The Address.
Ten times since our last annual convocation has Death's pale flag been advanced within the lists of our Association, and as often has some member responded to the inexorable summons of the ‘fell sergeant’ who bore it.
Henry Cranston, major and commissary of subsistence, died on, the 6th of last May.
On the 18th of the following August,
D. B. Gillison, private in the Third company of
Goodwin's brigade,
South Carolina State troops, was borne to our Confederate section in the city cemetery.
There, nine days afterwards, we laid our battle-scarred companion,
A. M. White, private in Company G, Tenth regiment Georgia infantry,
Bryan's brigade,
McLaw's division,
Longstreet's
[
93]
corps, Army of Northern Virginia; and, within the sequent week, like sepulture was accorded to
Earle L. Jennings, private in Company H, Third regiment Georgia infantry,
Sorrel's brigade,
Anderson's division,
A. P. Hill's corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
On the 26th of October, with a generous sympathy and a sincere respect for which he who addresses you will ever remain profoundly grateful, you followed to the tomb her
1 whom you have complimented with honorary membership and with a special badge—who, loyal to every Confederate memory, cherished for this association an affection and an admiration which knew no abatement when her pure spirit was recalled by the
Divine Master who gave it.
After a lingering illness, endured with singular fortitude, our
comrade James A. Loflin, private in Company G, Fifteenth regiment Georgia infantry,
Toomb's brigade,
Hood's division,
Longstreet's corps, Army of Northern Virginia, who, for many years bore with composure the burthen of a severe wound encountered in the rage of battle, entered into rest.
On the 30th of December,
W. B. Kuhlke, First corporal of Company D, Twelfth battalion
Georgia infantry, genial, and proud of his honorable scars received in the memorable engagement at
Shiloh, was complimented with our final tokens of respect.
Lieutenant-Colonel William Peter Crawford, of the Twenty-eighth regiment Georgia infantry,
Colquitt's brigade,
Hoke's division, Army of Northern Virginia, died on the 13th of last January; and, on the following day, we were advised of the demise of our fellow member, Willinton Kushman, private in Company F, Sixth regiment South Carolina infantry,
Jenkins' brigade,
Kershaw's division,
Longstreet's corps, Army of Northern Virginia.
On the 20th of March the earthly ties which bound us to our friend and
comrade Ker Boyce—major and quartermaster of
Evans' brigade,
Gordon's division,
Early's corps, Army of
Northen Virginia—were sundered.
Within the past twelve-month the following prominent Confederates:
Brigadier-General R. Lindsay Walker, of the Army of Northern Virginia;
Brigadier-General M. L. Bonham,
ex governor of
South Carolina; the
Honorable Beverly Tucker, of
Virginia, erstwhile in the diplomatic service of the
Confederacy; the
Honorable Elias Boudinot, a Cherokee chief, lawyer, linguist, musician, politician, and delegate to the Confederate Congress;
Major-General
[
94]
Cadmus M. Wilcox;
Brigadier-General E. A. O'Neal,
ex-Governor of
Alabama; the
Honorable James M. Smith, member of Confederate Congress and afterwards governor of
Georgia;
Brigadier-General B. D. Fry, at one time commanding in this city;
Brigadier-General R. J. Henderson, of
Georgia;
Brigadier-General Thomas F. Drayton, of
South Carolina;
Joseph Eggleston Johnston, the hero of four wars, a most noted leader of Confederate armies, honored at home and abroad, and,
general Beauregard excepted, sole survivor of those who were entrusted with the rank of General in the military service of the
Confederacy; the
Honorable Augustus R. Wright, of
Georgia, legislator, jurist, and orator, the compeer of
Toombs and
Stephens and
Cobb, and a signer of the
Confederate Constitution;
Brigadier-General Albert Pike, poet, scholar, and Grand
Commander of Scottish Rite Masonry in the
Southern jurisdiction, gone where the mysteries which confuse the speculations and embarass the inquiries of the present are already solved in the light of eternal day or are pretermitted in the calm of never-ending repose;
Colonel William L. Saunders, for twelve years
Secretary of State of North Corolina, the capable editor of the
Colonial Records of that Commonwealth, and a gallant officer;
Brigadier-General Lucius J. Gartrell, of
Georgia, an eloquent advocate and an ex-member of Confederate Congress;
Colonel Daniel G. Fowle, a true Confederate, and, at the time of his sudden death, occupying the gubernatorial chair of
North Carolina; and
Brigadier-General John R. Cooke, of
Missouri, accredited by official appointment to the Old North State, have all succumbed to the attack of the ‘Black
Knight with visor down,’ whose onset none may successfully resist.
2
Laying to heart the lesson of this Memorial season, and remembering that we, too, are powerless to elude ‘Mortality's strong hand,’ let us, my friends, contemplate with composure and anticipate with philosophic resignation the advent of the inevitable hour.
‘If it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all.’
