After Appomattox, their father had their bodies brought back to their home in Virginia and buried them in the same grave, erecting a monument over it and a brief record of their lives and deaths, placing below in his despair:
"This monument erected by their father. God alone knows which was right."
But now that the passions of war are past, shall we not all and every one exclaim that they were both right and there can not in justice be any distinction as to the patriotism, chivalry and honor of these two brothers, and so with all of the combative force.
"No culprits they, though ire and pride
Had laid their better mood aside."
Now let us try to point a moral to this our experience: Notwithstanding the fact that the tireless and ceaseless thinkers and doers have by devices and combinations reduced the toil of brawn and muscle by perhaps sixty per cent and increased food, shelter and raiment many-fold, both in quantity and quality, so there is abundance for all who are willing to pay the price in mild and easy effort: unrest is again abroad in the land and the fanatical and political agitators are teaching that the do-less, shiftless and thriftless should share equally with the ceaseless and tireless doers in everything that is produced under pain of the stoppage of all progress unless granted, no rewards and no forfeits.
Let us implore our children and grandchildren to study well these questions lest they in turn be led to the misconceived belief that there is pending an irrepressible conflict, a feud that naught but blood can atone; and in conclusion commend to them the admonition of Doctor Lyman Beecher, of three generations past, who evidently had in view our present condition, of which here is an extract:
"We must educate! We must educate! Or we must perish by our own prosperity. If we do not, short will be our race from the cradle to the grave. If in our haste to be rich and mighty, we outrun our literary and religious institutions, they will never overtake us: or only come up after the battle of liberty is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and as resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our bondage.
"We did not, in the darkest hour, believe that God had brought our fathers to this goodly land to lay the foundation of religious liberty, and wrought such wonders in their preservation, and raised their descendants to such heights of civil and religious liberty, only to reverse the analogy of His providence, and abandon His work.
"No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies abused: and no instrumentality employed in their infliction is so dreadful as the wrath of man. No spasms are like the spasms of expiring liberty, and no wailing such as her convulsions extort.
"It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if we perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and free institutions have given us more bone, sinew and vitality. May God hide from me the day when the dying agonies of my country shall begin! O thou beloved land, bound together by the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils, live forever—one and undivided."