The Old South : addresses delivered
before the Confederate Survivors' Association in Augusta, Georgia, on
the occasion of its ninth annual reunion, on Memorial Day, April 26th,
1887 / by John B. Gordon and by Charles C. Jones
Chapter 1
page [3]
Address of Col: Charles C. Jones, Jr.,
DELIVERED AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE CONFEDERATE
SURVIVORS ASSOCIATION IN HUSSAR HALL.
On Memorial Day, eight years ago, my Comrades, we celebrated the
first anniversary of this Association. Our roll then showed a membership
of two hundred and forty-three. Since that time forty-four of our number
have joined the legions who rest on the further shore. Despite this
loss, our organization at this moment is numerically stronger than it
has been at any period of our existence. I am informed by our worthy
secretary that we now claim about three hundred and sixty active
members.
Our treasury is in a healthy condition, and we have never failed to
respond promptly to any demand arising within the charitable intents of
this Association. Our section in the public cemetery is always kept in
perfect order, and the graves of our companions who there sleep attest
the thoughtful consideration of the living. The interest in the welfare
of our Association remains unabated. It should increase with the lapse
of time and become all the more pathetic, in every way stronger, as the
years roll on.
Uttering the sentiments of my own heart, I should think that every
good Confederate soldier, within convenient reach, would yearn for
active participation in this companionship, and entertain special pride
in acknowledging an intimate, personal association with this fraternity.
Potent is the bond which unites us. Most worthy are the objects for the
accomplishment of which we are organized. At best the duration of this
brotherhood is measured by the longevity of the generation which
followed the Red Cross to the tented field. The time is short, my
Comrades, and as the circle of our companionship narrows each year, let
us draw closer the one to the other, cherishing in loyal remembrance the
days that are gone, and emulating the virtues and the valor of those who
gave their lives for country and right.
page 4
Since our last annual convocation four of our companions
have responded to the final summons. Captain George W. Evans, of
Wright's Brigade, A. N. V., died on the 6th of May last. On the 10th of
the following November private Samuel A. Adams, of Company C, First
South Carolina Cavalry, bade us farewell; and in a little while we
followed to the tomb Doctor A. E. Dugas of Company A, Fifth Georgia
Infantry. Before the year was ended we saluted for the last time our
gentle comrade, Private C. S. Plank, of Company B, First Georgia
Regiment.
It has been customary, my friends, for me, as your presiding officer,
to address you at our annual meeting on Memorial Day, and to commend to
your recollection some memory, some valorous achievement connected with
our Confederate struggle for independence. To-day a higher pleasure
awaits you. Purposing a Confederate re-union larger and more marked than
our customary annual convocation, and desiring to impart special
significance to the event, we have invited the Chief Magistrate of this
Commonwealth, the Bayard of the South, General John B. Gordon, to
address us on this occasion. Kindly responding to that invitation, he
compliments us by his presence to-day. We salute him with honor and with
affection. His eloquent voice and magnetic action will awaken responsive
echoes in our expectant hearts.
To our guests who are here to participate with us in the ceremonies
and the pleasures of this re-union, we extend a cordial greeting. May
the utterances of the hour, the interchange of friendships, the renewal
of old and valorous associations, and the revivification of precious
memories bring gladness to the hearts of all.
Chapter 2
page 5
Introduction of Governor John B. Gordon,
BY COL: CHARLES C. JONES, Jr., PRESIDENT OF THE CONFEDERATE
SURVIVORS' ASSOCIATION.
Ladies, Comrades, and Fellow-Citizens:
It would be an idle ceremony for me to attempt, on this
occasion and before this audience, an introduction of the
distinguished soldier and statesman who now honors us by his
presence. His name has passed into glorious history as a brave,
chivalrous, and most capable leader of Confederate armies--as
the peer of knightliest commanders, as the friend and trusted
lieutenant of our great captain, Robert E. Lee. By the whole
country is he esteemed as a fearless advocate of constitutional
liberty, as an earnest defender of the reserved rights of the
States. Through the choice of a grateful people he has recently
been elevated to the exalted position of Chief Magistrate of
this puissant Commonwealth. With joyful acclaim will you, my
countrymen, unite with us in welcoming our guest and the orator
of this Memorial Day, his Excellency, General John B. Gordon. |
Chapter 3
page 6
Address of Governor John B. Gordon,
DELIVERED IN MARKET HALL.
Mr President, Ladies, and Brother Soldiers:
My countrymen; I thank your presiding officer for his
complimentary introduction, and you for your generous reception.