Honored as we are by the presence of one who, as
Master of Horse of the Army of Northern Virginia, as governor,
senator,
[
95]
southern gentleman, and deliverer of his people from the dominion of the ignorant, the alien, and the freebooter, challenges and receives our sincerest esteem, unstinted gratitude, and warmest admiration, and anticipating from him the compliment of an oration upon the occasion of this happy reunion, I am relieved, my comrades, from the obligation which has for so many years devolved upon me of delivering the annual address before this Association.
The hour is at hand when, with satisfaction unalloyed, we will hearken unto the eloquent utterance of this distinguished Confederate chieftain, enlightened statesman, genuine patriot, and chivalrous son of the
South.
From the realization of this pleasing and privileged anticipation I may not detain you. Pardon me if I indulge in a single suggestion.
It is painfully manifest that if the duration of this Association is to be measured by the lives of its present members, it will, upon the demise of the longest liver, cease to exist and expire by the terms of its own limitation.
There will then be none to take the places of those who followed the
Red Cross as it defiantly waved when ‘trenching war’ channeled our fields; none who personally shared the fortunes of the
Confederacy; none who, of their individual knowledge, might proudly testify to the generations
No nation rose so white and fair,
None fell so pure of crime ;
none who, with a comrade's warrant, speaking in behalf of our Confederate Dead, could charge the living to
Give them the meed they have won in the past,
Give them the honors their future forecast,
Give them the chaplets they won in the strife,
Give them the laurels they lost with their life;
none, qualified by actual participation in the common and intimate comprehension of the aspirations and the disasters of that memorable epoch, to succeed to the privileges of this special companionship.
‘Fanned by conquest's crimson wing,’ multitudes laud the victors, while the conquered are consigned to the swallowing gulf of blind forgetfulness and dark oblivion.
It is of triumphs that muses delight to sing, and the vanquished: are too often summoned by the limner simply to populate the dim back-ground that the images of those who prevailed may appear in brighter array.
While the
Confederacy, once so puissant, with all its hopes, valorous achievements marvelous exhibitions of political and military power, exists now only as brave
[
96]
memory, a stalwart tradition, and while this nation will never be revived with the
Pre-eminence and all the large effects
That troop with majesty,
it may not be denied that the principles upon which it was founded, the ends it was designed to promote, and the manly traits and patriotic sentiments which it inculcated and engendered, should be as enduring as the ages.
Commonwealths, dynasties, and individuals pass away; but truth, justice, right, valor, virtue, and love of country are deathless.
It may not be disguised that there is a growing tendency to frame excuses for, nay, even to belittle the aims, the inspirations, and the exploits of a Confederate past.
Under the absurd guise of a New South—flaunting the banners of utilitarianism, lifting the standards of speculation and expediency, elevating the colors whereon are emblazoned consolidation of wealth and centralization of government, lowering the flag of intellectual, moral, and refined supremacy in the presence of the petty guidons of ignorance, personal ambition and diabolism, supplanting the iron cross with the golden calf, and crooking
The pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning —
not a few there are who, ignoring the elevating influence of heroic impulses, manly endeavor, and virtuous sentiments, would feign convert this region into a money-worshipping domain; and, careless of the land-marks of the fathers, impatient of the restraints of a calm, enlightened, conservative civilization, viewing with indifferent eye the tokens of Confederate valor, and slighting the graves of Confederate dead, would counsel no oblation save at the shrine of Mammon.
Beguiled by the hope of place and gain, misled by false notions, and demoralized by the commercial methods of the present, there is danger, my friends, that the number will increase of those who, failing to appreciate, will neglect to rightly value the aspirations which animated the breasts and nerved the arms of the
Southern people during a momentous and defensive crisis, than which the world has known none sanctified by purer self-sacrifice or characterized by loftier emprise.
Surely, if it can be prevented by precept, example, and honest avowal, we will never consent that our loyalty shall be questioned,
[
97]
our allegiance to truth, honor and vested rights impugned, or our genuine manhood drawn into controversy at our own homes and within the shadow of our cherished monuments.
To our descendants do we naturally and confidently look for the protection of our posthumous reputations.
They should be the guardians—they are the legitimate transmitters of the aims, doctrines, and principles which we held dearer than life.
Permit me, then, to make this suggestion for your consideration and future action.
Let our sons, by virtue of heirship, be admitted as junior members of this Association; so that when we pass into the realm of shadows there may be those, sprung from our loins and inheriting our sentiments, who will regard with pride and cherish with devotion the recollections which we deem sacred, and see to it that in the Pantheon wherein honest history shall set up the images of the good and great, there shall be room—ample, honorable, and preeminent—accorded to the statutes of
Davis and
Lee and
Jackson and and
Johnson and
Hampton and of their noble compatriots who imperiled all in the defence of home, in the cause of truth, in the maintenance of right, in the support of freedom, and in the exhibition of every trait appertaining to exalted manhood.
