Shaft to historic old Portsmouth Artillery. From the Portsmouth, Va., Star, June 8th, 1906.
Beautiful Tributes to survivors as well as those who fell in battle in ranks of famous command. Unveiled by Misses Emmerson and Grimes, descendants of gallant former commanding officers.
Addresses of Captain John H. Thompson, giving history of the command, and of Colonel Wm. H. Stewart on the ‘patriotism of peace.’There was unveiled today in this city a noble shaft, bearing the record of the achievements of one of the most famous military organizations in the history of Virginia, or of the South. The beautiful monument erected to the memory of the survivors as well as those who fell in the engagements in which the old Portsmouth Artillery Company, now Grimes' Battery, participated, was with appropriate and impressive ceremonies, dedicated to this and succeeding generations of liberty-loving Virginians, this afternoon. The ceremonies took place at the site of the monument, at Washington and South Streets, at 5 o'clock, and were participated in by the survivors of the old battery, as well as the veterans of Stonewall Camp, C. V., who served in other commands during the Civil War. The Portsmouth battalion of the Seventy-first Virginia Regiment, commanded by Major Edwin W. Owens, participated in the parade, wearing the blue uniform, which the members of the battery wore in the days when they fought for the perpetuation of American independence at Craney Island, long before sectional strife caused them to change their uniforms and their flag for the same principle. The successors to the men who marched under Emmerson and under Thompson and under Grimes were there in line, too, the reincarnated command bearing the same honored name, under which
