54 Southern Historical Society Papers.
orators and captains crowned with victory or sanctified by misfor- tune? Is she not made of the brilliance of our cities, the charm of our villages of the soil, which covers the remains of our predeces- sors, of an industry whose power is miraculous, and of the earth which the workmen render fruitful ? She is all this ; the thought of her fills and possesses us, it makes our hearts beat, it uplifts our souls and dominating us, allows this high creation to be great in the world and respected.
A nation may succumb to force, but when her honor remains eternal hope and lofty thoughts are not forbidden her if her children, "The Trustees of Posterity," the best asset of a State, cherish piously the cult of their country and the religion of their parents.
Old man Carlyle laughed until hoarse when it was read to him that the mob of New York city, resisting the draft of 1863, hanged negroes to lamp posts, while Lincoln and Stanton were proclaiming the war as waged for freedom. What irony! Alas, what destiny! Alas, the deep damnation of their taking off.
Wordsworth said of the persistency of the Spaniards against Napoleon :
"That when a people are called suddenly to fight for their liberty, and are sorely pressed upon, their best field of battle is the floors upon which their children have played, the chambers where the family of each man has slept upon, or under the roofs by which they have been sheltered, in the gardens of their recreation, in the streets, or in the market place, before the altars of their temples, and among their congregated dwellings, blazing or uprooted."
This is our Saints' day two score and three years ago amid the tangled undergrowth at Chancellorsville, the wound which released his noble soul was inflicted. Never did the death of one man exer- cise such influence upon a nascent or established State. Gustavus Adolphus, the Lion of the North, the defender of the Christian religion, the great Turenne, the foremost tactician of his age, taken off by a stray shot these were cruel blows not comparable, how- ever, to the death of that tempestuous Captain, God given, intoxi- cated with his mission. You have marvelled, no doubt, that he should have gone forward beyond his lines, as he did, I bring you the secret. The enemy staggering from the powerful stroke