I am physically unable to do more than seek to impress upon
your minds and hearts one thought, which fills my own with
anxious apprehensions. That thought is this: There is danger
that the South may be inadequately represented, or wholly
misrepresented, in the future history of this country.
Misrepresentation threatens the conquered always--the conqueror
never. As remarked by me on another occasion, in the average
estimation of mankind, victory vindicates, while defeat dooms to
misjudgment and thoughtless condemnation. There is in this truth
a philosophy as plain and profound as the laws of human nature,
involving consequences so calamitous that every lover of his
people should unite to avert them. Should such misfortune befall
us, it requires no prophet to foretell the character and extent
of those consequences. First, there would follow a decrease of
our appreciation of this section and of its people; second, as
an inevitable consequence, a diminution of our own self respect;
next, gradual but certain retrogression and impairment of our
manhood; and, finally, the loss of those distinctive
characteristics which are the traditional, recognized, and chief
sources of this people's greatness. No more important service
could be rendered this country--not only the South but the whole
country--than to clearly comprehend these dangers, and to erect
firm and immovable barriers, mountain high, against these
possible consequences.
Let us do our part in their erection here this morning. Let
us strengthen the foundations of our future manhood and
character by enhancing the self respect of southern youth. Let
us ground that self respect on the facts, not on the fictions of
our history. In order to contribute to this essentially
patriotic end, I call your attention
page 7
briefly to some of the many reasons which should forever secure
for the South a measure of full justice, if not of commanding
precedence, in American history.
In discussing this subject I shall indulge in no criticisms
of other sections. If I know the spirit of this people, or my
own, we love our country--our whole country--because it is our
country. We would strengthen and not weaken the bonds of cordial
respect and fraternity that bind it together in a perpetual
union of free and equal States. I shall utter no highly wrought
eulogiums, nor even indulge in commendations of the South other
than those which are pronounced by the historic records of the
past. I shall not ignore the fact that this was a slave-holding
section, and that it was the last home of slavery on the North
American continent. But in the interest of truth, in the
interest of southern youth, in the interest of the whole
republic, which must live, if it lives at all, in the
affections, the devotion and sterling manhood of all its
sons--in the interest of all these I shall insist that, however
great were the evils (and they were many) of negro slavery, it
was far, very far, from being an unmitigated evil. Lamented by
philanthropists, denounced by politicians, exaggerated by the
uninformed, these evils have been discussed and the arguments
against that institution poured into the public ear through
books, in magazines, from platforms and pulpits, until the truth
has been obscured, the very elect deceived, and the faith of our
children in the justice and humanity of their fathers seriously
threatened. For over fifty years the record of these evils, and
these adverse arguments have been conspicuously placed upon one
side of the balance sheet. It is a remarkable fact that the
beneficent results from that institution have rarely, if ever,
been fully and fairly presented upon the other. With every page
of American history brimful of these beneficent results, we have
been too tardy in emphasizing them to our children and to those
who have ignorantly assailed us. Of course, in the brief remarks
I shall be able to make this morning, I can only present a few
of those beneficial results, and with the hope that such
imperfect presentation may induce others to undertake the
patriotic task.
In the first place it will be admitted perhaps--but whether
admitted or not, it is true--that no age or country has ever
produced a civilization of a nobler type than that which was
born in the southern plantation home, and which drew its
nutriment and inspiration from the rural life of the southern
people. It was a civilization where personal courage, personal
independence, personal dignity, personal honor, and the manliest
virtues were nurtured; where feminine refinement, feminine
purity, feminine culture, delicacy, and
page 8
gentleness expressed themselves in models of rarest loveliness
and perfection: and where, in the language of a great Georgian,
"hospitality was as free and boundless as the vitalizing air
around us."
In the next place it will perhaps be admitted by all, that
the agricultural developement in certain sections of the South
was almost wholly dependent upon this southern institution.
Debarred by climatic influences, the white man, as a laborer,
would not in centuries have subdued and brought into tillage the
rich alluviums of our semitropical
region. Let it, therefore, be placed to the credit of that
institution that through its agency this section has, in the
comparatively brief national period of one century, wrought a
mighty change in the world's products, achieved an immense
increase in the world's commerce, and a vast augmentation of the
world's wealth and comforts.
