SUMMER ARCHIBALD CUNNINGHAM.
"The shadow of the wings of death
Broods over us; we feel his breath;
'Resurgam' still the spirit seeks."
Sumner A Cunningham, soldier and journalist, so widely known as editor of the Confederate Veteran, died at
Nashville, Tenn., on December 20, 1913, after a brief illness. Death was due to a series of hemorrhages of the nose which sapped his vitality. Seemingly in the best of health, on December 17 the first hemorrhages came on as he was seated at his desk: and thoughhe was given medical attention at once, he was much weakened by the loss of blood. However, he rested well that night and through Thursday, and friends expected that he would soon be well again; but a recurrence of the hemorrhages on Thursday night so reduced his strength that he could not recuperate, and he passed into unconsciousness, gently drifting over the dark river to join his comrades waiting on the other shore.
A devoted friend of many years, Mrs. Felix DeMoville, requested that his body should rest in her home until the funeral, and there it was taken on Saturday night. On Sunday morning a detail from Troop A, Forrest's Cavalry, acted as guard of honor, their colors drooping over him. On the casket was spread the worn old battle flag of the 12th Tennessee, Day's Battalion.
The funeral was held at the First Presbyterian Church on Sunday afternoon. Members of Frank Cheatham Bivouac, most of them in uniform, and unattached Confederate veterans met at the courthouse and marched in a body to the church. The Daughters of the Confederacy also attended in a body, and many friends and relatives from out of town were present. The honorary pallbearers were of his closest friends, men for whom he felt the ties of brotherhood. They were: Gen. Bennett H. Young, of Louisville, Commander in Chief U.C.V.; Gen V. Y. Cook, of Batesville, Ark.; Gen. John P. Hickman, Commander Tennessee Division, U.C.V.; Rev. H. M. Hamill, Chaplain Tennessee Division, U.C.V.; Rev. R.Lin Cave, Chaplain Tennessee Division, U.C.V.; Major W. L. Danley, Maj. E. C. Lewis, Capt. Thomas Gibson, Capt. Joseph Phillips, Maj. J. L. McCollum, of Atlanta, and Hon. Lewis Tillman, of Knoxville, Tenn. The active pallbearers were all young friends and business associates of Nashville: John H. De Witt, Thomas J. Nance, Robert L. Burch, D. M. Smith, Walter H. Clarke, Everett Philpot, Leland Hume, and M. R. Morton Services were conducted by Dr. H. K. Yates, pastor of the First Cumberland Presbyterian Church, of which Mr. Cunningham had been a lifelong member. After the Scripture lesson was read by Dr. Yates, the following was read by Dr. Vance to the memory of his friend:
"We are met, my friends, to-day to honor the memory of a man of whom too much cannot be said. After we have said the best about him, there remains still much to be said. I know of no one who is to take his place, for he lived a unique kind of life. As a friend remarked to me awhile ago, he was a Nathanael indeed.
"In the opening of my remarks I am going to read a little poem with which some of you are familiar, which I regard as one of the greatest ever written, not because of its literary merit, but because of the sentiment it embodies, and which it seems to me, more faithfully paints the portrait of our dear friend Mr. Cunningham than anything I can say. I refer to Sam Walter Foss's poem about the man who lived by the side of the road and was a friend to man:
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths
Where highways never ran-
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by-
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat
Nor hurl the cynic's ban-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife,
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead,
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.
Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish - so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
"Don't you think that paints his portrait? In a sense he was by himself. Mis wife died years ago, and then one of the young children, and then twelve years ago his splendid young son Paul was drowned in the Rio Grande River, where as an engineer he was engaged in running a line between the United State and Mexico; and this left him alone, so far as his immediate family was concerned. And he found his family in the people of the world. I have heard of a school teacher in Chicago who lost his only son, a little lad, and who used to go to the gates of the public schools and watch the boys as they passed out to see if he could find one who looked like the little lad he had lost. Of course he could not. But by and by he gave his life to a service for boys, finding in the composite boy life of the city in which he lived the life of the lad he had lost.
