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About The banner of the South. (Augusta, Ga.) 1868-1870 | View Entire Issue (July 2, 1870)
2 applause, and who delivered the following address: In accepting the position assigned to me by your kindness, in the solemn ceremonies of the day, many and con dieting emotions stirred my heart. On tne one hand, said he, a painful conscious ness or my inability to discharge the task imposed in a manner worthy "of the occasion, oppresses me and bids me keep siient; while on the other hand, a sense of duty to my living as well as to my dead comrades, impels me to join in this demonstration of honor to those who are sleeping beneath the soil they gave their lives to defend. Let me then place on their tomb a votive offering, which, unworthy as it may be of our noble dead, has at : ;ast the merit of com ing from hearts filled with sympathy for the cause in which tin y fell; admiration for their devoted patriotism and heroic courage; respect and affection for their memory, and profound grief for their untimely death. There are other mo tives, scarcely less potent, why my voice should not be silent on any occa sion where honnor is paid to the living or dead of the Washington Light Infantry. Have you forgotten, comrades of that gallant corps? 1 shall always remember it with pride, that when our State call ed her sons to defend her, and that com mand was organized—when your banner unsullied by any stain of defeat, untar nished by any breath of dishonor, was borne so heroically through the storm of nearly every great historic battle of the war—it was the Washington Light In fantry that gave me the first company of the Hampton Legion, Can you suppose that I have forgotten the name of ‘-Com pany A?” that company which for four years of heroic though unequal war, stood always unshaken on the right of the Legion? Can I forget that devoted friend, that unselfish patriot, that gallant soldier, that noble gentleman, Johnson, who was your first and one of your cos tliest sacrifices laid on the altar of our country? Can I forget the gifted Pet tigrew, who lived truly long enough to achieve an undying glory for himself, but who died too soon for his mourning country? Standing over the graves which hold the hallowed dust of so macy patriotic soldiers, looking upon yonder tomb, where are inscribed the names of forty-five of my loved and trusted com rades of that single company which you gave me, how can I forget the msn who fought and died by my side? Can I, turning from the lamented dead to the honored living, looking once again upon the familiar faces of the men whom dan ger taught me to trust, forget the friends who never betrayed that trust? Can I look upon Conner, as he leans upon those crutches, which tell proudly how nobly h) discharged hii duty, and t'v n forget the Washington Light Infantry? Oh, no! my friends. Memory and associations such as these are amongst the most cherished though saddest of my heart, and they bind me to my old comrades by ties which death may, but nothing else, can ever sever. They remind me, too, of my duties to the dead, and amongst them there is none more sacred than that which calls upon me to vindicate their motives, to praise their patriotism, to commend their example, and to protect their memory. These are the duties which dovolve upon us, the sad survi vors of that gallant band who, at the call of their State, rallied to her defence. Mourning over the graves of “our slain” who, “tor faith and tor freedom, lay slaughtered in vain;” standing amid the wreck of our dearest hopes, looking at the ruin of our country, witnessing°the steady but rapid overthrow of Repub lican institutions and constitutional liber ty, what is loft to cheer us to future exertion but the hallowed memories of the past—that past which was made glorious by our great dead. Amid that noble and, alas, vast throng, none have done higher honor to their"* State, none deserve deeper gratitude, than the men who died in her cause. Not until death has placed his etern/il seal upon the living, and stamped with his irrevocable decree all the actions of their being, can they be truly estimated. The judgment we pass upon our contemporaries is too of tend warped by envy, jealousy, personal dislike, or political prejudice; audit is no£ until death has closed their career here that we can recognize the greatness ot their actions, or the integrity of their purposes. ihe men to whom you dedicate this monument as a testimonial of vour res pect, gratitude and affection, have pass ed this last dread ordeal, and we deem them worthy to be enshrined in a people’s heart, and to receive the grateful plaudits of people’s voice. “A people’s voice ! wc are people yet. Tho’ all men else their nobler dreams forget; Confused by brainless