The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-12-22
Fiddlers' Contest at Grand
 For Confederate. Veterans

 which he had forgotten, but to hear 1t was to recognize it again instantly no matter where Ii wasa heard. The other veterans knew 1t sRt once, they sat up and leaned forward in close attention. A moment more and the theatre and all in 1t were forgotten tc the soldiers Back over the interven- ing forty years their memories flew, and again vSeidly they reca He'd the time. when they had laughed in the teeth of death through the hell smoke of the Wilderness. One could see their eyes brighten. their gnarled fingers clutch like vises the arms of their chairs. They were back in the old life, their real life. the present was but memory.
 And over wonder on the heights,
 The hostile camp fires culver.
 Ani sullenly twixt us ana them.
 Flows by Potomac river.+
 Back at the stone bridge that separated Burnside and the Yankees from FredericsburE. they stood Again they saw the daring, but urwise Fed eral general throw his heart-sic7x regi- nents against the irnpregnabie. posi- tfon. It was the old life again; the rollicking song of the violin they had heard that night as the, shades feli over the misty. sulphur smelling field. brought it all back. and other fields. Again they rode with. stuart on the dare e-devii raid, when the psefless lead CT --circled McClellaa.z army. destroy ing his supplies and avenues of com snunication. forcing. the best general the North ever produced to fall back and abandon the attempt to reach Richmond by.s way of the Peninsular. that Grant two years later accomplish ed when the Confederate 4were ex- hausted.
 old scenes Recalled.
 They saw the volcanic explosion of the crater at Petersburg and again. undaunted stood to their guns with Malone and turned the advancing wave of blue back; saw 1t totter at the crest of the hill, falter. and surge back. the. hope of two months frustrated by a handful of men who were not scared to ask the devil for a pIatch.
 But as the song 1.-the violin changed to a note more plaintive. they saw the hollow checked men in the trenches about Atlanta. defeated by typhoid fever. but in their deliFiurn manning the guns that held sherman in check.
 Again the notes of the fiddle changed. to g song that was all but a hymn They stood one hallowed April day bidding eaCn other gOOa-Dye with silent wiring of the hand. and reverently leaned the miskets that had rattled in many victory: against the trees. And blinded by scalding tears turned their faces to their home land the scorched. torn states of the South very vital kuestions which have here
 When the curtain rose at S:30 o'clock there were nearly as many persons on the stage as there were in front of it drizzle had kept the people of the cradle city of the Confederacy from attending a little entertainment that few poor soldiers were giving to help a few more comrades who were even fn a more pitiable plight than they. Men who had given their man hood and their futures to the State and land they loved, wee not rendered the courtesy 4hat is given a vaudeville sketch. Some sixty persons were scat tered through the lower floor of the house; the galleries were as bare al charity. 4 e.-7 State Auditor Brandon. who intro. duced the veterans, was mortified al the curtain, going up disclosed ths condition of the house. Tn his an. nouncement of the purpose of the en. 1 tertainment, he said: &So the peopls of this great Capital City of the Soutf could not brave a shower to help 5 few of the men who braved he'll itseli for their sskes."
 Mfr. Brandon paid a glowing tribute to the veterans of the Confederate