Goldsboro semi-weekly argus., 1909-05-12

followed "O1d Marse Robert" through |
the field, the thoughts of marches,
wounds and death, and through the
darkness of these serious memories,
as a shaft of summer sun streaks
through a rigt of April's clouds,
there comes a throng of pleasant
thoughts of camp life joys and jokes
upon some half-forgotten friend now
dead and gone, and through it all and
lending rosy fragrance to your dream
there shines the lustre of a woman's
face whom you can never forget.
"To some of you this day brings
back to mind the thought of dark and
lonesome days, of nights of endless
prayer and weary vigils for him
whose safe return you ever hoped. He
came perhaps, but not the one you
saw riding off four years before-so
gay, so handsome-he went a boy, he
| returned a mamie went lover, he
returned hero. Or if, perchance
some leaden messenger of death found
lodgment in his breast, to her whose
| life forever afterwards was vacant,
there endured the happy thought that
no bullet ever made could drive from
out his heart the memory of her face,
| and that loving heart if it was shat
tered and torn carried her image into
the grave.
| But, my friends, let me say to you
that the men who wore the Gray and
bore the muskets-who stormed the
hill, and defended the trenches-were
not all of the soldiers of the Confed-
eracy. In many a mansion and in
many a cabin throughout the dear
Southland of ours there were hearts
underneath the homemade dress and
sun-bonnet as resolute and intrepid as
those who marched from the lowest
level of the sea-beat shore to the sum-
NIT of the highest peaks.
tIn story and song-in the pulpit
and on the platformt- the re-
union camp-fres, beside the hearth
stones of thousands of homes-the
sublime devotion and self-sacrifice OF
J, the women of the South, throughout
that great ordeal have been recounted
| and repeated again and again, but
thank God, the topic never becomes
stale. The generations which have
come since those events may lister
| with brimming eyes and glowing
hearts to the narratives of the hero
) ism of their mothers, but they viii
, never be able to comprehend in its
fullest extent the magnitude of the
U<Y;oI h
? ers endured. Even those of you whs
were witnesses of those sufferings
and the recipients of their sacrifices
Y could not at all times fully appreciate
: all they meant. In the dark hours o
d defeat and disaster-in the exultatiol
t / of victory-on the weary march-ol
/, the lonely vigil of the picket line
: when pinched by hunger-when shiv
ering from the bitter frosts of win
Y ter-when wasted by fevers, racket
/ by the agony of Notwithstanding Ou
all alone his death rattle-when look
r ing into the deadly muzzles of tn
U hostile guns-the Confederate soldie
e never forgot, and his arm and his sou
i were ever strengthened and animate
s | by the knowledge that in innumera
f BILE homes and affairs in his love,
$ country, were tender and brave moth
t ers, wives, sisters and daughters la
n boring, suffering, hoping and prayin
: for his safety and that his caus'
s would be crowned by success.
81 Daughters of the women of tn
t Confederacy, no nobler or more tende
= duty could descend to any, than tina
which you have inherited-to preserv
and perpetuate, not only the deeds o
iyour ancestors, but the causes an.
: convictions which animated them t,
i such heroic efforts. God speed yol