Fannie A. Beers, Memories: a record of personal exeperience and adventure during four years of war.

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[315] From its blue field not a star was missing. All had been restored, and the bunting waved proudly as if instinct with knowledge of this fact. But, oh, those other flags! sacred emblems of a cause so loved, so nobly defended, yet, alas, lost shattered and torn by shot and shell, begrimed with the smoke of battle, deeply stained with precious blood; as the summer breeze dallied with their ragged folds, they seemed to stir with a feeble, mournful motion, like the slow throbbing of a breaking heart. Pictures illustrating camp-life, battle scenes, etc., ornamented the stand, which was also decorated plentifully with red and white, with a sufficient admixture of blue to make one remember to be loyal to the present. The attempt to depict camp-life, cannon, camp-fires, tents, stacked guns, sentries, etc., was utterly upset by the presence of hundreds of ladies and children, with the inevitable paraphernalia necessary to their comfort. ‘The front of grim-visaged war’ was constantly being smoothed into beauty by baby fingers. Men, lured by siren voices, deserted the tented field, and were happy, in entire forgetfulness of duty (so called). Soldiers who did not bring ladies enjoyed hugely living in tents and once more ‘messing’ together. Many eloquent speakers addressed the crowd. Pearls of eloquence were sown broadcast, and brought forth a generous harvest of applause.

The number of officers present was surprising. Generals, colonels, majors were pointed out to me by the score, and at last I began to wonder whether in the portion of the Confederate army here represented there were any ‘privates,’ at least I might have so wondered had I not known that, after many of the battles now being recalled with honest pride and merited applause, my own eyes had been too dim with tears to see the glory, my ears had failed to catch the sounds of triumph,