N. B. Forrest born, 1821
July Fourteenth
Pleasant and wonderfully fair,
Like one that knows her own domain,
Magnolia-flowers in her hair,
And orange-blossoms rare,
Let her not knock in vain!
Lift up your equal heads to her,
Of all your courts contain, co-heir,
For lo! she claims her own again!
Daniel B. Lucas
(The South Shall Claim Her Own Again)
July Fifteenth
FACT OR FICTION?
For four years the Northern States fought to keep their Southern sisters in the Federal family; then having soundly thrashed these sisters in order to keep them at home, they suddenly shut the door and kicked them down the steps! The “erring sisters” are now fully restored to the family circle; but they had a longer and more painful struggle in the effort to get back than in the attempt to get away. More briefly, for four years the Federal government, led by Lincoln, maintained that all of the Southern States were in the Union and could not get out; and then for five years, under the rule of the Radicals, it argued that some of these States were out of the Union and could not get in!
Matthew Page Andrews
Reconstruction ended and the Union restored by the readmission of Georgia, 1870