sectional dictation. There is something better than peace; that is
liberty. There is something dearer than a people's life; that is a
people's manhood. The South wanted no war; had prepared for no war;
and had but few arms, no navy, few factories and railroads. With a
small population, she was cut off by an effective blockade from the
rest of the world. The Northern States had the national army, navy,
treasury and flag, and all Europe from which to draw soldiers and
supplies.
The South, after mustering every able-bodied man, could enroll, in
all, but 600,000 soldiers, while she fought 2,600,000.
Never was there
a war continued for four years at such fearful odds. And yet Richmond,
the Confederate capital, almost in sight of Washington, was only
captured when Sherman and Sheridan, the modern Atillas, had flanked it
with walls of fire, and pillaged the country in its rear. Never has
there been a war in which the weaker so long and so effectually held
the stronger at bay or so often defeated them on the field of battle;
never a war in which the valor of the finally vanquished was so
respected by foes and so universally applauded by the world. The
mention of no battle, from Manassas to Appomattox, from Shiloh to
Franklin, brings a blush to the Confederate soldier. The world
congratulates the Federal soldier on his pension and the Confederate
soldier on his valor. The surrender of Lee's 7,800 to Grant's 130,000
and the roll of 357,679 Federal soldiers living to-day in the Grand
Army of the Republic measure the odds against us. The reduction of the
Federal forces to 1,500,000 during the war and the present pension
roll of 800,000 tell our work. Our poor South was never vanquished.
Her sad fate was simply to be worn out, starved out, burned out, to
die out.
Generously, but truthfully, did Professor Worseley, of England, in his
poem on Robert E. Lee, say of the ill-fated Confederacy,
"Thy Troy is fallen, thy dear land Is marred beneath the spoiler's heel;
I cannot trust my trembling hand
To write the things I feel.
"Ah, realm of tombs! but let her bear This blazon to the end of times;
No nation rose so white and fair
Or fell so pure of crimes."
After the surrender a poor Southern soldier was wending his way down
the lane over the "red old hills of Georgia." His old gray jacket that
his wife had woven and his mother made, was all tattered and torn; the
old greasy haversack and cedar canteen hung by his side.
From under
his bullet-pierced hat there beamed eyes that had seen many a
battlefield. Said one of his neighbors: "Hello, John; the Yankees
whipped you, did they?" "No, we just wore ourselves out whipping
them." "Well, what are you going to do now, John?" "Why, I'm going
home, kiss Mary, and make a crop and get ready to whip
'em again."
That "Mary" is our theme to-day. Others have told of Confederate
soldiers on the battlefield. God help me to tell of the soldier's
"other-self" behind the battlefield. The brave Southern army was
defending home. The arm of the hero is nerved by his heart, and the
heart of John was Mary, and Mary was the soul of the South. In peace
woman was the queen of that Arcadia which God's blessings made our
sunny land, and never has there been a war in which her enthusiasm
was so intense and her heroic cooperation so conspicuous. Her
effectual and practical work in the departments of the commissary, the
quartermaster and the surgeon, and her magic influence at home and on
the spirit of the army, were something wonderful. The Federal General
Atkins, of Sherman's army, said to a Carolina lady: "You women keep up
this war. We are fighting you. What right have you to expect anything
from us?"
And yet in all she was woman,--nothing but woman. "And the Lord said
it is not good for man to be alone; I will make a help-meet for him."
In Paradise she was the rib of man's side; in Paradise lost she bears
woman's heavy share of his labors and his fate. The history of the
South of 1861 will go down to the centuries with its immortal lesson
that woman's power is greatest, her work most beneficent and her
career most splendid when she moves in the orbit assigned her by
Heaven as the help-meet of man. It is the glory of Southern life and
society that with us woman is no "flaring Jezebel" but our own modest
Vashti.
Thank God the Confederate woman was no Lady Macbeth, plotting treason
for the advancement of her husband; but the loyal daughter Cordelia,
clinging to her old father Lear in his wrongs; no fanatical Catherine
de Medici, thirsting for Huguenot blood, but the sweet Florence
Nightingale, hovering over the battlefield with,
"The balm that drops on wounds of woe, From woman's pitying eye,"
and making the dying bed of the patriot feel "soft as downy pillows
are." She was no Herodias, calling for the head of an enemy, but the
humble Mary, breaking the alabaster box to anoint the martyr of her
cause; weeping at His cross and watching at His grave.
