Los Angeles herald., 1907-01-20

promising fidelity to the land they
loved and adored as did yours and my
fathers and mothers.
Each state poured into this fearful
stream of death the flower of it's youth,
the strength of It's manhood, the wis
dom of its fathers, the crowning glory
of age, the chivalry of it's knighthood,
the tears of it's widowhood, the griefs
of it's orphans and the crosses of its
crucifiXioh, all hallowed with the puri =
ty of it's womanhood. AS the cannons
roared, as the hills shook and the noun
Itains trembled, as valleys were drenched
in blood, the Lees the Jacksons, the
Beauregards, the Gordons and the
Hoods arose like giant oaks to defy
the Grants, the Shermans. the Rose
Grams. the Hookers and the McClel-
lans; and, my friends, the horror of it
was and is that it was brother oppos-
ing brother, American against Ameri-
can over q cause that ought to have
been settled through other means than
by the arbitrament of the sword.
If 1t had been Americans opposing a
foreign foe how much more glorious
would have been the record of that war
Yet we must concede that it requires a
! higher patriotism, a greater devotion
to right and a greater heroism to op-
pose those whom we love and pour out
| life's blood as an evidence of convic-
tons than it is to oppose those who
are neither near nor dear to us by as
socia tion. kinship or otherwise.
EuIogizes Mothers
Blessed mothers of the Confederacy!
how much thou gavest to thy country's
cause can never be written only upon
the books kept by the recording angel
of heaven. When husbands, fathers and
sons were in the midst of battle you re-
mained at home to card, to spin, to
weave, to sew and to toil-yea, even to
ploW and to hoe to support those both
at home and in the field. The doors
of thy house were ever open to the
struggling soldier, the manned, the
halt and the lame Thou vert ever
ready to place the cup of cold water
to parched lips, to feed the hungry, to
clothe the ragged, to offer consolation,
hope and encouragement, to say, Flight
on, brave boy, oh, be true to thy home
and unto thy land"
Thou vert ever ready to heal the
wounds and administer unto the
fevered brow. Thou vert the shining
star in the armament of the great
hope. Yea, even thou vert found in
the battlefield amid the carnage of
death and suffering, administering like
an angel of mercy to the wounded and
dying. Thy frail form defed the shot
and shell of the enemy, and in the hour
of peril 1t was thee, oh, mother of the
Confederacy, that stood like a pillar
of fire when the night grew darkest
and the battle thickest.
The hope that the dark beginning
would soon find an ending was quickly
dispelled b. the stern resolve that it
was fight to death between two of
the most magnificent and splendid ar
mics of men the world has ever seen,
between men who knew no fear and
who were willing and anxious to die
for the cause they represented. All
think of the great battle of Gettys-
burk, one of the many terrific contests
that made the Valor of the American
soldier shine with resplendent beauty
and whose courage has challenged the
civilized world.
Lee the Guiding Light
In this mighty struggle, terrible as
it was, the brllliancy of that military
genius, Robert E. Lee, lighted the
camp fires of the Confederacy in their
darkest hour of peril with a new luster
that drove away fears and forebodings
and gave renewed courage and a re-
newed hope. He rose above the petty
passions which so often has bedimmed
genius, great man, great in all walks
of life from the citizen to the COM
manding general. Through his veins
coursed the blood of ability that had
been purified by noble sres since the
days of Light Horse Harry.
Archer Anderson said, THE failure of
a righteous cause for which General
Lee fought denied him that eminence
of civil station i'm which his great quail
tiles, in their happy mixture, might
well have afforded parallel to the
strength and moderation of Washing
ton. But what failure could obscure
that moral perfection which places him
as easily by the side of the best man
that have ever lived, as his heroic ac-
tions make him the peer of the great
est? This moral perfection, breathing
the very spirit of Christian faith, is
no illusive legend of succeeding gem
Grafton eXaggerating the past. Our
belief in 1t rests in the unanimous tes-
timony OF the men who lived and acted
with him, among whom nothing is
more common than the declaration
that Lee was the purest and best man
of action whose career history has re-
corded In his whole life, laid bare to
the gaze of the world. the least criti-
piSm has never discovered a SinpIa de-