Brigadier-General Robert Toombs. 295
organizer of the grand Army of the Potomac, a captain of lofty impulses, and a civilian of high repute; John McCuUough — possess- ing a, fine conception of, and manifesting a conscientious devotion to, " the purpose of playing whose end both at the first, and now, was and is to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure," ; Richard Grant White — a capable scholar, a conscientious student, and an intelligent interpreter of the immortal lines of the Bard of Avon ; Horatio Seymour — a lover of constitutional liberty, a genuine patriot, and well qualified to fill the chair rendered illustrious by Jefferson and Madison ; Winfield Scott Hancock — a noble type of the warrior and statesman who was " wont to speak plain and to the purpose like an honest man and soldier," whose escutcheon was never smirched even by the breath of suspi- cion ; who, at an epoch of misrule, uncertainty, and oppression, subordinated military despotism to civil rule and accorded fair play to the vanquished; superb in person, head and heart; Father Ryan — the Poet- Priest of the South, who sang so eloquently of the " Sword of Lee," the "Conquered Banner," and of
" The land with a grave in each spot, And names in the graves that shall not be forgot," —
all these, and others scarcely less distinguished, have since our last .annual meeting, passed into the realm of shadows, bequeathing memories of peace and war, state-craft and finance, literature and art, politics and religion, of no ordinary significance. Verily the harvest has been most abundant, and the insatiate Reaper may well pause at sight of the swath his remorseless scythe has made.
Busy too has he been within the circle of our special companion- ship. During the month of May three of our Associates died — Major Frederick L. Smith, of Kershaw's divison, Army of Northern Virginia ; Sergeant-Major Fee Wilson, of Byrne's battery. First Kentucky brigade, and Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph T. Armand, of the Thirty-seventh regiment, Georgia infantry. Private John Gal- lagher, of Company C, Forty-eighth regiment, Georgia infantry, responded to the final summons on the nth of July, and, on the 15th of the following August, our venerable comrade. Brigadier- General Goode Bryan, fell on sleep. A graduate of the Military Academy at West Point, he was an active participant in two wars. For gallantry in the battles of Molino del Rey and Chapultepec he was promoted to a majority in the Army of Occupation. The Mexican campaign
