The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1913-04-18
.DINNING TALKS OF
THE sOUTH'S BATTLES
MONDAY AFTERNOON
,contlnnsd from First Page

,CoRtinned from First Page,
srdendid army on that April mo ming
lis to be matched by the grim deter
limitation of that thin gray nne Oil an
other April day three years lster,
when the tattered remnant OF the
army of North Virginia, without food
and without equipment, prepares e
attack the concentrated federal array
on the field of Appomattox.
MY tongue would fail were / even
| to attempt to depict the uAdimmea
courage and the dauntless Aope OF
Shiloh's morning. Ana equally would
lit fad were I to attempt to trace thar
lhope that fingered still, the hope de-
tferred that made the nation sick, the
! long drawn suffering Of the sons and
daughters of the South. During that
time. the tine that tried mems souls,
the men and women Of the South
must have dreamed with Infinite
faith of that earlier revolutionary
struggle, and how aftel seven years
Iof battle, the victory was finally ours
| They must have thought of the dark
lest days of the revelation, when like
the, glorious sunlight from a iarken-
ed sky, Kings mounsain showed the
way to ultimate victory. But if they
had reasoned from the past, they
might have shuddersd 70 recall that
from the same general area that had
furnished the heroes Of. Kings moune
tain, and cnce more. carried high the
banner of freedom, there went more
lthan 10000 soldiers to swell the
franks Of the federal armies
mo, it was no fair fight between
North and South. If it had been so,
Though the South was outnumbered
| in white population more than three
| to one, the outcome, verify believe,
would have been different. True,
1.-THE South had no factories, no~com-
Imerce, none of the diversified indus
tries that prepare state for war but
! she had in her men and women the
resources that have kept states alive
Through the centuries. But within
F, our midst, from the sacred precincts
of the South itself, there went an ar
my to assist our enemies and to help
in conquering US, three times as large
las that army that stood with l2Vel-
slington on the Belgian plain ami de-
cided the fate Of modern Europe,
And more than that; when every
battle and every skirmish from Shi-
lob to Gettysburg, from Gettysburg
to the wilderness, from the wilder
ness to the Appomattox, had taken
its toll of Southern life, and the long
grey line swere growing ever thin
Iner, ever weaker, when old men from
the fireside and boys too young to
shoulder musket, heard the cry and
tried to fill the ranks, then it was
THAT Southern mothers and Southern
wives sent back the despairing an.
| swer that they had given the'f ALL
Ibut let the battle still go on.
i And had it not been that the wo
men of the South were. fitted for the
mothers and wives>of heroes, this
most colossal civil war of modern
times had never lasted through the
third year For the armies of the
federal republic were always full
From the teeming population OF the
cities, and the boundless prairies Of
the Middle West, there came one
man in four, and not a wheel CT in
|, dustry was stopped, not farm was
Ileft untitled and not ship was left
lunsailed. The highways of the ocear
Iwere left open to commerce, save fol
an occasional privateer. Wher
/ Grant left $4,000 of his choicest sol
: diers in and near the woods to the
: north OF Richmond, and the grey
!. lines were stiH intact, he too sen
/ out the cry for help, and from almos
: every nation of continental and :nsu
! lar Europe there came troops of pro
fessional soldiers to assist in runt
!, ling the wounded lioness in her lair
1T no longer became question o
generalship, no longer a question o
courage, but only a method of killing