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69]
countrymen, my dear, precious ladies, mothers, sisters, daughters, I cannot forget the past.
I cannot applaud the murder of an uncle then more than seventy years old, a devoted union man shot to death upon his front steps by
Sherman's men to make a spectacle for his slaves.
I cant forget the subjugation of the
South—the greatest crime of the last two hundred years. As in the cemetery when we go to visit the tomb of a relation, we cannot restrain a feeling of respect before the graves of others, so we in passing, salute the remains of those brave men who lie side by side united in death; but we go straight to our dead, to our soldiers whose whitened bones still mark in lines the spot of the last stand made by the
South in that memorable struggle for the constitution as the fathers made it. To the dead we give our homage, before them we uncover, and if there be guidance by immaculate spirits for their fellowship left behind, yet awhile in our corruptible state we kiss their withered white hands revealed from the spirit land and bid them await our coming.
Finally ye men of Catawba, brave men of historic sires.
Is there any man, woman, child or denizen happier because of this Revolution of our constitution?
“The finest action is the better for a piece of purple,” says Robert Louis Stevenson.
The high key in which the lives of our most illustrious leaders was pitched reinforces humanity.
The key-note of the stormy orchestra of guns is the reverberation of noble souls.
These men were not reared in the school of fear.
Farewell.
[Referring to page 66, note 66, the articles, ‘A Brief History of the Charlotte Cavalry,’ with revised roll and ‘The Last Charge at Appomattox,’ by Capt. E. E. Bouldin, a prominent lawyer, of Danville, Va., appear in Vol.
XXVIII, Southern Historical Society Papers.] (From the Danville Register, Oct. 17, 1905.)
Mr. S. M. Gaines, chief of the Mail and File Division of the Treasury Department, in Washington, is visiting Captain E. E. Bouldin, of this city.
Mr. Gaines was a lieutenant in the Charlotte cavalry, of which company Mr. Bouldin was captain and both were
