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.”