CHAPTER XIV.

AN ADDRESS AND A SPEECH.

The Woodbury (Tenn.) _Press_ of September 19, 1878, published the following upon the occasion of the first reunion of the Regiment after the war:

ADDRESS OF ADJUTANT GEORGE B. GUILD.

I rejoice in my heart to meet so many of you. More than thirteen years have passed away since, in the Old North State, by order of superior officers, you laid aside the equipments of war and furled forever the flag you have loved and followed--often in victory, sometimes in disaster, but always in honor and with a soldier’s devotion to duty. It is meet and proper, fellow soldiers, that our reunion should be inaugurated at Woodbury. For here, under these towering hills and along the meanderings of the beautiful little river that laves your green and fertile valleys, were enacted many of the stirring scenes through which the Regiment passed. Here too it was our fortune to have encamped on outpost duty for some time. Who is it that does not remember with the fondest recollection the generous liberality of this hospitable people? Your male population were mostly in the army. The decrepit old men and women were here--God bless them!--and nobly did they extend a helping hand in every possible manner. This is the first opportunity we have had to return to you the thanks of our grateful hearts; and when I do so, I know that I utter the sentiment of every member of the Regiment. Amid all of the vicissitudes through which we afterwards passed, and the dreary years that have gone by since then we have remembered with gratitude, and with a longing for your prosperity and happiness, the good and noble women of this vicinity. In the name of the Regiment, I again extend our heartfelt thanks. It is meet and proper from another view that our inaugural meeting should be at Woodbury; for in this vicinity two of the Regiment’s companies were recruited--Company E, Capt. H. A. Wyly, and Company G, Capt. J. W. Nichol. And while it would be improper to make distinctions when all have acted so well their part, two better companies never answered the bugle call or followed honor’s beckoning. A hundred battle fields have been stained with your blood, and nowhere at any time has the slightest dishonor tarnished your fame as soldiers.

I see around me some of the surviving veterans of these two noble companies, battle-scarred, limbless, with the honors of war thick upon their persons; and it is well and proper that we should meet here amid friends and relatives of such men, to clasp again the friendly hand and open to each other the warm hearts of comrades while we talk of battles lost and won and renew that attachment for each other that germinated and ripened amid scenes that unmistakably told what stuff men are made of. Let this be an inauguration of a meeting together which shall extend through long years to come, having for its object the perpetuation of the truth of history, to preserve unsullied the reputation of the living, and to embalm forever the memory of those gallant spirits who offered their lives a free sacrifice to a cause which was as holy as that which nerved the arms of our Revolutionary sires. Let our children learn of it, so that they may teach their children’s children that to have fought and lost does not necessarily stigmatize their ancestors as traitors. Might is not always right, and “truth crushed to earth will rise again.”

But, fellow soldiers, it is no part of our coming together to discuss the theory of the War between the States--its causes or whether we were right or wrong. “There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” It is a stern fact that war did come and the most stupendous conflict of arms ensued of which modern history gives any account. Suffice it to say at this time that a strong sectional feeling had been engendered between the sections of the country; that it had originated many years before the war; and that it had grown in intensity year after year until 1861, when the war cloud became so heavily charged with angry passion that it burst in all its fury and enveloped the country in a conflict which, besides a million lives, cost an inestimable amount of property and treasure. Some of our sister States had been thoroughly instructed in the doctrine of State sovereignty. They had wrongs, grievous wrongs, to complain of at the hands of the North, which the North refused to remedy. They asked peaceably to retire from the Union of States. The government proposed to coerce them into submission and made her levies for armies upon sister Southern States for the purpose of whipping them into the Union. Not till this was done by the general government did Tennessee appear upon the scene. A few months before at the ballot box she had, by a majority of over sixty thousand, decided to cling to the Union of our fathers; but when she saw that it was to be a war of subjugation, she scorned to be neutral and elected to go with her people and kindred and to share their fate, be it for weal or for woe. Tennessee answered her sister States as Ruth did Naomi: “Whither thou goest, I will go; ... thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.”

The drums beat, flags were unfurled to the breeze, sweethearts waved their handkerchiefs, and the boys went in. Ours was an unequal contest. It was a battle of the weak against the strong and powerful. The future historian, when he comes to tell the truth of history, will record it as follows: In point of numbers the Northern States were more than four times that of the Southern States. When we take into the estimate that some of these so-called Southern States contributed more largely to the Northern army than they did to ours, the disproportion in numbers can hardly be estimated. Not only this, but the North, before the contest was over, called to their assistance hundreds of thousands of foreigners and the negro slaves of the South. We withdrew from the Union, which left the government, with all its immense machinery, in their hands. They needed no recognition from foreign powers; we by our own strong arms had to win it. The accumulated national wealth of nearly a century was theirs--a powerful navy, the regular army, arms and ordnance of every description, with the machinery and workshops to manufacture more.

