Honor to whom honor is due.
Extracts from a sermon delivered at Christ Church, savannah, on Thursday, September 18th, 1862, being Thanksgiving Day, by the Right Rev. Stephen Elliott, Bishop of Georgia:
Woman's Heroism.
The attitude of woman is sublime.--Bearing all the sacrifices of which I have just spoken, she is moreover called upon to suffer in her affections, to be wounded and smitten where she feels deepest and most enduringly. Man goes to the battle-field, but woman sends him there, even though her heart-strings tremble while she gives the farewell kiss and the fare well blessing. Man is supported by the necessity of movement, by the excitement of action, by the hope of honor, by the glory of conquest. Woman remains at home to suffer, to bear the cruel torture of suspense, to tremble when the battle has been fought and the news of the slaughter is flashing over the electric wire, to know that defeat will cover the with dishonor and her little one with ruin, to learn that the husband she doted upon, the son whom she cherished in her bosom and upon whom she never let the wind blow too rudely, the brother with whom she sported through all her happy days of childhood, the lover to whom her early vows were plighted, has died upon some distant battle-field and lies there a mangled corpse, unknown and uncared for, never to be seen again even in death! Oh! those fearful lists of the wounded and the dead! How carelessly we pass them over, unless our own loved ones happen to be linked with them in military association, and yet each name in that roll of slaughter carries a fatal pang to some woman's heart — some noble, devoted woman's heart. But she bears it all and bows submissive to the stroke. He died for the cause. He perished for his country. I would not have it otherwise, but I should like to have given the dying boy my blessing, the expiring husband my last kiss of affection, the bleeding lover the comfort of knowing that she knesied beside him.
The private soldier of the Confederate army.
And when we turn to our armies, truly these victories are the victories of the privates. God for bid that I should take one atom of honor or of praise from those who led our hosts upon those days of glory — from the accomplished and skillful Lee, the admirable Crichton, of our armies — from the God-fearing and indomitable Jackson, upon whose prayer-bedewed banner victory seems to wait — from the intrepid Stuart, whose cavalry charges imitate those of Murat — from that great hests of Generals who swarm around our country's flag as Napoleon's Marshals did around the Imperial Eagle; but, nevertheless, our victories are the victories of the privates. It is the enthusiastic dash of their onsets, the fearless bravery with which they rush even to the cannon's mouth, the utter recklessness of life, if so be that its sacrifice may only lead to victory, the heartfelt impression that the cause is the cause of every man, and that success is a necessity. What intense honor do feel for the private soldier! The officers may have motives other than the cause — the private soldier can have none. He knows that his valor must pass unnoticed, save in the narrow circle of his company; that his sacrifice can bring no honor to his name, no reputation to his family; that if he survives, he lives only to enter upon new dangers with the same hopelessness of distinction; that if he dies, he will receive nothing but an unmarked grave; and yet is he proud to do his duty and to maintain his part in the destructive conflict. His comrades fall around him thick and fast; but with a sigh and tear he closes his ranks and presses on to a like destiny. Truly, the first monument which our Confederacy rears, when our independence shall have been won, should be a lofty shaft, pure and spotless, bearing this inscription:‘"to the unknown and Unrecorded dead!"’