mobs and lawless powers, . j We have a voice with which to pay the debt Os boundless love and reverence and regret. To those great men who fought and kept it ours.” They fought to vindicate the great truths enunciated in ’76, and to defend their inalienable rights established by our fathers, and bequeathed to us as our noblest heritage. For these they fought in vain; and of all the attributes of free dom, there is left to us only a people’s voice, which, though stifled, calls heaven to witness that we are sincere and honest in the convictions which prompted our actions, which still asserts our unshaken faith in the justice of our cause, and which, rising from our hearts in our desolate land, utter lamentations for the precious blood that was so lavishly but so bravely shed in our country’s cause. Wc, my friends, who were the actors in that mighty drama which for four years filled the world’s stage, may not be com petent to pronounce an impartial judg ment as to the just ice of that cause. Time, with its soothing influence, must elapsce, and the passions engendered by the war must cool before the record can be fully made up for history to pro nounce her final verdict. Believing that Truth, Right and Justice were on our side, we submit our case without one doubt to the impartial judgment of posterity, reserving to ourselves the right of appeal to the Great Tribunal alone, where the Supreme Judge of tl e Uni verse, who reads our hearts, will pro nounce that decree which wifi through all eternity justify or condemn us. We know that the men whose names arc written on that marble belived, as firmly as they did in the existence of a God, in tho justice of the cause for which they died; wc know that they sacrificed peace, comfort, life, to services of the State; and knowing this, we place them high on tke roll of those patriotic and heroic dead who make up the great army of martyrs of liberty, Nor should their memory be less dear to us, or less honored, be cause they fell in a cause which God, in llis Providence, has seen fit to let fail. The heathen may deify the conquering hero, while lie condemns those who fait to exile, chains or death, for with him success is the only evidence of merit, but not so the Christian. Right Truth, Jus tice contribute the standard by which he measured all things. The test he ap plies to the actions of men is the law which God himself has made. By this law we can distinguish the laws which decide right from wrong, as readily as we can recognize those which separate light from darkness. Wcknow that in the economy of God evil is often permit ted to prevail over good on this earth. We see the virtue trampled into dust by vice. We see lilerty prostrate at the feet of tyranny. We see religion su perseded by fanaticism. Intelligence, virtue, patriotism thrust aside, while ig norance, vice and selfishness usurp the high places of the earth. These arc the opponent anomalies which strike us, when we consider the Almighty’s go vernment of this world. But when guided by the light of revelation we look more closely into that wondrous system, and comprehend more fully the schism of that faith which, springing from Calvary is lighting with its sublime truths every crevice of the earth, we can reconcle the difficulties which stand in our way. That religion taught by the Saviour, which we profess, nowhere promises that we shall be rewarded in this world for well doing. It does not promise that v.rtue shall here triumph while vice is punished; it does not promise that the cause of liberty, sustained though it may be by truth, courage, patriotism, will ne cessarily succeed when it has to contend with unlicensed power, directed by am bition, hatred and fear. No such promises arc held out by the Diviue Founder of our religion to his followers. On the con trary, they arc explicitly told that on, this earth they are to look for trials disappointments and afflictions; that they will often see the powers of darkness holding high carnival of crime, where they hoped to see virtue exercising her benign and powerful sway; that it does not come within the scope of the Chris tian religion to punish evil and to reward the good in this world, and that not until the last trump shall summon the quick and the dead to judgment will tho great Judge, reciting all the wrongs, punish all the crimes and reward all the virtues which have excited her since the founda tion of the earth. It is this sublime faith that sustains the Christian patriot as lie struggles to bear his own afflictions or mourns over his country’s loss of liberty; for he knows that if he has discharged his duty to his God and to his country, be will sooner or later surely reap an exceeding great reward- Let us, then, my friends and comrades, cling with unrelaxing grasp and unshaken