But there is to be placed on that balance sheet a still
greater credit. This institution was the instrumentality,
selected by Providence, for the civilization and religious
training of four millions of the African race. Who will have the
temerity to deny that the native African was vastly benefited by
his transfer to America and by his southern service? What friend
of human progress would have deprived him in his original
helplessness of the patriarchal care and kind government of the
southern master, and of the holy teachings of southern Christian
women upon the southern plantations, and have remanded him to
native barbaric rule? Who will deny that his southern home was
the school house in which he was instructed in the methods of
civilized life, fitted in God's own time for freedom, and taught
to aspire to usefulness, holiness, and heaven? Who will now set
limits to the blessings yet in store for Africa through the
elevation by southern tutelage of its Americanized children.
Such were a few of its notable and praiseworthy
characteristics; but it is gone. Gone forever is that old
plantation life of the South--gone with its perennial
hospitality; its kindly relations of master and servant; its
mutual dependence and mutual benefits; its cheerful service and
freedom from care, on the one hand; and its guardianship,
protection and forethought on the other; its well clad, well
fed, contented Christian laborers; its quaint and merry cabin
homes, and thrilling melodies, wild and weird to the stranger,
but sweet, solemn and sacred to our memories still. Gone, too,
forever we fear, as its marvellously interesting product--our
peculiar and characteristic civilization; but that civilization
has left its ineffaceable impression on the character of the
people, and has infused its beneficent conservation into the
life of the republic.
page 9
That southern institution, I repeat, is gone and gone
forever; and no people of any section of this union would
exhibit more relentless resistance to its reinstatement than
would the people of these southern States. But it is a crime
against the manhood of this people, and therefore against the
country, to insist upon its evils and deny its benefits. The God
of humanity, who permitted its establishment, sustained and
guided it for a century for great purposes, has also permitted
it to pass away at last and for the betterment, as we trust, of
both races; but those of us who have survived it may not without
criminal indifference permit prejudiced
representations to become the acknowledged history of that
institution in which our characters were formed. Let every fact
and every phase of it be presented, and in answer to the
misjudgments of the misinformed, let us point to these
undeniable results and to the additional, conspicuous, and
crowning fact of the general and affectionate loyalty exhibited
towards the southern whites by the colored race throughout the
war; to the absence of all bitterness and resentments at its
close; and to the present prevailing harmony between landlord
and laborer which defies all efforts at its disturbance,
and is an inspiring prophecy of the future progress, power,
prosperity and happiness of both races and of this entire
section.
I turn next to the part borne by the South in founding,
perfecting, and sustaining free government in America. Such
references now cannot be untimely, because it was for this
section that our dead brothers enlisted, fought, and fell. It is
due to their memories, to ourselves, and to our children, that
we group together and duly emphasize the remarkable
contributions made by this section to the inauguration and
support of republicanism in America. The bare facts, though
familiar to all, if fairly presented and without embellishment,
cannot fail to excite the admiration of mankind, and to
re-awaken our pride in the great achievements of this section.
We shall thus strengthen our own self-respect, erect another
barrier against the decay of Southern manhood, and increase our
loyalty and devotion to our whole country.
Let us trace the South's career step by step, through every
stage of American progress. What was the first official and
conspicuous act leading to independence? It was the action of
North Carolina, a southern colony, weak in
resources, declaring herself a free and independent
more than a year in advance of the general declaration, and
her State government. This southern colony thus
the flag-bearer of the colonies, and her movement the great
land-mark in the early progress of our revolution.
page 10
What next? Then came doubt and apprehension; agitation and
indecision among all the colonists. Who was it that then came to
the rescue? Who was it that wrote the pungent resolutions
embodying American menace, and, with impassioned eloquence, sent
them like electric currents through all the colonies? It was an
unheralded and untrained member of the House of Burgesses in the
colony of Virginia.
What next? Then came additional British laws bringing
increased British burdens, and independence is everywhere
demanded. Who then wrote for the American people their united
and defiant declaration? It was a patriotic and gifted young
southerner.
Note the next step. Rebellion became a necessity. Separation
was decreed and war ensued. It was still a southerner who led
the raw troops of the colonies against the trained armies of
Great Britain.
But the South's leadership did not end with the cessation of
hostilities. When independence was achieved and the momentous
problem of free and stable government was to be solved, it was
again a southerner whose marked ascendency achieved for him the
proud distinction of "Father of the Constitution."
When the gigantic power of Great Britain was to be met in a
second great conflict, again it was a southern commander who led
the undisciplined soldiery of this newly established republic to
another great victory.
When Mexico was to be met and our boundaries were to be
extended, it was a Virginian and a Louisianian, both
southerners, who led the American hosts through burning sands to
repeated, swift, and complete successes.
