Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War by Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
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Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts >> Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War
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And the women refugees from the Border States suffered in addition, the
cutting off of news from those they left behind them. Letters went by
chance messengers through the lines, or around by Liverpool, England,
and finally, by special indulgence, in one-page missives, unsealed,
by flag-of truce, via Newport News and Norfolk, Va.
Sometimes months of silence elapsed. Oftener the letters were lost.
In many cases they straggled in after two, or three years.
Forty-four years have dragged their slow lengths since the last
roll-call. We, the survivors and descendants, have buckled on the
armor of faithfulness and are honoring the memory of our martyred
heroes. We are rearing monuments to perpetuate their deeds of valor.
We are cleaning their revered names from aspersion. We are striving to
educate the generations to come in the true history of their marvelous
struggle for the inalienable rights of every free-born American. How
sublime that struggle! How undaunted their attitude! How unsurpassed
their fortitude amid the upheaval of their colossal ruin! The conquered
banner's tattered folds hang on the wall her standard-bearer lies in the
dust--the sod is green above the heads of her valiant leaders--her rank
and file sleep in many an unknown grave. _We_ are in the cooling
valleys of peace, where refreshing lies, and above us waves the flag of
the old, old Union our people once loved so well. So mote it be. We were
loyal to the powers that were; we are loyal to the powers that be. Good
citizenship is now, as ever, the watchword of the South. We do not
forget our martyrs. Upon our devoted heads rests this sacred duty of
consecration. Let us cling together in a cause so noble. Let us merge
all thought of self in the glorious work that lies before us.
And what of our beautiful, our historic southland about which the halo
of poesy so lovingly lingers? Nature and man have wrought a mighty
restoration. Through the grand old States of Virginia and South
Carolina, whose annals contain names which will ever adorn the pages
of history, down into the prosperous States of Georgia, Alabama, and
Mississippi, through Louisiana, unrivaled in fertility, on to the vast
expanse of Texas, whose coming wealth and power may not be measured,
there arise prophetic voices from field, forest, mine, and workshop,
fortelling the grand stirring into life of extended commerce,
enterprise, and capital. Her products have increased and multiplied in
kind and in variety, till we hear in the Senate chamber of Congress
an eloquent plea for the protection of her interests in the country's
political economy. We hear from the lips of the Kentucky Senator
a full recognition of our worth, our greatness and alas! the tardy
acknowledgement of our _rights_.
These beautiful States are swept by the ocean and mountain winds,
and nurtured by the glowing sun and gentle rains. The palmetto and the
cypress and the lordly live oak, stand above the glowing orange grove
and fragrant magnolia bloom, and the grey moss on the trees, wearing the
uniform of the men in grey, wafts a solemn requiem above their narrow
beds. The light of prosperity spreads transcendent radiance over the
land. The throb of commercial triumph pulsates in the hum of the
factory, in the smelting furnace, and ascends in the soft twilight from
the rich furrows of her incomparable fields; while the salt sea billows,
as they rock her shipping, and dash against pier and wharf, add their
exultant voices in prophecy of still greater prosperity.
May advancing wealth rebuild her mansions and fill her coffers, and
fittingly crown the efforts of her ambition, and of her genius. May she
never lose the aspirations that have made her people through sunshine
and storm, a lofty and noble race.
E.D. POTTS.