confidence to the faith that is in us. Let not the angry threats of oppression, or the syren voice of temptation, drive or allure us to forsake it. Above all, be not misled by that unmeaning jargon which tells you that your cause was submitted to the arbitrament of arms, and that the sword has decided that cause against you. The sword has never, nor will it ever, de cide a principle or establish a truth. It can, as it has often done, overthrow a just cause and make might take the place of right; but it can never reverse the im mutable laws of God, and make what is evil appear right in His sight. A noble cause, upheld heroically by honor, cour age, patriotism, may die along with its supporters. A great truth never dies, hut eternal as the God-head from which it springs, it lives forever, amid all the changes of Dynasties, the wreck of Em pires and the death of Nations. It is, too, as false in fact as in logic, to assert that the sword can or does decide justly be tween right and wrong. With the sword the Goths and Vandals drenched the fair fields of Italy with the best blood of her sons. It gave nearly half the world to Mahomet. It allowed the Turk to tram ple out the civilization of Greece. Its keen edge has dismembered Poland. It has left Hungary bleeding at the feet of the oppressors. It lias turned over Spain and Portugal to the tender mercies of the Saracen, and on this continent and in our day, directed by unscrupulous power against the throats of prostrate States, reeking with paracidul blood, it enforces the laws which it alone has made. Tell me not, then, that the sword can rightful ly turn the scales of justice. It is the exponent of tyranny, not the arbiter of truth—the badge of the tyrant and the executioner, not the symbol of justice. It is not at all inconsistent with these views that we, as a conquered people, should observe scrupulously the terms dictated by the sword and accepted by us. We can do this, and should do it, m perfect good faith ; but we should claim and exercise the God-given right of freedom of opinion. We acknowledge that the cause for which these men died is lost, but we should be false to them, false to that cause, were we to admit that they were, because of failure, necessarily wrong. We believe that they were right, and we therefore honor and respect their memory. If they were right time will vindicate the action and record their fame. If wrong, “It was a grevious fault, And greviously have they answered it.” We, comrades of the Washington Light Infantry—we who gave our all to the same cause in which our brothers fell—can entertain no doubt as to the place which will be accorded them by history Stigmatized now as rebels, pos terity will, we hope and believe, give to them the more appropriate name of pa triots. Relieving this, we fear not to accept from the conqueror the epithet of rebel. Our ancestors had once the same term applied to them, and I accept as a complete refutation of all dishonor at tached to tho word, the noble language used in regard to it by a great statesman and patriot of England. “The term rebel, ” said Charles Fox' “is no certain mark of disgrace. For all the great apostles of liberty, the saviors of their country, the benefactors of mankind, in all ages, have been called rebels; and we even owe the Constitution which ena bles us to sit in this house to a rebel lion.” Nor are there wanting men at the North, who, rising high above the preju dices of their section, and the trammels of popular opinion, dare to assert in lan guage as lofty, sentiments as noble as those so eloquently expressed by this great orator. It was my good fortune, on a recent occasion in New York, to hear one who would be an honor to any country, address an audience composed of Southern as well as Northern men. In touching the great issues which had so lately arrayed the two sections in war, he drew a glowing picture of patriotism. He told us how this virtue, beginning with one’s family, spreads in ever-widen ing waves, till it embraced all we have as country; and then turning to the Southerners who were present, he brought tears of gratified pride to their eyes by exclaiming : “And gentlemen, the only reason why you will not hereafter be re garded as the noblest patriots who ever lived, is simply because it has happened that George Washington fought in the same cause before you did.” You, my friends of the Light Infantry, who bear the name, the Father of his Country has made immortal, must feel your hearts swell with patriotic pride when you know that the great and good of other lands deem you not unworthy to be placed alongside of Washington. You bear his name, and you have proved yourselves worthy to do so. There are other historic associations of peculiar and proud interest which connects your or ganization closely