xt7v9s1khr4z https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7v9s1khr4z/data/mets.xml M., S. C. 1888  books b92-135-29325152 English Dennison & Brown, : New York : Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Hopkinsville (Ky.) Monuments. Latham Confederate Monument (Hopkinsville, Ky.)Breathitt, James W. Deems, Charles Force, 1820-1893. Breckinridge, W. C. P. (William Campbell Preston), 1837-1904. Story of a monument  : memorial of the unveiling of the monument to the unknown confederate dead, May 19, 1887, at Hopkinsville, Ky. / by S.C.M. and addresses of Hon. James Breathitt, Charles F. Deems, and Hon. W.C.P. Breckinridge. text Story of a monument  : memorial of the unveiling of the monument to the unknown confederate dead, May 19, 1887, at Hopkinsville, Ky. / by S.C.M. and addresses of Hon. James Breathitt, Charles F. Deems, and Hon. W.C.P. Breckinridge. 1888 2002 true xt7v9s1khr4z section xt7v9s1khr4z 





T H E



Story of a Monument.

                By S. C. M.




      MEMORIAL OF THE UNVEILING OF THE

 MONUMENT TO THE UNKNOWN CONFEDERATE DEAD,

      MAY 19, I887, AT HOPKINSVILLE, KY.




              AND ADDRESSES OF
    Hon. JAMES BREATHITT,
          Rev. CHARLES F. DEEMS, and
              Hon. W. C. P. BRECKINRIDGE.




                  1888.
          PRESS OF DENNISON  BROWN,
                NEW YORK.

 
This page in the original text is blank.



 

 


 
















       The Story of a Monument.





  The Latham Confederate Monument, at Hopkinsville, Ky., is a
flower which sprang from the soil of filial love.
  It was in May, i886, that Mr. John C. Latham, Jr., of New
York, standing by the monument which he had recently erected in
the City Cemetery of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, over the grave of
his venerated father, who was for many years president of the
Bank of Hopkinsville, determined to erect the monument to the
Confederate dead which now adorns that cemetery. The younger
Latham had left Hopkinsville, his birthplace, twenty-four years
before, to enter the Confederate army as a private, in his
seventeenth year; had continued in service until the final surrender
at Greensburg, N. C., in May, i865, and, with the exception of
three years, had been absent in Memphis in commercial pursuits,
and afterwards, for over seventeen years, in New York, as the
head of the banking-house of Latham, Alexander  Co., of
Wall street.
  The eminence on which he stood overlooked a green and
densely shaded lawn, studded with many elegant and costly
monuments; but there were evidences in some places of a lack of
attention, which contrasted unpleasantly with the carefully tended
spot where rested the ashes of his own dead. There are hours in
every one's life when the spirit of the past rises from its tomb,
and will not depart until it is appeased with sacrifice. The shade
of the great civil strife, whose voice had been hushed for twenty-
one years, passed before him as he gazed over the field where
slept in eternal rest the dead warriors of both armies, many of

 





4



them his old towsnmen and schoolmates: Colonel Tom Wood-
ward, the daring Confederate cavalry leader, killed in a raid in
the streets of Hopkinsville; General J. S. Jackson, the fiery
Hotspur, who used to express the wish to die in a cavalry charge,
and whose wish had untimely fulfilment in a charge at Perryville.
Side by side with the victims of war were the sacred ashes of
valued friends who had gone to rest in peace, full of years. So
mused the German poet on his departed friends as he crossed
''The Ferry: "
                "One through life in silence wrought,
                And his grave in silence sought,
                But the younger, brighter form,
                Passed in battle and in storm."

