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ADDRESS TO EX-CONFEDERATES

BY

ROBERT L. TAYLOR

Robert Love Taylor, twice governor of Tennessee and afterwards United States Senator. One of the most popular platform speakers of his day. Called affectionately by his friends "Our Bob." The following is an adaptation of an address delivered at an Ex-Confederate reunion on June 24, 1897, together with utterances on other occasions.

I love to live in the land of Dixie, under the soft Southern skies, where summer pours out her flood of sunshine and showers, and the generous earth smiles with plenty. I love to live on Southern soil, where the cottonfields wave their white banners of peace, and the wheatfields wave back their banners of gold from the hills and valleys which were once drenched with the blood of heroes. I love to live where the mocking-birds flutter and sing in the shadowy coves, and bright waters ripple in eternal melody by the graves where our heroes are buried. I love to breathe the Southern air, that comes filtered through jungles of roses, whispering the story of Southern deeds of bravery. I love to drink from Southern springs, and Southern babbling brooks, which once cooled the lips of Lee and Jackson and Forrest and Gordon, and the worn and weary columns of brave men who wore the gray. I love to live among Southern men and women, where every heart is as warm as the

Southern sunshine, and every home is a temple of love and liberty.

I love to listen to the sweet old Southern melodies, which touch the soul, and melt the heart, and awaken to life ten thousand precious memories of the happy long ago, when the old-time darkeys used to laugh and sing, and when the old-time black "mammy" soothed the children to sleep with her lullabies. But, oh, the music that thrills me most, is the melody that died away on the lips of many a Confederate soldier, as he sank into the sleep that knows no waking

"I'm glad I am in Dixie."

I doubt if the world will ever see another civilization as brilliant as that which perished in the South nearly half a century ago. Its white columned mansions under cool spreading groves, its orange trees waving their sprays of snowy blossoms, its cotton-fields stretching away to the horizon, alive with toiling slaves who sang as they toiled from early morn until the close of day; its pomp and pride and revelry; its splendid manhood and the dazzling beauty of its women, placed it in history as the high tide of earthly glory. But the hurricane of civil war shattered it and swept it away. Billions of wealth dissolved, and vanished in smoke and flame. The South lost all save honor. But the Confederate soldier, the purest and proudest type of the Anglo-Saxon race, stood erect amid its charred and blackened ruins. The earth was red beneath him, the sky was black above him, his sword was broken, his country was crushed. Though without a throne, he was

no less a ruler; though his palace had perished, he was no less a king.

Slavery was dead. But, magnificent in the gloom of defeat, he was still master. Has he not mastered adversity? Has he not rebuilt the ruined South? Look yonder at those flashing domes and glittering spires; look at the works of art and all the fabrics and pictured tapestries of beauty. Look what Southern brains and Southern hands have wrought. See the victories of peace we have won, and you will receive an inspiration of the old South, and you will catch glimpses of her future glory.

I trust in God that the struggles of the future will be the struggle of peace and not of war. The hand of secession will never be lifted again.

The danger to the republic now lies in the mailed hand of centralized power, and the South will yet be the bulwark of American liberty. If you ask me why, I answer, it is the only section left which is purely American; I answer that anarchy cannot live on Southern soil; I answer that the South has started on a new line of march, and while we love the past for its precious memories, our faces are turned toward the morning. Time has furled the battle-flags, and smelted the hostile guns. Time has torn down the forts, and leveled the trenches and rifle-pits on the bloody field of glory, where courage and high-born chivalry on prancing chargers once rode to the front with shimmering epaulets and bright swords gleaming; where thousands of charging bayonets, at uniform angles, reflected thousand of suns; where the shrill fife screamed, and the kettle-drum timed the heavy tramp, tramp, of the shin

ing battalions, as the infantry deployed into battle line, and disappeared in the seething waves of smoke and flame; where double shotted batteries unlimbered on the bristling edge, and hurled fiery vomit into the faces of the reeling columns; where ten thousand drawn sabers flashed, and ten thousand calvary hovered for a moment on the flank, and then rushed to the dreadful revelry.

The curtain dropped long ago upon these mournful scenes of carnage, and time has beautified, and comforted, and healed until there is nothing left of war but graves and garlands, and monuments and veterans and precious memories. Blow, bugler, blow, but thy shrillest notes can never again call the matchless armies of Grant and Lee to the carnival of death. Let the silver trumpets sound the jubilee of peace; let the veterans shout who wore the blue. Let them kiss the silken folds of the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, and fling it to the breeze, and sing the national hymn. Let the veterans bow who wore the gray, and with uncovered head salute the national flag. It is the flag of the inseparable union. Let them clasp hands with the brave men who wore the blue, and rejoice with them, for time hath adorned the ruined South, and robed her fields in rich harvests, and gilded her skies with brighter stars of hope. But who will scorn or frown to see the veterans of the South's shattered armies, scattered now like solitary oaks in the midst of a fallen forest, hoary with age, and covered with scars, sometimes put on the old worn and faded gray, and unfurl for a little while that other banner, the riddled and blood-stained stars and bars, to look upon it, and weep over it. For it is

hallowed with recollections, tender as the soldier's last farewell.

They followed it amid the earthquake throes of Shiloh, where Albert Sydney Johnston died; they followed it amid the floods of living fire at Chancellorsville where Stonewall Jackson fell; they saw it flutter in the gloom of the Wilderness where the angry divisions and corps. rushed upon each other, and clinched and fell, and rolled together in the bloody mire; they rallied around it at Gettysburg, where it waved above the bayonets, mixed and crossed on those dread heights of destiny; they saw its faded color flaunt defiance for the last time at Appomattox, and then go down forever in a flood of tears. Then who will upbraid them if they sometimes bring it to light, sanctified and glorified as it is by the blood and tears of the past, and wave it again in the air, and sing once more their old war-songs?

"When these heads are white with glory,
And the shadows from the west,
Lengthen as you tell your story,
In the vet'ran's ward to rest,
May no ingrate's word of sneering
Reach one heart of all the brave,
But may honor, praise, and cheering,
Guard Old Valor to the grave."

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