The South was an agricultural people. They had contented themselves with the production of the raw material, while they left it to the North to manufacture every article of use, from the smallest to the most important. They had to establish as best they could shops for the manufacture of every accouterment of the soldier and of every munition of war. There were not in the whole South a percussion cap manufactory or powder mill that could fill the cartridge boxes of a regiment of soldiers. There was no accumulation of supplies anywhere. There was not a single war vessel and but a few merchantmen in her harbors, and a drillmaster was as big a show as an elephant. I speak of this more particularly to refute the assertion that the South had for years been preparing for war. Not one word of it is true. Mr. Lincoln’s proclamation was the electric spark that set fire to the house, and all the water in Christendom could not have quenched it. She did not stop to count the cost or to wait to get ready.

The Federal government proposed to subdue the rebellion in sixty days, and for this purpose sent forward toward Richmond the most magnificent army that had been seen on the continent, composed mainly of the regulars of the old army and officered by men of known ability and experience. It has been said that grand preparations had been made for a jollification over their anticipated victory, and that a large number of the citizens of Washington had accompanied the army “to see the fun.” They were met at Manassas by a little over one-half their number of citizen-soldiers. A great battle was fought, which terminated in a most disastrous defeat and rout. Not until then did the Federal government comprehend the magnitude of their undertaking. New levies were made and the greatest expenditures entered upon. The South, too, marshaled her resources. It was a war between giants, and the full strength and capacity of both were brought to bear upon the result.

Great battles were fought from the Potomac to the Western borders, with varied results, for four years. I feel justified in saying that the South fairly won her proportion of these; but the difficulty with us was that we so expended our strength in battle that we were unable to follow up our advantage--that we had no reserve to call upon from the rear. This fact caused delay and enabled the enemy to draw upon their inexhaustible resources and repair the damage. In other words, we did not have the troops to follow up the success we had fairly won or to secure the prize within our grasp; while the enemy could in forty-eight hours (or in a very short time) hurry fresh men to their assistance, drawing not only from their own supplies, but from the mercenary population of foreign countries, with the slave population of the South thrown in for good measure. It could then be with the South but a question as to how long she could stand this letting out of her lifeblood. She stood alone and could look to no assistance from without. The principles of attrition were applied; and after more than four years of bloody war the South succumbed, but not to superior courage and soldierly bearing upon the field of battle. Her armies had been shattered and broken, and there were none to stand in their places. Numbers had told at last, and the fiery wave of battle had spent its force upon the beach.

We would not speak disparagingly of the soldier who fought against us, for to do so would be casting a shadow upon our own record. He fought well and bravely, and none other could have accomplished what he did. But the Northern soldier fought for conquest and subjugation; the Southern soldier fought for his home and his family. The one was an army of invasion, and the other was an army of defense. The Southern soldier fought more valiantly than the Northern soldier from the simple fact that he had more to fight for. But it is all over now, and it becomes us with charity to bury all the sad memories from our sight and to forget as well as we can all the heart burnings it engendered. “The past comes not back again. The present is ours; let us improve it and go forward to meet the shadowy future with manly hearts and without fear.” This beautiful land is ours by birthright. Our fathers bequeathed it to us. We have an inalienable right to it, and in the language of Georgia’s greatest orator: “We are here in our father’s house. We are at home, thank God! We come charging on the Union no wrong to us. The Union never wronged the South. We charge all our wrongs to the higher law of fanaticism, which never kept a pledge or obeyed a law. We sought to leave the association of those who could not keep fidelity to the covenant. So far from having lost our fidelity to the Constitution, the South when she sought to go by herself hugged the Constitution to her bosom and carried it with her.”

The privations you underwent while a soldier, the absolute sufferings at times for every necessity of life, the exposure to a summer’s sun and heat and to the frost and snow of winter during your long and tiresome marches, nor have I mentioned the long, dark night of many of you in Northern prisons--the history of every civilized war pales into insignificance before it. The magnitude of your battles and the privations of your soldier life are without a parallel. Upon your battle flag is engraven “Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Sequatchie Valley, Tunnel Hill, Dalton, Resaca, New Hope Church, Marietta, Atlanta, Newnan, Saltville, Griswoldville, Buck Head Church, Fayetteville, Bentonville,” and to the list might be added a hundred other battles and skirmishes in which blood was spilled.

But the saddest memory of it all is when we remember the comrades who went with us but came not back. They saw “the blood-red sunset, and we are permitted to see the afterglow.”

“On Fame’s eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread.”

They fell devoted but undying upon the battle fields of the far-off South, where their comrades placed them in their blankets in their shallow graves, which the rains of heaven or the plowshare have leveled with the earth. They are unknown but not forgotten. Their names are enrolled upon the hearts of a grateful and admiring people in letters of gold, and will not be forgotten.

