delicate shoulders the burden
that war had left them alone to bear
The theme of their valor, their sac
F., rihce and their deeds is too high for
= any pen save that of some great epic
poet, and such chronicler will
' doubtless arise in time to do them
I justice.
2 But more appropriate than any epic
I more expressive of the feelings of !
, people is a tribute, not of one master
c mind, but of nation.
To- Let each county OF the South cree
e a monument to its dead and living
heroes who wore the gray, but let the
whole South join to raise a shaft tC
the memory of the women who wore
black in its cause; whose Iac4'
5 smiled at death, and whose hands
r. took hold and forced hope from tn,
}, grasp of despair
n We honor our veterans, and rightly
e. but they themselves will tell us tina
r. at least an equal need of honor i.
0 due the women who armed and sen
). them forth to battle
e The messy marble rest
e On the lips that they have pressed
go In their bloom;
d ! And the names they loved to hear
E Have been carved for many a year
o On the tomb"
Honor to the women they lovec
7, will be added honor to these men o
n our history's yesterday; and whei
2 coming generations look on sor1
II mighty stone tribute to the heroine
e of the South, they in their turn will
honor our heroines and the spirit tina
5 raised memorial worthy of thei
- deeds