Opening exercises.
At 3 o'clock the formal opening exercises took place in the main parlor of the mansion, toward which visitors to the various rooms had gradually gravitated. The Governor and his staff entered about 2:45, and took positions about the platform, on which stood a small table covered with a battle-flag, whose age and signs of service were its veriest grace.The windows were curtained with flags, and the white of the walls was only trespassed upon by large portraits of Stonewall Jackson, Johnston, and Jefferson Davis. When the strong face and venerable figure of Rev. Dr. Hoge was seen to enter the main door, there was a general hush, for his arrival was the signal that 3 o'clock had arrived. The face and figure, the fine mind and splendid heart, have lived through so many crises in Virginia and Southern history, and the ministry of the great preacher been so thoroughly a part of the latter, that it was especially fitting he should be chosen to make the prayer, linking, as his years do, the present with the stirring past. Judge George L. Christian, always so happy a speaker, introduced Dr. Hoge, whose prayer, indeed a benediction, was as follows:
