The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1922-05-25
Ehrhardt Memorial
Address
By w. D. Bennett.

The war could not have been avoid
ed, for the issue of slavery was des-
tined to disrupt the union and could
not have been settled in any other
way than by the arbitrament of the
sword unless perhaps the statesmen
of both north and south had foreseen
the conflict 35 or 40 years before and
had shaped events so as to have FORE
stalled it. The north was much to
blame for it's precipitation, for they
used slave labor as long as it was
profitable and sold their slaves to the
south and then began the agitation to
free them. That they should have
been freed, nobody with brains will
now deny, but had it not been for
the fanaticism of the abolitionlsts at
the north of the Charles Summer
and Thad Stevens type and the hot
headed secessionists of our own Sec
ton, a settlement might have been
made upon basis that would have
been fair to our slave holders and
satisfactory to all interests concerned.
This whole bloody tragedy was the
lack of understanding, partly the
fault of slow transportation; we
had few railroads, which retarded
communication and the intermingling
of the people of these two great sec>
tions of our country. Then, too, God
is all-wise and Furnishes sin-the
curse and sin of slavery must be and
was atoned for by the shedding OF
rivers of blood, and yet more rivers
of tears and having passed through
the fiery ordeal we have emerged
far greater and more glorious peo-
Die than ever before.
The flower of southern manhood
shed their blood upon the hills OF
Virginia and the plains Of the west,
and for what? 1t was patriotism,
love of home and country, for Yam
kee soldiers had set their invading
feet upon southern soil and had kill
ed southern men and ravished SOU
thern women, and we fought to ex-
pei their vandal hordes. Never in
history has greater luster been shed
upon any cause than we see in the
deeds and valor of our soldiers and
the great genius of Lee and Jackson
and Johnston. We turn the pages of
history but find the equal of these
matchless men nowhere recorded,
save possibly in the life of the little
Corsican, Napoleon Bonaparte, the
fomenter and central figure of the
French revolution. In my opinion he
was the greatest military genius the
world has ever known. Lee and
Jackson were in his class. These
great and good men, skilled in the
art of war, backed up by the best SOL
diers that ever answered country's
call, lost and why? For the same rea-:
son that Napoleon lost the battle OF
Waterloo to Wellington, Lee lost the
battle of Gettysburg to Meade, man
of mediocre talent, Divine ordina-
ton.
In all history there is nothing so
grand as the charge of that immortal
and glorious division of Pickett's men
at Gettysburg, but those brave men
were moved down by Meade's cannon
like wheat under the blade of the
scythe.
All this lends glory to the cause
and will be an inspiration to the
present and to all future generations.
For the deeds of bravery and daring
the southern soldier stands without
a peer-and is entitled to all the
veneration, homage, and respect that
we can pay to his memory by eulogy
and by heaping flowers on his grave
by loving and tender hands. He de-
serves and has the plaudits of a CRATE
full country for whom he showed such
a full measure of devotion; he may
have been misguided, but more dar-
ing and courageous soldier the world
has never seen; he did the full meas
ure of his duty as he saw it and has