T. B. Johnson,
For Committee.
Adopted by Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Camp, No. 21, U. C. V., February 6, 1904.
*****
(John M. Stephen’s Camp.)
“Where his flag waved his lines stood as immovable as Gibraltar.”
Comrades,—At his home at Gainesville, Georgia, at 5 P.M., Saturday, January 2, 1904, in his eighty-third year, Lieutenant-General Longstreet answered his last roll-call. If Alabama had done nothing save to give us Longstreet and Pelham, she would have done much for herself, the Southland, and for fame. If with Alexander, Hannibal, and Napoleon, Robert E. Lee takes first rank among the world’s great generals, surely General Longstreet may stand with those who occupy second rank among the world’s great military men.
If Jackson was Lee’s right hand, Longstreet was his left from Manassas to Appomattox.
Longstreet was a very thunder-bolt of war. When Jackson at the second battle of Manassas was hard pressed by Pope’s whole army, Longstreet rushed to his aid and, striking Pope’s flank, crushed it as an egg-shell in the hand of a strong man. Thus always and everywhere that Longstreet led, his men hurried to death as joyously as the bridegroom to greet the bride; where his flag waved his lines stood as immovable as Gibraltar to the storms of the ocean, and when he moved forward, there the enemy were beaten or death and carnage reigned supreme. If after Appomattox, Longstreet made mistakes, or we imagined he did, the mantle of death covers them all. Remembering there has only One lived without fault, they are forgotten, and standing by his grave we remember only his virtues and the heroism and skill which made him great in times and places where great men were thick as fallen leaves in Vallombrosa; therefore be it
Resolved, That we mourn the death of our great leader, and tender to his bereaved family our sincere sympathy.
Resolved, That these resolutions be spread upon the minutes of this Camp, and that copies be furnished our town papers for publication and a copy be sent to General Longstreet’s widow.