Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1907-07-26
THE LOYAL
SOUTHERN GIRL,

Il don't know whether it is that YOU
considered Dixie your national hymn.
or that sentiment plays greater part
IN Southern hearts than in Northern.
but to me the most remarkable thing
I've seen since came south of Mason s
and Dixon's line is the loyalty of the
Southern young girl to what she thrill
lngly calls 'the Lost Cause" declared
an astounded Northern woman to a
little group of her Southern friends.
should naturally expect the middle
aged woman to remember the war. and
to look back upon it occasionally with
bitterness or regret, but that it should
sun be a live issue with the girl in her
teens IS something l should never have
believed If l had not seen and heard
evidences of it with my own eyes and
ears.
I'm the North we women have all
most forgotten there was ever a Civil
War, and certainly our daughters know
no more about it than is necessary to
graduate them in American history.
1t has no emotional influence over them
Whatever; but down here-well, if you
scratch Southern girl you find a rebel
ready to give the yell and charge bay-
onets on the spot. l don't believe such
a state of things exist anywhere else
on the globe. You are the most charming
people in the world, and perhaps that
undercurrent of sadness which one is
obllge to come upon in each one of YOU if
one digs deep enough into your emotions.
is responsible for much of the charm.
You take us to your hearts like sisters.
and make us feel entirely welcome and
at home, but under it all is that intense
loyalty to your battle-hag, to your
battle hymn, and to all that they re-
presented to you forty years ago and
which you never for an instant forget.
1t is wonderful and it is very beautiful,
but how do you manage to keep the
feeling alive?''
eve don't manage" said a Southern
girl who was in the group. 'It keeps
itself alive In my veins, for instance.
is the blood of father who gave everv-
thing he had to the Lost Cause. even
TO his right arm which he lost at Get
tysburg. Do you think could look at
his empty sleeve without remembering
why it is empty? The man who hired
substitute to fight for him lived in
the North. Down here it was the best
blood in the country that fought. The
war is not only part of our national
history; it is part of our family his
tory. You might go into a roomful of
Southern girls and pick one of them at
random to tell you the story of what
the war meant to her family. She has
1t at her finger ends. We all have. 1t
is IN our blood, and not only in the
blood we inherit from our fathers. but
our mothers as well. Why, don't you
know that if General Lee had issued
another call for troops our women of
the South would have shouldered their
muskets and gone forth to battle?
You see, any emotion that we Younger
people have about the war is inherited
from both sides of the family. / sup
pose our children's children will feel
exactly as we do about it. / don't
mean that they bear malice, of course.
We don't, not bit of it. But / do
mean that the memory of that for
which our people suffered, as few peo-
pie have been called upon to suffer, will
survive in them as it survives in u.s."
And it is all pure, unadulterated SEN
timent," said the Northern woman
thoughtfully. al could understand it
If you were tyrannized over, as the
Hungarians are, by monarch and
court. l could even understand it if
you were one of the Italian factions.
But your rights in the government are
equal to ours, there is little favoritism
shown, and the Southerner has as good
chance for the presidency as the North
erner. There is no recent policy or
lack of policy to preserve this feeling
among you, and yet, here it is, alive
and burning. A feeling-not of malice,
as you said, and not of unforgiving hate
or bitterness, but rather of enveloping
SShdSiACoo 1OI d cause WHICH YOUR
people fought and bled and died for and
lost.
do you KNOW" she added, with a
little mist in her eyes, cit makes me
feel as if were face to face with one
of the early virtues which must have
existed in the youth of the world; SEN
timent, before it became wrapped into
sentimentahty. feel as if / had never
actually seen sentiment before, or
known what it really meant. The world
has so little use for it these days. But
here you have preserved it in all its
first beauty and purity and passed it on
to your children as unsullied as it came
to you. If my trip South had shown
me nothing else than this l should feel
amply repaid for coming. ."-Cally
Ryland, in Evening Journal.