The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-01-24

When Mayor Reese brought Presi- tdent Davis. with mahy distinguished iSormsiities and becoming demonstra- lions of public devotion. from his un- broken retirement. since his release Hrom Fortress Monroe, to lay the cor. iner, stone of the Confederate Monu- ment on the hill top. where a quarter Of a century before the President had taken the oath of office, the gallant lyoung Mayor builded wiser than he lwot of. It is not the limit of his- ltory to write down names of men and ndates of events. History is spirit. i1t k life. not a cadaver. From every .quarter of Alabama. penetrated by a irailroad, men and women, youth and lgray hairs came to Capitol hill to pay lthe debt in common to history: to make proud obeisance to history there sncarnate. Had this hero, the imper- fsonation of things that had been, beck loned to them. standing as he did upon ahe very spot where he stood in the kariier day. to follow him--but this tis what now said to them. not his ex- lact phrase. perhaps. but his thought precfseiy: My countrymen, the shaft whose foundation you have come to lay Twill testify forever to the effort you made to perpetuate to your posterity ,the principles of American liberty. by "a reform in your civil government. Pettus. Gordon, Holtzclaw, Sanford, 1ones Law and their coussades heard. lHow long shall we remember! The Presidents words might yet be en- Igraven most appropriately on the mon iumerit.
 It is not profitable to write of the kwiorious conduct of the Confederate .arnlies and yet omit, or sfur over the motive of the Confederacy.
 There was no storm cradled na- Sfon." The nation born was legiti- : smate and first saw the light in the dap of written law. There was no l"war of secession; the only war was fthe war solemnly- declared by the Con- Igress of the Confederate States, sit- ting in the Senate Chamber of Ala Ibama, and approved by President Da- wis; it was a war waged by compe- hent Federal Government of sovereign lStates who had never tolerated for a single instant of time any revolution within their boundaries. Let us take heed of the words of the President. We < were hardly just to ourselves when we failed to engrave them on panel of the monument. l ~ R.
 We arrive at January 1st. 1864. The war had nearly completed it's third year. There were several Confeder- ate armies in the field. One under Lee in Northern Virginia, one under Beau regard on the South Atlantic Coast, one under Maury on the Gulf Coast, and the Army of Tennessee at Dalton. Kirby Smith commanded the Trans Mississippi and under him. in North ern Louisiana, was one Of the most ac- complfshed soldiers of America, Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor.
 President Davis was more sanguine than President Lincoln: the Southern people were more united In support of their cause than the Northern people: at Ha. -R V.-I x..xA 2 thought but for the success of the war.
 Our soldiers were intelligent, our people were we'll read in American his tory All knew that the young repub- lie had then better prospects than General Washington ever had in seven years struggle, until in the year when fhe French fleet appeared off the coast of Virginia All knew the war of 1S12 was lost to America until Jackson won khe battle of the Horse Shoe.
 Lincoln knew well the difference be- Tween the character of the rival armies He knew well his own commanders He once wrote to Mcclellan that if Lee Bad an equal chance, he would wipe 9he United States General off the face of the earth; he wrote to Meade after Gettysburg, that he had choice of posi- Nions on that field. that he had At tho Initial as large an army as Lees. tha' he had been re-enforced by 20.00I eresh troops from Washington, aftel khe battle, yet he permitted Lee at hii aeisure to escape across the Potomac As soon as Sherman got back tC Wieksburg from his fiasea raid tC Meridian. in February, 1864, Grant iT command at Chattanooga called hin with his army to the latter place Sherman. calculated at first to march by way of Decatur. thence to Bridge hort When he found Johnston ir command at Dalton. he recognized the danger of so near an approach to the Confederate position as Bridgeport, SC