Let me now briefly present the South's record in furnishing
chief magistrates to the nation. For more than twenty-five years
the results of our unhappy war have practically debarred the
South from the Presidency, but there was a period of seventy-two
years antedating that era of passion and of blood. How stands
the record of Presidential services for those seventy-two years?
The South furnished Presidents for forty-nine years and three
months; the other sections for twenty-two years and nine months.
Prior to 1860 every President, without an exception, whose
administration was indorsed by a second election, was furnished
by these Southern States. During the entire life of the Republic
but ten Presidents have been re-elected by the people. Of these
ten the South furnished eight; the other sections two, and one
of these two was of southern birth, blood, and lineage.
page 11
But perhaps impartial history will contain no record of this
section more cherished by its people than the acknowledged
integrity of its public servants and the incorruptible and
religious life of its citizens. It is perhaps sufficient to say
for our public men that their record of incorruptibility has
never been surpassed, if ever equalled, in the governmental
experience of mankind. The irrefutable proof is found in the
fact that from George Washington down through all our national
life, with temptations ever present and opportunities abundant,
no southern representative has ever grown rich in office. This
is indeed high praise; but I think it just praise of our public
men.
To the private citizen of the South the same general
characteristics may be truthfully ascribed. It is admitted that
the character of a people is not always reflected in the
official lives of their representatives. It is unfortunate for
the whole country that in some sections of the union neither
their ablest nor their purest men have, as a rule, sought public
station; but both the science and the practical administration
of government have always been regarded as most inviting fields
for southern intellect. The private citizen of the South is a
politician in the highest sense of that term. Hence our public
men have perhaps been more truly representatives of the people.
It is certain that at all periods of our history, our private
citizens have exacted of their public servants unsullied records
and purity of public life. But whether in public or private
station, the personal honor of a man was his proudest title to
distinction.
If comparisons were not odious, I might be permitted to
adduce in this connection an argument drawn from the United
States census for 1860. The statistics of churches, of
pauperism, and of crime are eloquent witnesses of the high moral
and religious status of this people. The exhibit which might be
presented from these official records, which are the highest
evidence on such questions known to this government and
established by its laws, would not only be a source of
unqualified gratification to our people, but of just pride to
their descendants forever. This unimpeached and unimpeachable
evidence will, when fairly presented, lift this section under
former conditions, to a plane of moral excellence unsurpassed,
if not unrivaled, in any age.
Nor would the official record of the period during and since
the war proclaim this section any less God fearing or law
abiding. Indeed, the civil war with all its passions and reputed
demoralization tended, it would seem, rather to elevate and
purify this people. When, in its earlier stages, the sullen
tramp of approaching legions
page 12
and the roar of their mighty guns were heard around her borders,
and when at a later period her territory was filled with hostile
armies, then in all her churches and around her family altars,
ignoble passions gave place to humble petitions to the Deity for
His guidance and protection. Even in the camps and tents of her
soldiers, prayers and praises habitually rose like holy incense,
lifting them above the fear of danger and death, and fitting
their devoted spirits to ascend in the battle's flame to heaven.
And after the war, with her substance wasted, her hopes
blasted' and her soil still wet with the blood of her sons, even
then, turning her grief-furrowed face to the God whom she had
served, and without a murmur upon her lips, she cried in mingled
agony of faith struggling with despair: "Though He slay me, yet
will I trust in him."
A few more words and I close. The new and robust life upon
which, through the ashes and ravages of war, the South has
already entered, inspires our hearts with the most buoyant hopes
of the future. Knee deep in these ruins, she has waded through
them for a decade' and erect in her conscious power, she
challenged the confidence and invited the co-operation and
capital of other sections; and she furnishes to-day a field for
richer returns--more certain profits than any portion of our
country. Her doors are thrown wide open and her heart's welcome
is given to all who may find homes in her hospitable climate.
Her future wealth seems assured. In another decade the roar of
her great forges, the thunder of her water powers, driving her
millions of spindles, will prove the century's marvel of
industrial progress. But while we press to their utmost the
practicable development of our admitted agricultural advantages
and give encouragement to the spirit of enterprise manifested on
every hand, we must permit no decrease of interest in the
political welfare of the whole country. Wedded inseparably to
the constitutional rights of the States, let us cultivate, by
all legitimate means, a broad nationality embracing the whole
union of States. Here hangs above us the flag of that union. Let
us honor it as the emblem of freedom, of equality, and
unity--remembering that there is not a star on its blue field
which is not made brighter by light reflected from southern
skies--not a white line in its folds but what is made whiter and
purer by the South's incorruptible record--not one of its
crimson stripes that is not deeper and richer from southern
blood shed in its defense in all of the wars with foreign
powers.
