word that he would apologize the next day on the floor of the Senate, where the offense was given, and he did so. These men were friends the rest of their lives. On another occasion a Senator from Kentucky sneeringly alluded to him as "that Jew from Louisiana." In his reply, Mr. Benjamin retorted, "The gentleman from Kentucky, forgetting his honorable and exalted position, has stooped so low as to assail me on the point of my religious faith. Sneeringly, he calls me a Jew. Well, sir, I am a Jew. But (shaking his finger at the Senator), when his ancestors were herding swine upon the plains of Scandinavia, mine were following the 'Maccabees to victory."
Many other incidents could be told of this very remarkable man's career, but I have already trespassed too long, and must stop. It will interest you to know that during Mr. Benjamin's stay in Richmond, which, as we have seen, was the whole four years of the war, he resided in house No. 9 West Main street, where Col. Cutshaw resided so long and occupied the same room so long used by our gallant and beloved comrade. During the last days of the Confederacy, he was, for a week, the roommate of that great and good man of God, the late Dr. Moses Drury Hoge. They were warm friends, and I have often heard Dr. Hoge refer to Mr. Benjamin as one of the cleanest and most companionable men he was ever thrown with.
Old Thomas Carlyle, in his "Latter Day Pamphlets," says "Whom doth the King delight to honor? That is the question of questions concerning the King's own honor. Show me the man you honor; I know by that symptom better than by any other, what kind of a man you yourself are. For you show me there what your ideal of manhood is, what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be, and would thank the gods with your whole soul for being if you could."
"Who is to have a statue? means whom shall we consecrate and set apart as one of our sacred men, sacred, that all men may see him; be reminded of him, and, by new examples added to old precepts, be taught what is real worth in man."
And so, my friends and comrades, we gather here from time to time, and place on these walls, in this our Valhalla, the portraits of our leaders, civil and military, in our great struggle