She was no
fierce Clytimnestra, but the loving Antigone leading the blind old
Oedipus, or digging the grave of her brother Polynices; no Amazon
Camilla, "_Agmen agens equitum et florentes aere catervas_," but the
Roman Cornelia, proud of her jewel Gracchi sons, and laying them upon
the altar of her country; no Helen, heartless in her beauty, but the
gentle Creusa, following her husband to be crushed in the ruins of her
ill-fated Troy; no cruel Juno, seeking revenge for wounded pride, but
a pure Vesta, keeping alive the fires of American patriotism; no
Charlotte Corday, plunging a dagger into the heart of the tyrant
Marat, but the calm Madame Roland, under the guillotine of the
Jacobins, raised to sever her proud but all womanly head, and crying
to her countrymen, "Oh, Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy
name!" Who begrudges a moment for the record of her patriotic services
and unremitting toil? Who does not see in her a glorious lesson?
Thank God! the clash of arms has long ago ceased. The temple of Janus
is closed. But the war of pens, the contest of history, is upon us.
For years Southern women had been written down as soulless ciphers or
weakling wives, dragged by reckless husbands into an unholy cause.
Text books of so-called history, teeming with such falsehoods, have
been thrust even into Southern schools. It is high time to protest.
Before God we tell them our mothers were not dupes, but women; they
and our men were not rebels, but patriots, obedient to every law,
loyal to every compact, State and National, of their country; true,
gloriously true, to every lesson taught by Washington and Jefferson,
and moved by every impulse that has made this country great.
But there must be no gall in the inkstand of history. No man can
justly record the truth of the Confederate war who has not risen above
the passions and prejudices incident to such terrible convulsions. No
man with malice to the North can write justly of the South. No man can
appreciate our great Jefferson Davis, who can see nothing good in
President Lincoln. No man can describe the glory of Lee and Jackson,
who shuts his eyes to the soldiership of McClellan, the patriotism of
Hancock, the generosity of Grant, and the knighthood of McPherson and
Custer.
But don't let us go too far in this direction. We might fall into the
other extreme of hypocritical "gush." Let us be careful; yea, honest.
About the best we could do in war times is well shown in the
preaching of a good old Alabama country Baptist preacher in the darker
days of the war. He was a thorough Southerner and "brim full of
secesh," as we used to say, and at the same time a devout Christian.
He was of the old-fashioned type and talked a little through his nose.
His text was the great day when the good people will be gathered to
Heaven from the four corners of the world. Warming up to his theme he
said: "And oh, my brethren,--ah; in the day of redemption the redeemed
of the Lord will come flocking from the four corners of the
earth,--ah! They will come from the East on the wings of the
morning,--ah! I hear them shouting Hallelujah, as they strike their
harps of gold--ah! And they'll come from the West shouting Hosanna in
the highest,--ah! and you'll see them coming in crowds from the
South,--ah; with palms of victory in their hands, ah!
And they'll come
from the,--well, I reckon may be a few of them will come from the
North." Oh that's about the way men, women and children down South
felt for twenty years. But, we've moved up on that.
Christians grow in
grace, you know. The war is over. There are no enemies now. We now
believe a great many will come from the North. Our old preacher would
not now have a misgiving about all four of the corners.
A few weeks after the surrender of Vicksburg, a large number of sick
paroled Confederate soldiers were sent home on a Federal steamer by
way of New Orleans and Mobile. The speaker was among them. He had been
promoted to the chaplaincy of the Thirtieth Alabama Regiment and soon
found himself strong enough at least to bury the dead as our poor
fellows dropped away every day. The Federal guard on the boat was
under command of Lieutenant Winslow, of Massachusetts, and a nobler
and bigger hearted soldier never wore a sword. Between New Orleans and
Mobile it was necessary to bury our dead in the Gulf.
Having no
coffins the Federal lieutenant and the Confederate chaplain would lay
the body, wrapped in the old blanket or quilt, on a plank and then
bind it with ropes and, fastening heavy irons to the feet, we would
gently lower it and let it sink down, down in the briny deep, the
cleanest grave man ever saw. The Northern lieutenant not only took off
his cap and bowed in reverence when the Confederate chaplain prayed,
but with his own hands assisted in all the details of every burial. So
let the North and the South together bury the dead animosities of the
past, take the corpse of bitter falsehood, the prolific mother of
prejudice and hatred, bind it with the cords of patriotism and sink it
into the ocean of oblivion. But publish the truth. The truth lives and
ought to live. Truth never does harm; but, with God and man, it is the
peace angel of reconciliation. Let the testimony be the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth and our people will abide by it
and every patriot will welcome the verdict.
Who were the women of 1861? My old Tennessee father used to teach me
that there is a great deal more in the stock of people than there is
in horses. Blood will tell. These women were the direct descendants of
those bold, hardy Englishmen, who, under John Smith, Lord Delaware,
Lord Baltimore and General Oglethorpe made settlements on the Southern
shores and those who, from time to time, were added to their colonies.
