Confederate Monument Address
Excerpts from the acceptance speech by John J. Gatling on behalf of the Gates County Confederate soldiers.
We thank you for setting apart this Thursday, July 8, 1915, 50 years since the star of Our Southern Confederacy sank into final obscuration on the fated field of "Appomattox." I am commissioned by the dead as well as the living to accept this beautiful monument. God grant that, as it is a thing of beauty, it may be a joy forever. We accept it with joy and gladness and pray that it may bless the givers, bless the receivers, and bless the artist whose fertile brain conceived and whose chisel chipped into harmonious lines the replica of the Confederate soldier on guard. All of these wrought wiser than they knew.
Gentlemen, you have done a noble work and these 30 veterans have come here in response to your urgent call to see what is to be seen and to hear what is to be said. These you see here, this little remnant, I am persuaded, are nearly all that are left living out of the six or seven hundred brave, young, stout, and lovely boys that went from Gates to meet the maelstrom of death. I do not really know how many companies in all were made up, but I do know that the "Gates Guards" of which I was a member, was the first one raised.
For our beloved women, who reared and trained these heros, living and dead, for them I thank you for this splendid mark of love and appreciation.
This shaft also commemorates the few faithful colored people, who in the darkest hours of our country's distress remained true. Many of them refused all offers of freedom and labored on to help feed, clothe, and protect our dear women and children at home and this monument will keep alive the memory of these few faithful Negroes.
Now my beloved comrads, let us be proud of our country and our Southland, for our people have done the best they could for us and especially for those of us who are needy. We are the rear guard of the vast caravan of dead heroes who, going ahead of us, have passed over the dark river of death, into that country from whose bourne no traveler returns. We have reached and passed the three score and ten and it cannot be long ere we too shall close up to the river of death like our immortal Stonewall Jackson who fell in the very zenith of his glory and left his country in tears. We trust that we shall be able and prepared to "cross over the river and rest in the shade of the trees" by the side of our immortals who have gone on before us. |
