eventful revolution you have been fully tried, and now retire with the consciousness of having achieved a character for discipline, for valor, and for unselfish patriotism, of which you may be justly proud.
There is nothing in your career to look back upon with regret. You have always been in front of the enemy; you have never feasted in soft places at the rear, nor fought your battles at comfortable firesides. Your banners are garlanded with the emblems of every soldierly virtue; more than twenty battle-fields have seen them unfurled; they were never lowered save over the bier of a comrade.
Forget not the good and true men who have fallen. No sculptured marble may perpetuate the memory of their services; but you will wear their names ever green in your hearts, and they will be enshrined forever in the affections of the Southern people, in whose cause they fell.
Comrades! henceforth other duties will devolve upon you. Adversities can only strengthen the ties that bind you to your country, and increase the obligations you owe to her interests and her honor. As soldiers, you have been amongst the bravest and most steadfast; and, as citizens, be law-abiding, peaceable, and industrious.
You have not surrendered, and will never surrender your self-respect and love of country.
You separate not as friends, but brethren, whom common hopes, mutual trials, and equal disasters have made kinsmen.
Hereafter you shall recount to your children with conscious pride the story of these rugged days, and you will always greet a comrade of the old brigade with open arms.
Having commanded a company and regiment in the brigade, I have known many of you from the very beginning of the struggle; have been with you through all its varied fortunes, and offer to each one of you a grateful and affectionate farewell.
May God bless you.
R. L. Gibson,