They were broad men, bringing broad ideas. They came, not because they
were driven out of England, but because they wanted to come to
America; who thought it no sin to bring the best things of old
England, and give them a new and better growth in the new world; who
first gave the new world trial by jury and the election of governors
by popular vote. English cavaliers who knew how to be gentlemen, even
in the forest. This was the leading blood. From time to time it was
made stronger by a considerable addition of Scotch and Scotch-Irish
and an occasional healthful cross with the very best people of the
North, more soulful and impulsive by some of the blood of Ireland, and
more vivacious by the French Huguenot in the Carolinas and the Creole
in Louisiana. There thus grew up a new English race--
English, but not
too English; English but American-English blood, of which old England
is proud to-day. With little or no immigration for many years from
other people, this blood under our balmy sun produced a race of its
own--a Southern people, as Klopstock says of the sweet strong language
of Germany, "Gesondert, ungemischt und nur sich selber gleich."
Distinct, unmixed and only like itself.
This was the blood that made America great, the blood from which the
South gave her Washington and so many men like Henry, Jefferson,
Madison and Monroe; that out of seventy-two first years of this
Republic furnished the President for fifty-two years; the Chief
Justice all the time, and the leaders of Senates and of Cabinets; the
blood of Calhoun and Clay and Lowndes and Pinkney and Benton and
Crawford; Cobb and Berrien, Hall and Jenkins, Toombs and Stevens; the
blood that produced our Washington, Sumter and Marion to achieve our
independence of Great Britain; Scott and Jackson to fight the war of
1812, Clark and Jackson to conquer from the Indians all the splendid
country between the mountains and the Mississippi, and Taylor and
Scott to win vast territories from Mexico.
This was the blood that so often showed how naturally and gracefully a
Southern woman could step from a country home to adorn the White House
at Washington; the blood that made the South famous for its women,
stars at the capital and at Saratoga; favorites in London and Paris;
and queenly ladies in their homes, whether that home was a log cabin
in the forest or a mansion by the sea. It was common for Northern and
European people to praise the taste of Southern women, especially in
matters of dress. They did have remarkable taste in dressing, for they
had a form to dress and a face to adorn that dress.
Neither war nor
poverty could mar their grace of form nor beauty of face.
It is said of the great Bishop Bascomb, of the Southern Methodist
Church, that, in the early years of his ministry, he was so
handsome and graceful in person, and so neat in his dress, that a
great many of his brethren were prejudiced against him as being
what they called "too much of a dandy." For a long time the young
orator was sent on mountain circuits to bring him down to the level of
plain old-fashioned Methodism. It was proposed to one of his
mountain members who was very bitter about the preacher's fine
clothes that he give Bascomb a suit of homespun. The offer was
gladly accepted, and on the day for Bascomb's appearance in the
plain clothes the old brother was early on the church grounds to
glory in having made the city preacher look like other folks. Imagine
his chagrin when Bascomb walked up, looking in homespun as he looked
in broadcloth, an Apollo in form and a Brummel in style.
"Well I do
declare!" said the old man. "Go it, brother Bascomb; I give it up; It
ain't your clothes that's so pretty, it's jist you." So our
Southern women were just as charming in the shuck hats and home-made
cotton dresses of 1864, as in the silks and satins of 1860.
But by their fruits ye shall know them. Walk with me on the streets of
Richmond and Charleston. Go with me to any of our country churches
throughout these Southern States and I will show you, among the many
poor daughters of these women, that same classic face that tells of
the blood in their veins. Go with me back to the Confederate army and
you will see in such generals as the Lees, Albert Sidney Johnston,
Breckinridge, Toombs, the Colquitts, Gordon, Evans, Gracie, Jeb.
Stuart, Price, Hampton, Tracy, Ramseur, Ashby and thousands of private
soldiers that face and form that tell of the knightly blood in the
veins of the mothers that bore them.
South Georgia is to be congratulated that in the Confederate monument
recently unveiled at Cuthbert, the artist has at least given what is
sadly lacking in other Confederate monuments to private soldiers, the
genuine face of the Southern soldier, that face which is a just
compliment to the Confederate mother. The artists who cast some other
monuments in the South had seen too little of Southern people, and had
put on some of our monuments the pug nose and bullet head of other
people.
Our mothers and grandmothers lived mostly in the country, and drank in
a splendid vigor from the ozone of field, and forest, and mountain.
They were trained mostly at home by private teachers or in common
schools run on common sense principles, and in "the old-time
religion," without "isms," fanaticism, or cant. They were taught the
philosophy of life by fathers who thought and manners by mothers who
were the soul of inborn refinement. They thought for themselves, and
indulged no craze for things new, and they aped no foreigners. In
conversation they didn't end every sentence with the interrogation
point, but followed nature and let their voices fall at periods. They
never said "thanks," but in the good old English of Addison and
Goldsmith, said "I thank you." They never spoke of a sweetheart as "my
fellow," and would have scorned such a word as "mash."
They never
walked "arm clutch," nor allowed Sunday newspapers to make five-cent
museums of their pictures. Their entertainments were famous for
elegance and pleasure, but they had no euchre-clubs.