  Among the saddest sights of all were the unmarked graves of more
than one hundred Confederates who died in the Hopkinsville
hospitals in the Autumn and Winter of x86x-62, and were then
lying in the "Potter's Field" of the lawn, where tangled weeds
and vines sheltered reptiles and repelled approach. Some of the
more fortunate had, years before, been taken home by their
relatives, but the poor and friendless were left as drift and sea-
weed cast aside by the receding tide of war. The pathos of the
situation and tender thoughts of sweet home appealed irresistibly
to Mr. Latham.   He determined to perform friendship's last
office for the unknown Confederate dead, who for quarter of a
century had lain unhonored in the cemetery around him.
  And yet his original purpose, as the reader will soon perceive,
had a wider scope than a monument to the martyred soldiers of
one side only. The first step was to remove their remains to an
eligible lot, and to effect this Mr. Latham, on his return to New
York, addressed the following letter to Hon. R. T. Petree, a
leading member of the Hopkinsville bar and Chairman of the
Board of Council of that city:

                                  " NEW YoRK, June 2, i886.
"Hon. R. T. Petree,
           " Hopkinsville, Ky.
  "MY DEAR SIR:-Herewith I have the pleasure to hand you my
check on the National Bank of Commerce, New York, for 1,500,
which I send as a gift to the City of Hopkinsville, Ky., for the
benefit of the City Cemetery.

 





5



   II I would suggest that i,ooo of the amount be used in beautify-
ing the walks, drives and grounds, and to put in order and improve
the lots, particularly those containing the remains of old and
sterling citizens who have no relatives left to care for them.
   " The remaining 500 I beg that you will appropriate specially to
put in order the plot of ground containing the remains of the
Confederate and Federal soldiers. The graves of those brave
men deserve every care and mark of respect, and I believe that
the funds sent you will be used in the best possible way to further
this end.
                  "Yours truly,
                                     " JNO. C. LATHAM, JR."








       RESPONSE OF THE BOARD OF COUNCIL.


  The Council promptly supplemented this donation by appropri-
ating 500 to the same object, in the passage of the following
ordinance:

                "HoPKINSVILLE, KY., Tuesday, June 22, i886.
  "The Chairman of this Board reported to the Council that he
has recently received a check from John C. Latham, Jr., of New
York, for fifteen hundred dollars, as a donation to the city for the
general purpose of improving its cemetery grounds, and with a
request from the donor that five hundred dollars of said amount
should be expended on the graves of the Confederate and Federal
soldiers. It is therefore ordained that said amount, together with
five hundred dollars which is now appropriated out of the general
funds of the city and added to said donation, shall be used
and expended in cleaning up the cemetery lots, improving the
walks and carriage-ways, repairing neglected graves of old valued
citizens who have no relatives left to care for the same, and for
ornamenting and improving the graves of the soldiers of the late
war.

 





6



  "And H. C. Gant, James M. Howe and Charles M. Latham
are appointed a committee to supervise said work and to pay for
the same, said Gant to act as chairman of said committee. And
the Chairman of this Board is requested to place said donation of
1,500 in the City Bank of Hopkinsville to the credit of H. C.
Gant, chairman; and the Auditor and Treasurer of this Council
is ordered to deposit to the same credit the sum of 500 out of the
general fund of the city.
  "It is unanimously resolved by the Board of Councilmen, on
behalf of the citizens of the City of Hopkinsville, that the gratitude
of the city is hereby tendered to Mr. John C. Latham Jr., for his
generous gift."

  Unquestionably Mr. Latham's purpose and intent, from the
inception of his work, was unsectional, non-partisan and national.
  It was found on investigation that, with the exception of some
who were interred in private lots, the remains of the Federal
soldiers had been removed years before to the National Cemetery
at Fort Donelson. This fact necessarily modified Mr. Latham's
original purpose, and restricted it to the re-interment of the Con-
federate dead.



                    THE MONUMENT.



  A triangular plot, enclosed by drives on all sides, near the sum-
mit of the slope in the northern end of the cemetery; was deeded
by the Council to Mr. Latham, after some correspondence, as the
place of re-interment, and upon this he determined to erect the
monument which now forms the conspicuous feature of the ceme-
tery. The monument was made at the Hallowell Granite Works,
in Maine, after the following design:
  The base of the structure is eight feet three inches square, sup-
porting a pedestal of two polished stones, with intaglio border, the
upper stone projecting. Above this is the die, seven feet in
height by four and a half feet square, with four polished panels.
The cornice of the die is ornamented with cannons and laurel

 




                                7

wreaths done in bronze.  The die is surmounted by a square
obelisk, with Corinthian capital crowned with a pyramid of five
polished granite cannon balls, eighteen inches in diameter. On
the front of the shaft are two crossed swords in bronze, encircled
by a laurel wreath. The whole structure is thirty-seven feet high,
elegantly wrought, of the finest quality of granite, and is remark-
able for its classic taste and simplicity. At the approach to the
monument from the south side is an ornamental entrance of granite
eight feet wide. On the posts of the entrance are engraved branches
of laurel and oak, and underneath, an antique dagger, encircled by
a wreath of laurel.  