with the great name it bears. Amid that grand group of revo lutionary heroes who illustrated by their deeds in the great rebellion of ’76 the history of South Carolina, no name is held in higher esteem than that of Wm. Washington, the worthy kinsman and follower of his illustrious namesake. On the bloody fields of Cow Pens and Entaw his glorious banner—the precious gift of devoted woman—swept through carnage to victory. The same banner of Wash ington which had been consecrated by the prayers of woman—baptised in the best blood of South Carolina—sanctified by the cause of Freedom in which it had waved—venerated by our whole people as tllC symbol ot victory, the cnoigri of Liberty—was committed by Washington’s widow to the Washington Light Infantry, and her own honored hands presented it. When she gave this flag which her patriot husband had so nobly borne through the war of Independence, she solemnly adjured your Company to defend it, if need be, with their lives and to maintain its honor unsullied, and to be forever true to the great cause—the cause of freedom—in which it had first been unfurled. Men of the Washington Light Infantry, sons of the men who fought by the side of Marion, of Sumter, of Moultrie, of Pickens, of Rutledge, of Huger, and of Washington, how have you kept that solemn charge ? Let Manassas, and Secessionvillc, and Seven Pines, and Sharpsburg, and Cold Har bor, and Gaines’ Mill, and Malvern Hill, and Drury’s Bluff, and Fort Sumter, and Petersburg, and Battery Wagner, and Bentonville, and Chickamauga, and Fredericksburg, and a score of other glorious battle-fields inscribed in im perishable letters on that immortal ban ner of yours, answer. You, the men who stand here to-day, and those whose names are written on yonder slab, have fought under the same flag, in the same cause your fathers did, and fought with a patriotism as lofty, a courage as high, a devotiou as noble, as ever animated the hearts of patriot sires. You have proved that the blood which flows in your veins is not degenerate and that you have been worthy custodians of the precious charge entrusted to your keeping. Be true, then, each of you, I conjure you, now and ever, whatever trials, vicissitudes, or sufferings beset you, to your lineage, your principles, your renown. “Let ail the ends thou aim’st at be thy God’s, thy Country’sand Truth’s,” then if thou fallest, thou fallest a blessed martyr. Besides all these incentives to noble actions, presented by the great traditions and hallowed memories of the past, you have many others connected with the formation and history of your corps, and in the sacred objects contemplated now by your Association. You cannot forget that the Washington Light Infantry owes its existence to the patriotic impulse which called its founders to repel foreign invasion, and made them resort to arms to defend that liberty which their lathers had achieved. Need I recall to your memory the name of your first Captain— a name justly dear to every Carolinian’s heart, honored wherever integrity of pur pose, purity of life, or power of intellect are esteemed—the name of oue, of whom Henry Clay said : il Of all the men I have ever known, the best man, the wisest, the purest, and the greatest Statesman , was William Lowndes .” On the roll of your Company, illustrated first by this great name, are to be found many others worthily distinguished in the annals of our State, fit successors of your illustrious Captain. Nor need you fear to place the record you made for yourselves during the war by the side of that of any other command; nor to com pare the officers and men whom you gave to the “Lost Cause” with any who served in the Confederacy. You gave three general officers--Pettigrew, Conner, and Logan—all worthily distinguished, to that cause, and with as field officers, Johnson, DeTreville aod Simonton; whilst almost every command from this State drew from your ranks, so prolific of gallant soldiers, many of its most efficient sub altern officers and men. How the rank and file of the Washington Light Infantry did their duty to their country is told in mute, but eloquent language, by the long list of honored names that meet your eyes on this monument, which you have dedi cated reverently and affectionately to your noble dead. Well worthy are they of the-honor you can pay them, for they surely fell blessed martyrs, and this con viction on our part is full of comfort to those who see the names of their kindred written on the South’s Roll of Honor, that list which records her dead. I know how vain is all human conso lation to the heart that is called on to give up some object around which the tendercst affections cluster. I know that many a parent in our mourning land, as he looks through eyes blinded by the tears that will swell up from his