[THE OLD SOUTH.]
BY D. H. HILL.
Comrades of the Society of the Army and Navy of the Confederate States in the State of Maryland:
Ladies and Gentlemen:—Years and years ago, "the time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary," I was a subaltern artillery officer in the United States Army. There was great striving with the young lieutenants of that day to be stationed at Fort McHenry, for they said that everybody in the world knew that the most beautiful and graceful ladies in the solar system were in the city near by. I give this as a reminiscence of the long-ago, and not as a piece of flattery, or as an endorsement of the astronomical opinions of the lieutenants of artillery of that prehistoric period.
But to-day, the battle-scarred veterans all over the South pay a higher and grander tribute than that to the mere beauty and grace of the ladies of the present generation, when they tell with tearful eyes and husky voices of the kindness and sympathy shown them while they were hungry, ragged, sick, and suffering prisoners of war. In all ages of the world poetry and song have embalmed the ministrations of mercy of the beautiful to the brave; but these offices of charity rise into the sublime, when the gentle ministrants receive scorn, contumely, and contempt for their gracious deeds to the friendless, the hated and the despised. May God bless the noble women of Baltimore forever and forever more.
But there came a time when my people owed a still deeper debt of gratitude to your generous city. It was the time of the gentle fanning of spring breezes, of the rustling of the new-born leaves on the trees, of the wafting of perfumery from buds and flowers, of the busy humming of freshly-awakened insect life, of the gladsome singing and love-wooing of birds. The booming of cannon and the ringing of church bells told of the rejoicing of twenty-five millions of people over a restored Union. There was a gladness everywhere but in the eleven States scorched and withered by the hot blasts of war. Lee had surrendered, and sorrow had filled the hearts of those stern warriors who had battled for four years with the world in arms. But the grief of surrender had turned into sullen despair, when they came back in this joyous springtime to their suffering families to find desolation and destruction everywhere; blackened ruins marked the sites of the stately mansions of once lordly planters; the fields, once white with the world's greatest staple, were now fenceless and unplowed; "the fig-tree had not blossomed, neither was there fruit in the vine; the labor of the olive had failed, and the fields yielded no meat; the flocks had been cut off from the folds, and there were no herds in the stalls"; the cities were without business, trade, and commerce; and grass was growing in the streets of the villages almost deserted of inhabitants. "The elders had ceased from the gates, the young men from their music (yea, the best and the bravest of them filled bloody graves). The joy of their heart had ceased, and their dances had been turned into mourning. The crown had fallen from the head of their beautiful Southland, and the Lord of Hosts had seemed to cover himself with a thick cloud so that the prayers of widows and orphans could not pass through."
It was at this time, when our whole people were shrouded with a pall of gloom and anguish, and absolute starvation was imminent in many places, that the generous heart of your city throbbed with one simultaneous pulsation of pity. Then both sexes, all classes and conditions, friends and foes alike, forgetting political and sectional differences, vied with one another in sending relief to the afflicted South.
In the name of my countrymen, thus rescued from despair and death, I invoke the blessings of Almighty God upon the heads of their deliverers, whatever be their religious creed or political faith; whatever be the skies of their nativity or their opinion of the righteousness or unrighteousness of the Southern cause.