now anew tendered their lives, and the history of that moment glorifies the manly courage and gives those who participated in it a place on the brightest page which perpetuated human heroism.
WHEN THE LAST SUN SHONE.
"When the last sun which should ever shine on the Confederate States as an organized nation was lengthening its rays, and finding repose in the mysterious depths of its westward course, and was sending forth a fading but sympathetic light to illumine the sad and dreary scene of a nation's dissolution; when its departing shadows made glorious and immortal the faces of the heroes who, in silent solemnity and reverential awe, looked upon the death throes of the Confederacy, it appeared to those who stood amid the terribleness of that moment to become fixed for an instant, as if to paint in fairest, brightest, and eternal colors the lineaments of those Kentucky and Tennessee cavalrymen, who in that supreme moment remained with its defenceless President.
"Fate denied us victory, but it crowned us with a glorious immortality, and these are some of the leaflets which the cavalry of the Confederate States offer as their contribution to the superb record of patriotism, valor, chivalry, courage and devotion which make up the illustrious volume of Confederate history." As the author does not mention it, I would, in conclusion, ask what men were these who were as ready to serve the President of the dying Confederacy in his darkest hour as when he had benefits and emoluments to bestow? Of what command were they, who were thus faithful even unto the end, and who were the last Confederate troops Mr. Davis was to see before he entered into captivity? Colonel Young may or may not have known it in penning his beautiful panegyric, but it is a matter of history that they belonged to the very command which he ignores while extolling others—viz., the little-appreciated, hard-riding and hard-fighting, ragged and reckless Wheeler's Cavalry.
