Here, by the grave of his intrepid comrade, Henry Peyton reviews
the past four years. His scars and wasted frame tell him of many
a deadly fray, and the dangers of the insane fight for State rights.
The first proud days of the war return. Hopes that have failed
long since are remembered. The levy and march to the front, the
thousand watch-fires glittering around the unbroken hosts, whose
silken-bordered banners tell of the matchless devotion of the
women clinging blindly to the cause.
Peyton thinks now of the loved and lost who bore those flags,
to-day furled forever, to the front, at Bull Run, Shiloh, the Seven
Days, Groveton, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Chickamauga, and
Spottsylvania.
The foreign friends in Europe, the daring rovers of the sea
who carried the Stars and Bars from off New York to Singapore and
far Behring Straits. What peerless leaders. Such deep, sagacious
statesmen. The treasures of the rich South, the wealth of King
Cotton, all wasted uselessly. A popular devotion, which deeply
touched the magnanimous Grant in the supreme hour of victory, has
been lavished on the altar of the Confederacy where Davis, Lee,
and Jackson were enthroned. Fallen gods now, but still majestic
and yet revered.
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