Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1906-05-13

stacked their arms and laid down their aec0utr9mcnts. The tocein oi civil war had sounded it's last call victor and vanquished echoed the same refrain, Let there be peace.
 Peace there was from martial strife. Gentle zephyrs were whispering re ql iems for the brave spirits who had poured out their life blood in liba- ton on the altar of the southlands cause. A hush had fallen upon the lend. The world rolled on among it's fellow spheres, but no Te Deum was heard; voice and string, reed and Woodwind sounded the minor strains of the dirge To the living life seem et: but Gethesemane With the road to Calvary not far distant. Across the quiet fields where acre after acre of the feecy cotton plant had spread its snowy coverlet. where the rustlln" of the stately Indian corn told of the harvest of yellow grain, where the aurel and rhododendron were wont t.. grow in generous profusion stretch ed wild waste of lifeless brown. Skele- ton trees, like sentinels, stood guard ing the ruins of devastated homes. The songbirds had ceased to carol their music, and the merry ripping of the stream was chilled into silence. + seemed that if the sky-mother had spread a great dark sheet over all that was beautiful, and that the end had come with this lowering of the grave cloth Night had fallen, but a day-dawn was near. At last the shad. ows were lifted, the mist cleared away, and southrons saw through the dawning the finger of Hope point ing out way which the light of Faith made clear. That same spirit which had moved father and son and sweetheart, mother, wife and daught' CT to willing sacrifice of all that most dear to them that the "cause" which had been consecrated by inheritance end sustained by conviction was not the spirit that could be buried be- meath funeral pail Courage and fortitude, love and pride, could not be conquered or subdued.
 One morning the sun returned in some semblance of his former glory; a songbird warbled faint note of tLanksgiving, and a moulded leaf was pushed aside that a tiny f1oWeret might lift it's head and smile at the azure canopy of heaven. There was 9 strange mildness in all the air. The south, saddened under it's burden of sorrow and sacrifice, could still find courage to look aloft and be com- fe rted, and nature smiled. A victory had been gained, but people were not conquered. The scattered and scared remnants of Lees soldiery wended their way homeward The stately matrons of the great planta- tions lived in memory only. The humble cot in many instances had moi. escaped the fate of the more preten- tious domain, and hundreds upon hundreds of careworn, battle stained men and boys returned to find but wrecks and ruins where they had left shelter and luxury. But for them one thing remained which neither the varvings of time nor the changes of circumstance could alter and that the love and pride, the solace and comfort which southern womanhood in the generosity of -leir nature met cd out to t,3e r9 n ' he had worn the gray, the herOo@ of sH'7' years of sui fering and depriva ion, when only the dead seemed the free. Together they chanted the De P:'efun lis; together they drear od of 2 brighter day-a dawn-a Resuream. And the tdDcSiEN tll lilti :" hiSh A'N'e. lest it's semblanca in crim- son stains was laid away with the things that were and in Is stead was wrought our priceless fahric the warp and wool of which is fashioned of the silver threads of cherished memories, the golden strands of our present and the tracery or renown for our future. Have our artists proved worthy of their tasks? We have only to scan the vista between the past and the now-time to read our answer. The men of the south did not unsheath the swords in useless endeavor; the women of the south did not suffer in vain. For the spirit of ante-bel- lum days has left it's indelible impress upon legion of men and women who make up our ensemble of chivalry and virtue worthy of their illustrious pro, cenitOrS whose names are inscribed