Now when the war ended, the Federal government, with commendable zeal, very humanely collected most of its dead and had their remains removed to its beautiful cemeteries, and there keeps green the sod and fresh the flowers on their graves.
There was no Confederate government to collect and care for the remains of the Confederate dead. Along the banks of the "Father of Waters" for more than a thousand miles the inhabitants tread unawares over the unknown graves of those who battled for the South. Along the shores of the Potomac, the Rappahannock, and the James wave the golden harvests on soil enriched by their blood and moldering dust. There the grapes grow more luscious and the wine is redder. From the capes of the Chesapeake adown the stormy Atlantic, and trending around the Gulf, rest thousands of our dead; or go to the heights of Allatoona, to Lookout's lofty peak, or Kennesaw Mountain's top, and you may seek in vain where the dead rest. Time, with the relentless force of the elements, has obliterated all traces of their graves from human eye; they are known only to Him who can tell where Moses sleeps in "a vale in the land of Moab." So the forgotten are not forgot, the Hand that made the thunder's home comes down every spring and paints with bright colors the little wild flowers that grow over their resting places, and they are bright on Decoration Day. The rosy morn announces first to them that the night is gone, and when the day is past and the landscape veiled with evening's shade, high on the mountain top the last ray of the setting sun lovingly lingers longest, loath to leave the lonely place where the bright-eyed children of the Confederacy rest in death.
And wherefore did they die? They fell in defense of their homes, their families, their country, and those civil rights arising from that liberty God gave man as a heritage in the beginning. They furnished to their country much that will be noble in history, wonderful in story, tender in song, and a large share of that glory which will claim the admiration of mankind. We can today place no wreaths of immortelles on their unknown graves, yet we can rest assured that the echoes of posterity will render their deeds illustrious.
And now, as I look back on the past and recall to mind your trials and sufferings—which will be forgotten—I am sure the world will not forget that your valor merited a success which is better now than to have achieved it.
FOOTNOTES
[1] A fête given by Maj. André in Philadelphia, May, 1778, in honor of Sir William Howe.
[2] "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." (Lev. xxv. 10.)
[3] Newspaper cuttings.
[4] August 31, 1898. Raynolds and Auger are now at rest, and four remain. April, 1899, Gen. J. J. Reynolds has passed over the river.
[5] It is also reported that the first message over the line, sent by a young lady, was: "What hath God wrought!" The Professor did not mention this, and this dispatch was sent over the ocean cable years later.