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that the time is not far distant in the future when such a history will be written.
Glorious, but sad, indeed, will be that history. It will tell of an unfortunate, cruel and fratricidal war; of charges and battles; of victories and defeats; of sufferings and sacrifices, and of patriotism and heroism that will be intensely interesting to its readers. It will tell that, after four years of bloody conflict, unutterably sorrowful and yet wondrously illustrious, the weaker side went down before overpowering numbers and superior military resources; but it will not record that therefore the weaker side fought for that which was unjust and treasonable.
On the pages of that history it will appear that among those whose cause was lost there were thousands of educated Christian men who loved law and constitutional freedom, and whose heroic efforts and brave deeds ii> behalf of what to them was right and just have not been surpassed in the annals of the world.
And O how the pages of that history will sparkle with lustre, on which will be written the names of the military chieftains of the South, the name of Robert E. Lee, whose noble virtues and martial deeds gave glory and renown world-wide to his beloved country; of Jackson " Stonewall Jackson "
Whose eye met the battle As the eagle's meets the sun
that military genius whose fall on the bloody field of Chancellorsville made "freedom shriek "; of Smith and Polk, the Christian soldiers; of Albert S. and Joseph E. Johnston; of D. H. and A. P. Hill; of Cleburne and Stuart and Morgan and Bragg and Hardee, and a host of others, who in life labored and fought for the South, and who are at rest now, we trust, on the shining shore of the other side.
But no pages of that history will be brighter and more resplendent than those which shall record the marvelous deeds and terrible trials of the women of the South. Those pages will tell of wives and mothers and daughters and sisters who, in their wonderful courage and in their true and constant love for their dear ones, their homes and native land, equalled, if they did not excel, any of whom Sparta could ever boast. Oh! that I were rich in language, abundantly rich, that I might now praise them as they merit and I desire to do.
But I will say in the words of another: " I thank God that I lived in the same generation with such women, and was an actor in the same transactions with them. To have known and lived and acted