I have been asked to insert in this book the dedicatory speech I had the honor of making upon the occasion of the unveiling of the Confederate monument at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in 1891. Rev. Dr. J. H. McNeilly, who was a true Confederate soldier, in a short time thereafter compiled and published a very neat pamphlet of the entire proceedings. Dr. McNeilly, though advanced in years and very feeble, still retains his love and admiration for his comrades, and is ever ready to lend his aid in the perpetuation of Confederate history. I will be pardoned when I say that I have been selfish enough to yield to this urgent request. The speech follows:

_Comrades_, _Ladies_, _and Gentlemen_: Tennesseeans are justly proud of their history. The daring exploits of their ancestry, who came across the mountains from Virginia and the Carolinas, read like a romance. Their early struggles with the savage and warlike foe and the important services they rendered the colonies in establishing American independence have stamped them as a race of men unexcelled in fortitude and courage. Subsequent facts justify the assertion that they imparted to their posterity all their high patriotic characteristics; for in the various Indian wars under Jackson, in the War of 1812 with Great Britain, in the Seminole War, and in the war with Mexico Tennessee played a most important part. We challenge the pages of history to show where the sons of sister States have done more--yea, as much--to maintain the honor, to broaden the public domain, and to establish the national power and greatness of the United States. Their valor won for them the proud name of “Volunteer State;” hence when our War between the States began, it was impossible for Tennessee to remain inactive. Being forced to a choice, they went with their kindred in blood and interest.

It is not within my province to speak at length of the soldiers--old and young, rich and poor--that crowded into the ranks of the Confederate armies. Tennessee furnished one hundred and eighteen regiments--about one hundred thousand soldiers, nearly one-sixth of the entire Confederate force. Many counties had more soldiers in the army than their voting population. For four years upon hundreds of battle fields they helped maintain the unequal contest. With resources exhausted and their armies depleted to skeletons, they lost all save honor. Three times during the four years’ struggle were Tennesseeans driven from their homes and State; but they never thought once of deserting the flag or giving up the contest, though their homes were in possession of the enemy and their fields furnished them subsistence.

In 1862 they followed the fortunes of that great soldier Albert Sidney Johnston from Bowling Green to Shiloh, the field of his triumph and fall. They retreated from Perryville to Murfreesboro and Chickamauga under General Bragg. They fought under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston from Dalton to Atlanta, marking the route with the blood and graves of the enemy. At the command of Hood, they marched back to bloody Franklin and the vicinity of Nashville. From the Brentwood hills, with longing eyes and yearning hearts, they beheld the spires and domes of the beautiful capital of their beloved State. When overwhelmed with the torrent which Thomas turned upon them, with empty haversacks and naked, bleeding feet in midwinter, they followed their drooping standard beyond the Tennessee. When in the early spring of 1865 the broken and shattered fragments of the Army of Tennessee gathered once more under the standard of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina, a large proportion of Tennesseeans answered to roll call, participated in the unequal battle at Bentonville, and surrendered at Greensboro.

Nor would we forget to mention in this connection the brave sons of Tennessee who fought in the Army of Virginia, who fought at Manassas under Stonewall Jackson, at Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg, and on other fields, and who, when overwhelmed in numbers, surrendered with Lee at Appomattox. The glory they so nobly won is a part of the immortal heritage of Tennesseeans.

A generation of men has come upon the stage of life since 1861, and the labor of many hands, multiplied by the passing years, has wiped away every trace of the awful conflict, but the story of the Confederate soldier still lives. It has formed an enduring lodgment in every home, and as the years recede its thrilling traditions will pass from lip to lip.

In May, 1865, the remnant of the Confederate army returned to their desolated homes. Since then there has been a desire on the part of this people not only to show to future generations their approval of the manner in which they performed their duty, but also to give some enduring testimonial of their appreciation of the honor and glory they won. This monument is the fulfillment of that cherished purpose; and now that it is finished, we trust that it will meet your approbation. At any rate, we ask you to accept it in the spirit that has created it. As its front inscription indicates, we dedicate it “to the valor, devotion, and sacrifice unto death of the Confederate soldiers of Tennessee.” This generation need not be told what this means, for they too have lived under the dark shadows of the four years of blood and carnage. The tramp, tramp, tramp of the marching hosts echoes in their hearts to-day. Battle succeeds battle more deadly than before. Every messenger from the front tells of the wreck of a living hope. Every home is a house of mourning--a whole people baptized in martial glory, with one hope and one destiny.

This shaft is not intended to commemorate the fame of our great generals--the account of the battle has told of them--but the private soldier, the rank and file of the Confederate armies, the citizen soldiery, who without hope of reward suffered privations, fought against greater numbers, and sacrificed their lives in the discharge of duty. From Gettysburg to the distant fields of the far South--wherever the army fought--they sleep in their blankets in unmarked and forgotten graves. It is their unwritten record we would lift aloft and inscribe their names among the stars. Driven from their homes, weary from forced marches, weak from hunger, in tattered garments, they marched to their death amid bursting shell and rattling, crashing musketry. Such we would remember to-day. And the lone sentinel yonder, as he looks away from the granite base, “instances each soldier’s grave as a shrine.” In the years to come let the stranger who is attracted to this spot, as he gazes up at that typical form, partake of the inspiration that we would have to linger here.

“Pious marble! Let thy readers know What they and what their children owe To the brave men whose sacred dust We here commit unto thy trust. Protect their memory, preserve their story; Remain a lasting monument to their glory.”