Since before noon a pilgrimage had been under way from Atlanta and surrounding communities toward Stone Mountain. There were no good roads hereabouts—not in that day—so presently there was a crush of vehicles parked on the approaches for nearly a mile from the mountain. They never reached the unveiling. Hundreds upon hundreds of automobiles were in fields along the highway, and in ditches and on crossroads. The occupants of some of them walked on miles and miles to the ceremony. Others were stopped in their tracks when the first trickle of cars back to Atlanta began at 3:30.
Ten thousand people stood bareheaded and silent as the statue of Lee was unveiled. Another ten thousand were in the group that could not see, blocked in the crush of traffic miles from the mountain.
Hollins Randolph, president of the Memorial Association, stood on the platform briefly to introduce Dr. David Marx, who delivered the invocation. Mrs. Plane, in a costume of the sixties, was carried onto the rostrum by the sculptor. With bared head he stood motionless as she waved her hand.
Up on the mountain platform, a thousand yards away in an air-drawn line, tiny figures moved beneath the two vast American flags that hung like a curtain. Mrs. Plane’s hand was scarcely raised before boulders of granite began to slip from resting places under the flags and flash down the sheer drop of the precipice—five seconds in their fall from the flags to the base of the mountain, then two more seconds before the dull thunder of their impact rolled across the valley.
The flags parted and rose, and between them, to the thunder of cascading granite, the head of Lee appeared—a majestic head that even in its colossal size and distance seemed vibrant and lifelike. The silence of the spectators was long. Then suddenly out of the stillness spoke a voice clear though quavering—an old man’s voice: “It’s General Lee! It’s the general!”
Borglum turned wonderingly toward the source of this unscheduled salute. It was a bent old man who spoke—an old man in a gray uniform. His day seemed to be done. Not many had heard his outcry—not more than a hundred or so who happened to be standing near him—but his voice had brought the awakening of the throng. Applause—cheers, screams and the shrill rebel yell—crashed across the valley and came echoing back again, an amorphous sound like the din of a hurricane. Lee had been well acclaimed.
Gutzon, holding the trembling arm of Mrs. Plane who seemed to have undergone a tremendous emotional shock, suddenly realized what the people were cheering for: the head of Lee. And he gazed up at it openmouthed, conscious that he was looking at it for the first time.
Gutzon Borglum had worked on this massive carving for weeks on end, day and night. He knew every dimension of it, every curve. Its magnitude was no surprise to him, because standing on the upper lip of the statue he had been unable to reach the upper eyelid. He had swung across the face in a bosun’s chair, drilled holes along the nose, placed his dynamite sticks and exploded them. But he had had no time to travel down the face of the mountain and into the distance to look at it.
It was a pleasing sight that day. The monument looked logical, perfect in scale on the great wall of granite. The day was mild and gray, and the light was fading; but for all that, there were lifting shadows in the face. Each part of it stood out in its proper place. And for the first time in months Gutzon was really happy.
After a time the cheering thousands were quiet again. They moved in silence to the road, slowly, sedately, like people emerging from a solemn religious service. They got into their cars and just as silently and just as unhurriedly moved out toward Atlanta. Then in an hour or two it was dark—a thick, impenetrable dark.