It is unnecessary, I feel assured, to admonish you in this
connection, that the most punctilious
discharge of all these obligations to our country involves no
infidelity to our past or to its teachings and
page 13
sacred associations. We cannot, without self-stultification and
abasement, forget the men who fell in our defense in the late
sectional conflict. To fail to cherish their memories in our
heart of hearts to the latest generation, would be to trample
self-respect, manhood, and honor under our feet.
Nor can we lose one of those peculiar characteristics of our
former civilization without lowering the high order of southern
character and manhood. The great problem of our future is not
how to secure material prosperity. That seems already assured;
but no amount of rich success, however general and brilliant,
could compensate for the loss of our hitherto high standard of
private and public integrity. Nor is our political status,
however vital to our future, the question to us of deepest
significance. No; but the great problem is how to hold to the
characteristics of our old civilization, when that civilization
itself is gone; how to send the current which so enriched and
purified the old, coursing forever through the new life before
us; how to relight the old fires upon the new altars. The more
we shall be enabled to incorporate into the south's new life the
chief characteristics developed by the old, the better, the
higher, and the purer will that new life become.
But patriotism itself demands that we shall cherish these
associations with our past; and the reason of this demand is,
that a self-respecting patriot is a braver, truer, grander man
than one who has lost his self-respect. If the education of the
youth of the country, North and South, were guided by some such
patriotic purpose, it would be well for the future of this
Republic.
It was my melancholy pleasure to take part in the funeral
honors paid to the North's greatest hero, General U. S. Grant.
Every soldier and citizen who took part in that greatest pageant
of modern times; every child who, with loving hands, placed
flowers upon his bier; and every stone that shall hereafter be
placed in the monument to his memory, will but add to northern
manhood and northern character. So on the other hand the almost
equally great demonstration in the South one year ago, over the
living president of the dead Confederacy, was potential in the
formation of southern character. Every bonfire that blazed on
the streets of Montgomery; every cannon shot that shook its
hills; every rocket that flew on fiery wing through the midnight
air; every teardrop that stole down the cheeks of patriotic
southern women, was a contribution to the self-respect, the
character, and the manhood of southern youth.
If, therefore, an injunction could be laid upon this people
which could not be disregarded, that injunction should be to
cultivate the
page 14
self-respect by stimulating the pride of southern youth in the
past of this people. Let the proverbial respect of woman never
grow less in this section, but let her purity and exalted
character command now and always your chivalrous courtesy and
manly deference. Let personal probity, intellectual ability, and
unselfish devotion to the public weal, be the sole passports to
your confidence and the price of your support to public office.
Finally, let the great body of our citizens, private and
official, let your teachers and your preachers, and above all
your public press, unite to create and support a public opinion
which shall be enlightened and inexorable, and whose resistless
fiat shall forever bar the doors of this section against all
commercial methods in politics, and shall make impossible among
this people the triumph of mere wealth over personal,
intellectual, and moral worth. |
Chapter 4
page 15
Address of Col: Charles C. Jones, Jr., LL. D.,
DELIVERED AT THE SOLDIERS' SECTION IN THE CITY CEMETERY
Meet it is, my countrymen, that we conclude the ceremonies of
this Memorial day within the confines of this city of the dead.
Right and proper is it that here, where sleep the brave, we
should pay heartful tribute to the memory of the departed, and
enkindle afresh the recollections of their patriotic impulses,
noble aspirations, and valorous achievements. Most appropriate
is it that we should unite in proclaiming our profound sympathy
with, and our admiration of, that holy sentiment which prompts
these generous women, each year, to decorate with flowers and
hallow anew with their loves these Confederate graves. Heaven
bless our mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, and richly award
them for all their saintly ministrations. In the darkest hours
of the protracted Confederate struggle for independence, how
sublime their influence and example! The presence of their
sympathy and of their aid, the potency of their prayers and of
their sacrifices, the voice of their
patriotism and of their devotion, and the eloquence of
their tears and of their smiles, were priceless in the
inspiration they brought, and proved more effective than an army
with banners.
And when the war was over, in tender appreciation of the
brave deeds wrought in the name of truth and freedom, in proud
memory of the slain, they dignified this land with soldiers'
monuments, gathered the sacred dust, cared for unmarked graves,
and canonized those who suffered martyrdom during that eventful
epoch. Than the record of the patriotism, the sufferings, and
the generous acts of the women of the South, there is none
brighter, purer, or loftier, in the annals of the civilized
world."
