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[The following address was delivered at ‘the Citadel,’
Charleston, S. C., on the occasion of the unveiling of the
Mural Tablet erected to the memory of
Captain Francis Huger Harleston, and both as a tribute from a gallant soldier to one of
Sumter's heroic defenders, and as the delineation of the character of a fair specimen of ‘the men who wore the gray,’ it is worthy of preservation.]
In April, 1860, seven young gentlemen graduated from this academy:
Francis Huger Harleston,
A. J. Norris,
A. S. Gaillard,
William E. Stoney,
S. S. Kirby and Frank deCaradeuc.
With high hopes and happy hearts they formed their class on commencement day for the last time, and taking their place in rear of the escort of their fellow-cadets, marched out of the archway, to the
Hibernian Hall.
A brilliant audience, in fullest sympathy with the occasion, greeted the procession.
As I recall the scene to-day, though twenty-four years have passed, it seems as but yesterday!
When life is crowded with duties and cares, time is not recorded in its rapid flight, and the years come and go without our notice.
And
what years we have known since that commencement-day!
Who of us who heard
Harleston's valedictory dreamed of the future that was immediately before those young men?
Who of us imagined that within four years
five of the
seven were to seal their devotion to Carolina with their heart's blood, dying as true heroes die, at the post of their duty?
DeCaradeuc, in
Virginia;
Erwin, on
Sullivan's Island;
Kirby, at Rivers' Bridge, on the Saltkehatchie;
Gaillard, mortally wounded at
Bentonville;
Frank Harleston, at
Fort Sumter!
And if
Stoney and
Norris are not with their classmates to-day, in the silent bivouac of the gallant dead, it is not because they did not freely offer their lives to their country.
Graduating in April, 1860, but a few months elapsed before
South Carolina called her sons to arms.
Harleston's class promptly answered the summons.
The cadets were sent to
Morris' Island, and charged with the duty