Indeed, we doubt
if many of them ever heard of a woman's club of any kind. They were
fond of "society," but would have had a profound contempt for that
so-called "society" of our day, in which the man is a prince who can
lead the german, spend money for bouquets and part his hair in the
middle. They didn't wear bloomers, nor did many of them ever dress
decolette. They were clothed and in their right mind.
They never
mounted platforms to speak nor pulpits to preach, and yet their
influence and inspiration gave Southern pulpits and platforms a
world-wide fame. Their highest ambition was to be president of home.
They were Southern women everywhere, at home and abroad, in church and
on the streets, in parlor and kitchen, when they rode, when they
walked. Gentle, but brave; modest, but independent.
Seeking no
recognition, the true Southern woman found it already won by her
worth; courting no attention, at every turn it met her, to do willing
homage to her native grace and genuine womanhood.
Now, to appreciate the enthusiasm of such women in the Confederate
war, you must remember that great principles were at stake in that
struggle, and that woman grasps great principles as clearly as man,
and with a zeal known only to herself. See with what prompt intuition
and sober enthusiasm woman received the Christian religion. Martha, of
Bethany, uttered the great keynote of the Christian creed long before
an apostle penned a line. The primitive evangelist Timothy, the
favorite of the great Apostle Paul, was trained by his grandmother
Lois and his mother Eunice; and the pulpit orator Apollos studied at
the feet of Priscilla. The great lamented Dr. Thornwell, of South
Carolina, who was justly called the "John C. Calhoun of the
Presbyterian Church" of the United States, loved to tell it that he
learned his theology from his poor old country Baptist mother. In
politics, as in religion, our mothers may not have read much, and they
talked less, but they heard much and thought the more.
Before the war
the reproach was often hurled at Southern men that they talked
politics. God's true people talked religion from Abel to the invention
of the art of printing. They had a religion to talk. Our fathers did
talk politics, for, thank God, they had politics worth talking--not
the picayune politics of the demagogue office-seeker of our day; not
the almighty dollar politics of the bloated bond-holder and the
trusts, the one-idea craze of the silver mine-owner, nor the tariff
greed of the manufacturer; not the imported European communism that
would crush one class to build up another, not the wild anarchy that
would pull down everything above it and blast everything around it.
The South was intensely American, and her people loved American
politics and talked American politics. She entered into the
Revolutionary war with all her soul. Southern statesmanship lifted
that struggle from a mere rebellion to a war of nations by manly
secession from Great Britain in North Carolina's declaration of
independence at Mecklenburg. The Philadelphia declaration was drawn up
by the South's Jefferson and proposed by Virginia. This was the great
secession of 1776. To the Revolutionary war the South sent one hundred
out of every two hundred and nine men of military age, while the North
sent one hundred out of every two hundred and twenty-seven. (We quote
from the official report of General Knox, Secretary of War.) Virginia
sent 56,721 men. South Carolina sent 31,000 men, while New York, with
more than double her military population, sent 29,830.
New Hampshire,
with double the population of South Carolina, sent only 18,000. The
little Southern States sent more men in proportion to population than
even Massachusetts and Connecticut, who did their part so well in that
war.
It was Southern politics that proposed the great union of the
sovereign States in 1787. To that union the three States of Virginia,
North Carolina, and Georgia have added out of their own bosoms ten
more great States. These Southern States were the mothers of States,
and most naturally did they talk of States and State's rights.
Southern politics, prevailing in the national councils against the
bitter protests of New England, carried through the war of 1812; added
Florida to the Union, and, by the purchase of Louisiana, all the
Trans-Mississippi valley from the Gulf to Canada. It was Southern
politics against the furious opposition of New England that annexed
Texas, and, by the war with Mexico, brought in the vast territory far
away to the Pacific. The South sent 45,000 volunteers to the Mexican
war; the whole North, with three times the population, sent 23,000.
Thus the South was the mother of territories, and was it not natural
that she should talk of territories and of her rights in the
territories?
In political platforms, in legislative enactments, and notably in the
election of Mr. Lincoln in 1860, the more populous North declared that
the Southern States should be shut out from all share in the
territories bought with common treasure and blood. Our women, a child,
a negro, could see the iniquity of the claim.
The action of the North in regard to national territory was an edict,
too, that the negroes, through no fault of their own, should be shut
up in one little corner of the country.
Then when the South sought the only alternative left her, that of
peaceable secession, her right to go was justified by the terms of
the Constitution; by the distinct understanding among the sovereign
States when they entered the Union, more directly insisted and put on
record by the three States of Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island
than any other State; by the secession convention of New England in
the war of 1812; by the Northern secession convention in Ohio in 1859
and the reiterated declarations of Henry Ward Beecher, and by Wendell
Phillips, and Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison and the other