staff officer, led the brigade to one of the most brilliant victories of the war; and when we remembered that this was still the residence of Rogers, Humes, the Settles, Goree, Vidor, and others of our surviving comrades, we knew that you would take it ill should we change our resolution; and we are here to-day to accept of your hospitality and to mingle together in social reunion. We are glad to find your city not prostrate and despairing, but still strong and self-reliant. Like Neptune, you have taken your bath in the sea; and though your locks may be dishevelled, you are full of hope and faith in the future; and with such determination as is yours, you will yet scale the walls of adversity, and, like the Venice of old, the city of the Adriatic, Galveston, the metropolis of the new Mediterranean, will receive into her lap the riches of the Orient and rival in wealth and splendor the most renowned cities of ancient or modern times.
FOUR DECADES AGO.
Forty years have passed since the three regiments of Texans, who subsequently became known as "Hood's Brigade," left their native State and went forth to meet the invader and to do battle for the cause they believed to be just on the historic fields of the Old Dominion years full of events; some of sorrow, some of joy, but all filled with hope as our country forged forward in the race of progress. So rapid has been the advance of the achievements of civilization, such the rush and hurry incident to a money-making age, while the old generation has been passing away, and new men, who knew not our fathers of 1861, have taken their places, it is to be feared that we are unmindful of much that added glory to our Commonwealth; we are forgetting much that contributed luster to the name and fame of the Texas soldier. But amid all this change, to us, the survivors of the Lost Cause, nothing has occurred to diminish our pride or dim our eyes to the prowess and splendor of the noble heroes who offered their lives a willing sacrifice upon the altar of their country. I trust I shall be pardoned if I recall on this occasion, at the risk of being considered prosaic and perhaps boastful, some of the events which made the name of the Texas soldier the synonym of heroism throughout the world. And to-day my
