The Women of the Confederacy

by J. L. Underwood

ROOSEVELT AT LEE’S MONUMENT

“Come Closer, Comrades!”

[J. L. Underwood.]

When the victorious Federal army marched home, at the close of the war between the States, the famous Brooklyn preacher, Henry Ward Beecher, said that in twenty-five years any man in America would be ashamed to admit that he was ever a Confederate soldier. And yet in twenty-five years half of the Cabinet at Washington was composed of Confederate soldiers. In little more than twenty-five years the country sees William McKinley, the Republican President of the United States, himself a veteran of the Federal army, down among the Confederate veterans in Georgia, wearing the Confederate badge, and otherwise fraternizing as a soldier with those who wore the gray, and in his official capacity calling upon Congress to care for the graves of the dead Confederate soldiers just as the Government provides for the dead who wore the blue. And the whole country, North and South, applauded the noble McKinley.

Here is President Roosevelt, forty years after the war, making the same recommendations and Congress actually restoring the captured battle flags to the several Southern States. It is a pity Beecher didn’t live to be in Richmond, Va., on the 18th of October, 1905, and see President Roosevelt by special appointment meet the Confederate Veterans at the foot of the monument of General Robert 312 E. Lee. When he began his talk he said, “Come closer, comrades.” The President of the United States calling those old “rebels” of Beecher his comrades and all the way on his long Southern tour, having at his own request a voluntary escort at every point composed of the veterans from both armies!

Shade of Beecher! Come back to Washington and see President and Cabinet and Congress and Army and Navy gather in tears around the coffin and do the grand honors at the grave of the Confederate General Wheeler!

The truth is the true comrades from both sides have been coming “closer” to each other ever since the bloodshed at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, whenever the politicians would let them. The old “vets” understand each other whether other people do or not. We are “comrades” indeed. Now, comrades of the North, let an old “Confederate vet” who has gloried in the privilege of frequently grasping your hands for forty years, say a parting word to you. Your country is our country. Your heroes are our heroes. We claim the honor of having such patriotic countrymen as Lincoln, such heroes as Thomas, Meade and Hancock, and McClellan and Grant, and McPherson and Farragut. If there were such men as Butler and Milroy and Hunter, they were our countrymen, too, and if they did things worthy of condemnation, let Southerners condemn them with a feeling of sorrow over the failings of erring countrymen—just as Northern men should look truthfully at the lives of Southern leaders and condemn, when it is just, but condemn in sorrow our erring countrymen.

But, comrades, “come closer.” Read the humble tribute of this book to the memory of Southern women of 1861-1865. They were your countrywomen. Their virtues are the glory of all America. We have tried to help you and the world to know them better. We have all come forth from the ashes now. We are rejoicing in a prosperous South and a prosperous North. Our women nobly did their part in the war and nobly have they helped to rebuild the South, not only for our children, but for your sons and your daughters. Our sunny 313 South belongs to the whole country. Our noble women and their children love their whole country. They have shown themselves true to principle and true to duty. “Come closer, comrades,” and study these Southern women. If you find anything wrong in their spirit or conduct, hold it up to just retribution. If they have set a glorious example of courage, of sacrifice and of patriotism, help your children and our children to “come closer” in following their example.