Who falls to save his country never dies,
But leaves behind him an immortal name.
So spake the heroic Tyrtæus nearly twenty-five hundred years
page 16
agone. The strains of that warrior-poet are as true and as full
of inspiration now as when his war songs incited the Spartan
youth to a manly defense of cause and country, or rallied the
Lacedemonians a third time to the charge and made them conquer
in despite of fate.
Although ephemeral head boards, indicating the places where
sleep the brave in arms, may speedily yield to the
disintegrating influences of the changing seasons--though the
inscriptionless mounds which cover the accumulated dead of the
battle field may lose their outlines--although the proudest
monuments of marble and of bronze may crumble into nothingness,
the noble spirit which once animated dead heroes is immortal.
The soul of patriotism which led them to give to their country
their loves and their lives will triumph over the oblivion of
the tomb and forever remain superstes corpori caduco.
Outside the temples of the living God there is no holier spot
than the grave of the genuine patriot. Than blood shed in
defense of home and country, there can be no holier libation.
There are no crowns so enduring as those won by self-sacrifice.
There are no brighter jewels in the diadem of nations than the
names of sons who suffered martyrdom in the maintenance of truth
and freedom. Honor abides where are found worthy monuments and
patriot graves. A country lacking these is a territory without
reputation and devoid of moral grandeur. Here and now gladly do
we unite in that prayer of the Poet Priest of the South, who but
yesterday exchanged his Confederate lays for the Songs of Zion:"
Give me the land that hath legend and lays
Enshrining the memories of long vanished days;
Yes, give me a land that hath story and song
To tell of the strife of the right with the wrong;
Yes, give me the land with a grave in each spot,
And names in the graves that shall not be forgot.
Our companions who are here entombed were loyal
representatives of that Old South whose characteristics we
admire, whose traditions we cherish, whose manly virtues we
emulate. They were born of that patriarchal civilization which
guarded personal honor as the jewel of the soul--which shrunk
not from acknowledging individual responsibility--which did not,
without just cause, remove the land-marks of the fathers--which
held commercial integrity, plighted faith, and the spoken word
in sacred repute--which hesitated not to render tribute where
tribute was due--which tendered to woman homage almost
divine--and which exhibited on all occasions a wonderful
fidelity to country, to conscience, and to trust reposed.
page 17
We are saluted on every hand with eulogiums upon the New
South, and with laudations of a new order of affairs. Far be it
from me to undervalue or to gainsay this tide of prosperity, if
such tide there be. Gladly would I behold this fair land
blossoming as a garden of roses. Fain would I see each planter
joyous and content beneath his own vine and fig tree. Fain would
I have this native air vocal with the sounds of thrift and
industry. Fain would I see prosperous railways dispersing the
rich tributes of countless fields, the remunerative products of
numberless manufactories. Fain would I see the bolts and bars
withdrawn from the vaults of our rock-ribbed hills, and the
treasures which they contain utilized for the general benefit.
Fain would I see our rivers and harbors peopled with the sails
of commerce. Gladly would I welcome every indication of genuine
progress and substantial development. But, in the midst of such
material growth, I would covet a remembrance and an observance
of the patriotism, the purity, the manhood, the moderation, and
the honesty of the days that are gone. I would still have this
beloved South a peculiar people--peculiar in its conceptions and
manifestations of propriety, of conservatism, of integrity, of
hospitality, of honor towards God and man, of devotion to
exalted womanhood. Heaven grant that this New South remain
purged of all modern commercial methods. Heaven grant that it
prove not the theatre of alien and demoralizing speculation--an
arena wherein aggregated wealth may display its brazen power to
the impairment of long-established values and the consummation
of soulless, gainful consolidations.
Exalted in patriotism, brave in arms, wise in statesmanship,
conservative in action, was that Old South which gave to the
ages, as pledges of her principles and of her greatness, such
men as Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison, and Henry, and
Marshall, and Calhoun, and Jackson, and Lee. Alack the day when
we fail to revere their memories, and to emulate the virtues
inculcated by their lives and their acts. It was in defense of
home and principles dear to the hearts of these worthies that
our fallen companions offered up their lives. In their names, my
friends, and in the presence of their voiceful graves, do I
exhort you, and those who have sprung and will descend from our
loins, to a wholesome recognition and a becoming exhibition of
the virtues which elevated their walk and conversation, and
invested the true southern character with the admirable elements
of courtesy, hospitality, integrity, fair-mindedness,
patriotism, and courage. Circumstances change, but the
essentials of truth, justice, and manliness, are immutable. Upon
the conservation of these distinguishing
page 18
traits of the Old South largely depend the honor of the present,
and the hope of achieving for this land an enviable reputation
in the sequent age.
