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I have said that the women of the South gave all their energies and ingenuities to the cause. They shared the burdens of conflict. They encouraged and stimulated the men by their sympathy and cheerful fortitude. To their country they gave their dearest and best, and bore up bravely in defeat as well as in victory. With silent courage they faced privation and danger. They nursed the sick and wounded; took charge of farms and plantations. With wonderful resource they supplied the growing deficiencies in domestic affairs. They cared for and directed the thousands of negroes left dependent upon them. They never lost their trust in God, or in the righteousness of their cause though their loved ones languished in prison, or lay dead on the battle field. Their patriotism and womanly fidelity will be held in honor while the world lasts.

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And the women refugees from the Border States suffered in addition, the cutting off of news from those they left behind them. Letters went by chance messengers through the lines, or around by Liverpool, England, and finally, by special indulgence, in one-page missives, unsealed, by flag-of truce, via Newport News and Norfolk, Va.

Sometimes months of silence elapsed. Oftener the letters were lost. In many cases they straggled in after two, or three years.

Forty-four years have dragged their slow lengths since the last roll-call. We, the survivors and descendants, have buckled on the armor of faithfulness and are honoring the memory of our martyred heroes. We are rearing monuments to perpetuate their deeds of valor. We are cleaning their revered names from aspersion. We are striving to educate the generations to come in the true history of their marvelous struggle for the inalienable rights of every free-born American. How sublime that struggle! How undaunted their attitude! How unsurpassed their fortitude amid the upheaval of their colossal ruin! The conquered banner’s tattered folds hang on the wall her standard-bearer lies in the dust–the sod is green above the heads of her valiant leaders–her rank and file sleep in many an unknown grave. We are in the cooling valleys of peace, where refreshing lies, and above us waves the flag of the old, old Union our people once loved so well. So mote it be. We were loyal to the powers that were; we are loyal to the powers that be. Good citizenship is now, as ever, the watchword of the South. We do not forget our martyrs. Upon our devoted heads rests this sacred duty of consecration. Let us cling together in a cause so noble. Let us merge all thought of self in the glorious work that lies before us.

And what of our beautiful, our historic southland about which the halo of poesy so lovingly lingers? Nature and man have wrought a mighty restoration. Through the grand old States of Virginia and South Carolina, whose annals contain names which will ever adorn the pages of history, down into the prosperous States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, through Louisiana, unrivaled in fertility, on to the vast expanse of Texas, whose coming wealth and power may not be measured, there arise prophetic voices from field, forest, mine, and workshop, fortelling the grand stirring into life of extended commerce, enterprise, and capital. Her products have increased and multiplied in kind and in variety, till we hear in the Senate chamber of Congress an eloquent plea for the protection of her interests in the country’s political economy. We hear from the lips of the Kentucky Senator a full recognition of our worth, our greatness and alas! the tardy acknowledgement of our rights.

These beautiful States are swept by the ocean and mountain winds, and nurtured by the glowing sun and gentle rains. The palmetto and the cypress and the lordly live oak, stand above the glowing orange grove and fragrant magnolia bloom, and the grey moss on the trees, wearing the uniform of the men in grey, wafts a solemn requiem above their narrow beds. The light of prosperity spreads transcendent radiance over the land. The throb of commercial triumph pulsates in the hum of the factory, in the smelting furnace, and ascends in the soft twilight from the rich furrows of her incomparable fields; while the salt sea billows, as they rock her shipping, and dash against pier and wharf, add their exultant voices in prophecy of still greater prosperity.

May advancing wealth rebuild her mansions and fill her coffers, and fittingly crown the efforts of her ambition, and of her genius. May she never lose the aspirations that have made her people through sunshine and storm, a lofty and noble race.