Confederate valor and devotion.
[from the Spartan, Spartansburg, S. C., February 28, 1900.]
The grandest era of American chivalry is enshrined in the heroic traditions of the
Confederate States.
The girlhood, the womanhood, the boyhood and the manhood of the people were imbued with a glowing chivalry.
Patriotism in the homes, the sanctuaries, the army, absorbed the minds of all with sublime self-forgetfulness; and now the memory of heroic actions
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and knightly deeds is written in the hearts of the sons and the daughters of the Confederacy; so that, although the States increase and the boundaries of the
Union expand to the limits of the North and South seas, and their offspring scatters over the face of continents, these deeds will be brilliant jewels in the wreck of time which will enkindle in their hearts the cherishing memory of their ancestors of the Southern Confederacy.
In 1861 an agricultural people, armed with the noblest impulses of chivalry and honor, but without the appliances to equip and maintain an army in the field, were converted into soldiers, as with magical wand, to defend their homes and firesides.
There were no looms to weave the cloth; no furnaces to mold the cannon; no plants to make the muskets; no outputs of lead for shot; no manufactories for powder in all this fair Southland, which produced the cotton for the world; and yet, from beginning to end, the most powerful nations of
Europe opened their resources of wealth, manufacture and men to conquer the
Confederate States of America.
The magnitude of the intersectional war is almost incomprehensible, and the odds in soldiers against the
Confederacy were so tremendous that we marvel how its armies held out for four years.
The total enrollment of the Confederate army and navy, including all classes, was about 600,000 men, out of a population of five millions of whites.
The calculations for the United States Sanitary Commission, in regard to nativity, gave half a million of foreigners in the
Union armies, of whom 187,858 were Germans, and 144,221 were
Irish.
There were also enlisted 80,000 negroes.
The total enrollment of the
Union armies, not including three and six months men, was 2,864,272, or 2,264,272 more men than were on the
Confederate side.
Of Union soldiers there were killed and wounded 395,245, and the total of deaths, including those from disease, was 469,298, or only 130,703 less than all soldiers ever enrolled by the
Confederacy.
Such contrasting figures are an eloquent and cogent testimonial to the courage and tenacity of the Confederate army.
The glorious record of the devoted struggle of the
Southern States for independence, may not be dimmed by the will of the conqueror, and must increasingly illume the pages of history.
With honor and fame shall the heroism of the
Confederate soldier be invested, and the justice of his cause will be a beacon in the progress of mankind throughout the cycles of time.