Long live this worthy custom of repairing hither, on each
Memorial day, to decorate these graves and render tribute to the
virtues of our Confederate dead. Long live the holy memories
which are here enshrined. Long live the sentiments and the
aspirations which were typified in the lives and acts of this
sleeping host. Long live the conceptions of truth, honor,
patriotism, and exalted manhood which dignified the Old South
and vitalized the hearts of our Confederate heroes.
And when the end comes, as come it must, for
The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit shall dissolve,
And, like the insubtantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind;"
"When the long years have rolled slowly away,
E'en to the dawn of earth's funeral day;
When, at the Archangel's trumpet and tread,
Rise up the faces and forms of the dead;
When the great world its last judgment awaits,
When the blue sky shall swing open her gates
And our long columns march silently through
Past the Great Captain for final review,
Then from the blood that has flowed for the right
Crowns shall spring upward, untarnished and bright;
Then the glad ears of each war-martyred son
Proudly shall hear the good tidings--'well done.'
Blessings for garlands shall cover them over,
Parent and husband and brother and lover;
God shall reward these dead heroes of ours,
And cover them over with beautiful flowers.
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page 19
Notes.
I
The following report of the committee appointed to suggest
plans for a re-union was read and unanimously adopted:
Headquarters Confederate Survivors' Association.
March 17th, 1887.
To the Officers and Members of the
Confederate Survivors' Association:
Comrades--
Your committee raised at the last meeting of this
Association, and charged with the duty of formulating and
suggesting a program for the celebration of our next anniversary
on Memorial Day, the 26th of April proximo, beg leave to suggest
and report as follows:
1. That some distinguished Confederate be invited to address
us on that occasion; that the oration be delivered at Market
Hall, in the city of Augusta, at 12 m.; and that the public be
invited to attend.
2. That a collation be served, under cover, in the large hall
of the Scheutzenplatz, at 3:30 o'clock p. m.
3. That the regular annual meeting of the Association be held
in our hall at 10 o'clock a. m., and that the hall remain open
all day as the headquarters of the Association, and for the
accommodation of our members and invited guests.
4. That the following committees be raised and charged with
the execution of the necessary details:
" Committee on Finance--S. P. Weisiger, Capt. W. B. Young, W.
J. Steed, J. P. Verdery, Maj. T. D. Caswell, S. M. Whitney,
Capt. W. H. Warren, L. A. R. Reab, W. A. Latimer, Capt. B. H.
Smith, Jr., Maj. T. P. Branch, W. N. Mercier, T. F. Fleming, D.
B. Gillison, Capt. Jiles M. Berry, Maj. A. J. Smith.
Reception Committee--Gen. M. A. Stovall, Gen. C. A. Evans,
Col. C. H. Phinizy, Gen. Geo. W. Rains, Maj. Ker Boyce, Capt. F.
E. Eve, Col. H. D. D. Twiggs, Maj. Paul
page 20
H. Langdon, Dr. DeSaussure Ford, Right Rev. E. G. Weed, Col. E.
R. Dorsey, Maj. R. J. Wilson, Capt. M. P. Carroll, W. E. McCoy,
Rev. L. Burrows, Chas. A. Harper, Rev. S. J. Pinkerton.
Committee on Invitation and Program--Capt. John W. Clark, F.
M. Stovall, G. H. Winkler. T. M. Goldsby, Jas. L. Robertson.
Committee on Halls--Capt. Wallace I. Delph, Wm. Mulherin, Wm.
L. Platt, W. M. Dunbar, Capt. C. A. Robbe.
Committee on Badges--J. L. Fleming, Capt. C. E. Coffin, G. W.
Simmone.
Committee on Collation--Col. W. Daniel, C. A. Doolittle, J.
A. Loflin, Capt. F. G. Ford, Maj. W. H. Crane, Capt. L. C.
Nowell, J. M. Weigle, T. E. Lovell, George W. Crane.
Committee on Music--E. J. O'Connor, J. L. Maxwell, Capt. W.
C. Wardlaw.
Committee on Transportation--Capt. T. J. Bostic, Lieut. N. K.
Butler, Jr., Berry Benson, B. F. Lowe, Col. E. R. Dorsey, M.
Lettice.
