fearless miens of sleeping braves from Oak Hills to Gettysburg. They are in the valley of the Mississippi and to their memories the great father of waters will mingle a hoarse, deep dirge with the tolling bells of floating steamers, while commerce shall gather the rich fruits of their labors. They are among the hills of Georgia, and the sweet, winding Etowah shall hymn their requiem as long as the iron mountain, around whose base she pours her waters, shall remain. And Virginia-unrivaled old mother-holds them, to-day, all over her great, wide bosom, and there she will ever hold them, richer in them alone than India with her treasures and prouder than Egypt lifting her changeless pyramids to the skies!

And what is it so richer than wealth, so dearer than home and wife and children, so more valued than ease and health and life that for it the true, brave soldier is willing to lose all, and endure and suffer and toil and fight and die, and never falter? It is that without which there can be no enjoyment in wealth, no home for family, no safety in ease and no pleasure in life. It is the honor and independence of our country! And do you suppose that these gallant heroes, who have lost so much, who have endured so much, who have suffered so much, and who have buried so many, and all to maintain that honor and independence, will tamely agree that you, who never felt the Sirocco breath of this war's wild blast, shall now surrender all national honor and independence forever? Will they agree that you shall say all their privations have been endured in the cause of treason? Will they, at your bidding, lay down their arms and, like penitent felons, trust the enemy they have been fighting for pardon? Will they ever consent that you, taking the friendly hand of the enemy who slew them, shall go over the fields of Manassas

and Fredericsburg, Shiloh and Chickamauga and write above the graves of their comrades who are resting there that blackest of libels-"Traitors lie here"? Will Georgia write that epitaph for Bartow and Cobb and her thousands of sons who have fought and died to illustrate her honor? Will Virginians write it for Jackson? Whose hand shall write it and not be paralyzed? Whose tongue shall utter it and not grow speechless? Who will bear the message to those foreign nations who are carving statues and erecting monuments to his memory, to forbear the unholy work of perpetuating the name and features of a traitor? But even if the army could endure all this and lay down their arms, think you they would not grasp them again when they should see that nobler than Brutus that purer than Cromwell and that greater than Washington, the glorious Lee, led up to the prison-stand to receive the sentence of an inveterate or the pardon of a penitent culprit, from the mouth of such a jester as Lincoln? Enough! Away with the thought of peace on such terms. 'Tis the wildest dream that restless ambition or selfish avarice or slinking cowardice could conjure in the highest flights of the most anguished imaginings. The day you make friends with the enemy on such terms you will make eternal enemies of your own brave sons and brothers who have been defending you against that enemy's malice. You will have an enemy in every household, a battle at every fireside, and a war that will blight your fields and curse the land with horror forever.

For glory is the soldier's prize,

The soldier's wealth is honor.

-Benj. H. Hill.

[Extract from an address delivered at LaGrange, Georgia, on

March 11, 1865.]

THE HEROISM OF THE FLOYD RIFLES.

It is written of Pericles that, when he was to speak in public, his solicitude was such that he first addressed a prayer to the gods, that not a word might escape his lips unsuitable to the occasion. This solicitude oppresses me to-night, and gladly would I consult some Delphic oracle as to my form of speech and my duty on this occasion, for doubtless you intended that this should be a gala evening a fitting termination of the interesting exercises of your thirty-eighth anniversary. Yet, when I heard the roll-call of those who went out to battle; when I recall the names of the missing ones, who are sleeping in Virginia's consecrated soil, in your own beautiful "City of the Dead," and upon historic battle-fields; when I read the inscription upon the badge of honor to be presented here; when I remember it has been donated by one of your company who survived the carnage of Gettysburg, as a testimonial of the chivalric bearing and gallant charge of that company in that memorable struggle, a burden of memories oppress the soul. The sunshine of anticipated pleasure is darkened by the cloud of sad recollections, and the expected joy is transformed and sublimed to the realization of emotions too sorrowful to utter, yet too sacred to renounce. The Past is being reviewed by the Present, and as the solemn retrospect passes with its grand pageantry of thrilling events and battle scenes, imagination, "heedless of the voice," of inspiration, is absorbed in the grandeur of the display, while memory hushes her sorrowsong, and witnesses the review, with brows jeweled with the tear-drops of affection, and a heart embalmed with

the richest incense of love. These notes of sadness, intermingling with the joyful lyrics you expected to hear, may produce unpleasant discord, but the harp would breathe unnatural music now whose tremulous strings did not vibrate with the sad harmonies that stir my soul. Not only does Gettysburg rise before me-the shadows of death upon her hills, their sides crimsoned with patriot blood-but other hard-fought fields, in quick succession, pass before memory's eye, upon which the star of Confederate hope

"Changed like the changeful moon,

That each night varies, hardly now perceived,

And now she shows her bright horn; by degrees
She fills her orb with light.

*

* She then begins once more

To waste her glories, 'till dissolved and lost

She sinks again to darkness."

And I again survey those fields, furrowed by the warshod steps of Mars, where

"The clang of arms,

The shriek of agony, the groan of death,
In one wild uproar, shook the air."

That army has passed away-scattered like autumnal leaves-yet the glory of its deeds has left a brilliant reflex upon the pages of history, while he who led it in victory or defeat now sleeps on "fame's eternal camping-ground.” "Peace to his large and noble dust," as it mingles with the sands that cover Virginia's own Washington and Jackson. In all the elements of greatness he was truly great. With the nobility of his nature and the grandeur of his charac

ter were mingled the gentleness of Christian humility— the ineffable beauty of Christian devotion. Others were great, but the light of their fame pales before the sunlike splendor of his glory. Carthage had her Hannibal, Macedon her Alexander, France her Napoleon, England her Wellington, yet the nineteenth century has fixed in the Southern heavens this "day star from on high," of Christian heroism, which, covering them with its glory and filling the earth with its brilliancy, will shine on and on "down the ages," undimmed by the lapse of time, unclouded by the mist of years. If he was great in prosperity, he was truly noble in adversity, and never was his moral greatness so imposing as when the grand old chieftain, surrounded by his battle-scarred warriors, sheathed his trenchant blade, and, folding his arms across his manly breast, gave his last command: "Furl your banners and stack your arms."

Never had heroes such a leader, and never had a leader men more patient under hardships, more patriotic in purpose, more chivalric in bearing, more heroic in danger. Truly may it be said: they made laurels for commanding generals; and believe me, the patriotic women of Augusta properly appreciated the worth of the private soldier, when upon the monument erected to the memory of their Confederate dead, though they surmounted its base by the statutes of four of our leading generals, upon its top, high over all, they placed a private soldier, the crowning ornament of the monumental shaft. Yes, these were they who made your armies illustrious, and gained for officers honors and renown. To them be never-ending gratitude undying honor.