heart, at some loved name, perhaps on that tomb or some stone that covers all that was mortal of one who was his pride, his hone his darling, cries out iu the pathetic lan guage wrung from a bereaved father’s heart : “Oh, my son Absalom ! my son my son Absalom ! Would to God I find died for thee! O, Absalom ! my son, un son!” I can understand, 1 can feel j have felt all this. But still, feeliu* deeply for those who mourn their kindred slain, knowing how and for what our sons have died, cannot each one who has given his children to bis country, con ceiling the grief of the father, in the holy zeal of the patriot, say proudly as he stands by the grave of his son, “Why then, God’s soldier be he ' “Had I as many sons as I have hairs, “I would not wish them a fairer death?” It is right, and proper that you should preserve* the memory of cur dead heroes. Would that we could erect to them a monument whose foundations should be as eternal as the great truths for which they died; lofty as their fame; pure as our love; lasting as our gratitude; rising proudly from the earth that holds their clay/and pointing with that spotless shaft to that Heaven where we devoutly trust they are now at rest. It is a touching and beautiful article of belief in the creed of that strange system of theology which takes its name from its founder—one of the most wonderful men of the last cen tury —that those who fall in battle, fight ing honestly and truly for their country, are immediately transported to Heaven, to partake of the highest joys of that blissful abode; and though no such pro mise is held out by our religion to its votaries, it surely is not inconsistent with its holy spirit or divine teaching, that this may be the case. The trust of the patriot and the faith of the Christian may then unite in the hope, so full of joy and con solation, that our dead patriots—“ God’s soldiers”—purified by the great oblation of their lives for their country’s liberty, standing now in the presence of the Eter nal God, looking down with grateful hearts on this solemn scene, bringing their prayers for you, who are now mani festing your reverence and love for them, to the very footstool of the throne of grace, are invoking with devout suppli cations from the Father of Mercies, for you, all those rich blessings which He, and He alone can bestow. Before General Hampton had conclud ed his address, the rain began to fall, but a large number of the immense throng hoisted their umbrellas and heard the address out. And many an old veteran, as he stood beside the grave of his loved comrade and heard the words of his be loved leader, wiped a tear which flowed down his cheek. So Charleston has done the honors for her departed sons. May the memory of the brave dead ever remain fresh iu cur hearts. From Pius VI. to IX.—An illustrious French writer, now in Rome, who saw the Pope go in processsion on the Feast of the Annunciation, makes the follow ing reflections: “The Iloly Father had with him Cardinal Moreno, Archbishop of Seville, and our good Cardinal Don net, Archbishop of Bordeaux, who seems as it were, restored to youth by the long and terrible malady which he resolved to vanquish in order that he might assist at the Council. I called to mind a fact which his Eminence related to me a few days ago. While yet a little child, liv ing at Valence, his mother took him to see Pius VI , a captive and dying, and he received his benediction. Since that day it has been his lot to see every one of the successors of that Pontiff', who s > many people imagined would be the last. Pius VII., at Lyons; Pius VIII , Leo XII., and Gregory XVI., all at Rome. And this child, upon whom the beneffic tion of the prisoner of Valence rested, is now by the side of Pius IX., on the steps of the Vatican, whither he has come once more, in his old age, to pro claim the Infallibility of the undying Peter. There, close to the altar whither the body of Pius VI. was brought from his place of exile, iu a little while, in the face of the whole world, the dogma will be set up, or rather will be exposed to view, by the hand of the Church, that it may sec the ages go by which will hurl themselves against it but will not move it from its place. A single man will have seen, in the brief space ot one’s life, all these contrasts: Pius VI., a prisoner at Valence, Pius IX., presiding over the Vatican Council; the Papacy declared to be fallen and dead, the Papacy declared to be infallible.” [ Vatican . The ivholbsale grocsers of Savannah have joined the six o’clock closing movement inaugurated by the wholesale, and retail dry goods merchants of that city. The civil engineers of the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railroad are in going over the line from Line Mountain to r. ton, in order to perfect their worit.