Committee on Salutes--Lieut. John Doscher, Capt. E. E.
Pritchard, J. A. Price, Lieut. Richard Summerall.
Committee on Toasts--Hon. George T. Barnes, Col. Joseph B.
Cumming, Hon. J. C. C. Black.
Committee on Selecting an Orator--Gen. M. A. Stovall, Hon. J.
C. C. Black, and the Chairman."
5. That the President of this association be ex-officio
Chairman of the several committees.
Respectfully submitted,
S. P. WEISIGER, Secretary.
Part 2
page 21
II.
Program For The Confederate Re-union On
Memorial Day.
1. Upon his arrival in Augusta his Excellency, General John
B. Gordon, will be welcomed by a salute of seventeen guns, fired
by a detachment from the Confederate Survivors' Association.
2. At nine o'clock a. m., the Committee on Badges will be
present at the headquarters of the Confederate Survivors'
Association, in Hussar Hall, No. 846 Broad Street, to issue to
the members of the Association and to their invited guests,
badges prepared for the occasion.
3. At ten o'clock a. m., will he held in Hussar Hall the
annual meeting of the Confederate Survivors' Association.
4. Upon the adjournment of that meeting an informal lunch
will be served to the members and guests in attendance. His
Excellency, Governor Gordon, will be present and will hold a
reception.
5. At a quarter past eleven o'clock the column will be formed
on Broad Street, in front of Hussar Hall, the right resting on
Campbell Street, under the direction of Capt. John W. Clark, who
is announced as the marshal of the day. In the formation of this
column the members of the Confederate Survivors' Association,
their guests, all ex-Confederate soldiers, the ladies of the
Memorial Association, the military and civic companies of the
city, the municipal authorities, and the citizens generally are
invited to participate.
6. At a quarter before twelve o'clock the column will be put
in motion for the lower Market Hall. It will, in passing, salute
the Confederate Monument on Broad Street.
7. An oration will be delivered at 12 m., in Market Hall, by
his Excellency, General John B. Gordon, the distinguished guest
of the occasion and the orator of the day. Seats will be
reserved for the ladies of the Memorial Association, and for the
members of the Confederate Survivors' Association and their
guests. The public is invited to be present.
page 22
8. Upon the conclusion of Governor Gordon's oration, and
while the column is reforming, a national salute of thirty-eight
guns will be fired by a detachment of artillerists from the
Confederate Survivors' Association.
9. When re-formed, the column will march to the City
Cemetery, and there take post around the soldiers' section. A
dirge will be played, a prayer will be offered, and, at the
request of the ladies of the Memorial Association, a short
address will be delivered by Col. Charles C. Jones, Jr.,
President of the Confederate Survivors' Association.
10. Upon the conclusion of the ceremonies in the City
Cemetery, the parade will be dismissed. The members of the
Confederate Survivors' Association and their guests will then be
transported in cars, specially massed for that purpose, under
the direction of the Committee on Transportation, to the
Schuetzenplatz, where the afternoon will be spent.
11. Upon his arrival at the Platz, Governor Gordon will be
received with a salute of seventeen guns.
12. The Richmond Hussars, having kindly consented to act in
that capacity, are announced as special escort to the Governor.
13. A collation will be served at the Platz, at which the
members of the Confederate Survivors' Association and their
invited guests will be present. Both members of the Association
and their invited guests are expected to exhibit badges in order
to entitle them to admission within the grounds of the
Scheutzenplatz.
14. Until the column moves in the morning, Hussar Hall, on
Broad Street, will constitute the headquarters of the members of
the Confederate Survivors' Association and their invited guests.
15. The decoration of the soldiers graves, and the
preliminary arrangements within the limits of the City Cemetery,
have been kindly undertaken by the noble women of the Ladies'
Memorial Association.
16. It is the earnest request of the Ladies' Memorial
Association and of the Confederate Survivors' Association that
the citizens of Augusta will close their places of business by
10 o'clock in the forenoon, at least for a few hours, so that
all may participate in the ceremonies of the day.
Part 3
page 23
III.
Officers of The Confederate Survivors' Association.
- President--Colonel C. C. Jones, Jr., LL. D.
- First Vice-President--Captain F. E. Eve.
- Second Vice-President--General M. A. Stovall.
- Third Vice-President--Hon. J. C. C. Black.
- Secretary--F. M. Stovall.
- Treasurer--Captain C. E. Coffin.
- Chaplain--Rt. Rev. E. G. Weed, S. T. D.
- Doorkeeper--Captain L. A. Picquet.
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