To begin with, my childhood fancies were much laid hold of by the stories I heard of the original Ku Klux Klan. These stories were told me in my own home. Sometimes in Negro cabins the old darkies would play upon my boyish mind with marvelous tales of the hosts of white-robed horsemen—the souls of the departed soldiers of the great war—who were used to ride up and down the countryside. Sometimes I would imagine these cavalcades passing swiftly and silently, like a white cloud, across the starry heavens. Later, when a more accurate book of knowledge of this strange epoch of American history was opened up to me, I eagerly devoured all the reading I could find pertaining to the subject. Yet the impressions made upon me by the legendary account never entirely lost their force. So, as I grew to manhood, my mind, perhaps overburdened while yet too young, with a sense of the responsibilities of citizenship, made the service of my country a deeply set conviction. I never went very joyously either to my studies or to my active duties. To my generation, as it grew up in the defeated, broken and impoverished South, the problems of life presented heavy tasks rather than stirring issues. We had to make all our beginnings as a people over again. Our mood was much like that of the Puritan founders of New England when they set themselves to struggle against the stern climate and the thin and unfruitful soil of their section. A statement of Robert E. Lee to a member of his staff the day before he surrendered at Appomattox has been more than once my sheet-anchor. "Captain," said our great leader, "I should gladly lay down my life, but it is now my duty to live. The way for me has been hard, very hard—no pathway of duty is easy—only those who have encountered obstacles, faced difficulties, and endured extreme hardships, know how much easier it would be for me to die, than to live in response to the call of duty."
We people of the South lived on. We have tried to do our duty. We have even tried to forget the past, though often it may not seem so to our fellow citizens.
In 1898 it was my privilege to enlist in the glorious service of our reunited country. Of course every youth who then donned the uniform imagined that he would proceed at once to Cuba and do battle for the liberation of that country from the tyranny of the Spanish monarchy. My first evening in camp, under the old flag of the Union, was an experience never to be forgotten. I believe that all of the thousand young men in the Alabama regiment with which I served felt their hearts moved by something of the same great emotion. We were to be under the command of Nelson Miles and Fitzhugh Lee, of Wesley Merritt and Joe Wheeler.
The heat and noise of the day gave way to the soft, warm flush of the evening. Such an evening! Under the clearest of skies and the brightest of stars I stood on guard at midnight. My mind seemed to be so passive, so sensitive, so subjected to the thoughts that rushed out of the universe, from the past and the mysterious present and the unknowable future, to take possession of my soul. I saw my country ennobled by the great task of liberty and of love to which she had set herself on that occasion. United at last! United in a common cause! Reforming a Union which had always existed in the hearts of all, underneath those superficial forces which so long troubled us and kept us apart. And now a great fountain of joy and of pride, pressing from the heart, filled every artery almost to bursting. On that night I first understood my country and saw, emblazoned in the sky, the part to which the Lord of Hosts had called her.
To a young man whose heart is truly enlisted in the issue of a great war, the mighty thrill of the soul is the ultimate experience of life. So is the banner of his country raised aloft. So are his arms consecrated by the deepest impulses of the spirit. Lyric poetry has often exhausted its meters and its music at the altar of the lesser loves. On that strangest of nights I knew that here was a love that makes the heart of youth deny all that comes from self and lift burning eyes to the stars.
Oh my people—soldiers—workers—pioneers—adventurers—saviors—in the four quarters of the earth! Be you—your deeds—your vision,—all in all—imperishable! The world listens to hear the sound of the song you sing upon the march. Somehow I feel and know that you shall live—gloriously—throughout the ages.