 






8



On the eastern panel of the die is inscribed:
                     AROUND
                  THIS COLUMN
                    Is BURIED
                 ALL OF HEROISM
                 THAT COULD DIE.

             CONFEDERATE DEAD.

On the western panel is the inscription:
           BENEATH THIS SOD IS MINGLED
    THE SACRED DUST OF ONE HUNDRED AND ONE
       UNKNOWN SOLDIERS, WHO WERE ATTACHED
           TO THE FOLLOWING COMMANDS:
           FIRST MISSISSIPPI REGIMENT,
           THIRD MISSISSIPPI REGIMENT,
             SEVENTH TEXAS REGIMENT,
           EIGHTH KENTUCKY REGIMENT,
                FORREST'S CAVALRY,
          WOODWARD'S KENTUCKY CAVALRY,
          GREEN'S KENTUCKY ARTILLERY.

          WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.
                  i86i-I865.

On the northern panel:
                 WHILE MARTYRS
               FOR CONSCIENCE SAKE
                 ARE RESPECTED,
             THE VALOR AND DEVOTION
           OF THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER
                WILL BE ADMIRED
                  BY THE GOOD
                  AND THE BRAVE.

On the southern panel:
            THIS MONUMENT IS ERECTED
            AT THE PLACE OF HIS BIRTH,
            BY A SURVIVING COMRADE,
          To COMMEMORATE THE VIRTUES
            OF THE CONFEDERATE DEAD.
                 A. D. i887.

 




9



                     THE UNVEILING.




  The i9th of May, i887, was appointed for the unveiling and
formal presentation of the monument to the City of Hopkinsville.
Hon. James Breathitt, a brilliant young lawyer of Hopkinsville
and republican member of the Legislature from Christian County,
was selected to make the introductory address, and Hon. W. C.
P. Breckinridge, Representative in Congress from the Lexington
(Ashland) District, and Rev. Charles F. Deems, pastor of the
Church of the Strangers, New York, were appointed orators of the
day.
  The general management of the celebration was placed in the
hands of the following Executive Committee, composed of the
Chairman of the various sub-committees:
  JAMES M. HOWE, Chairman of Committee of Arrangements.
  C. F. JARRETT, Chairman of Committee of Invitation.
  H. C. GANT, Chairman of Committee of Finance.
  A. D. RODGERS, Chairman of Committee on Music.
  JOHN W. BREATHITT, Chairman of Committee of Reception.
  WM. COWAN, Chairman of Committee on Transportation.

  The Marshal of the Day was M. H. Nelson, with the following
deputies: Captain Ned. Campbell, H. H. Abernathy, John G.
Ellis, C. A. Brashear, Polk Cansler, John Boyd, Wm. Jesup,
R. A. Baker, H. C. Herndon, F. M. Quarles, H. H. Bryant,
Wm. Cowan.
  Mr. Charles F. Jarrett, Chairman of the Committee on Invita-
tions, sent out several thousand elegantly engraved cards of
invitation to leading public men and citizens who had acted a
conspicuous part in both armies, in all parts of the Union. To
these invitations the most cordial replies were returned. Political
associations were ignored in the constitution of the various com-
mittees for the day, and Union veterans and Confederate veterans
worked together.
  The citizens of Hopkinsville were incited to honor the day in

 





10



grateful recognition of the generous gift which had so largely
improved and embellished their cemetery. The committee who
managed the donation, Messrs. Gant, Howe and Latham, had
worked with laborious fidelity and admirable taste, and had
inaugurated a new era in the embellishment of cemetery land-
scapes in Western Kentucky. The gloom and dampness of the
grounds had been banished by the removal of trees which injured
the monuments and obstructed the view, unsightly enclosures had
been removed and the smooth turf intersected by graveled walks
and drives. The cemetery had become a sunny lawn, swept by
breezes playing pure and fresh among groups of trees, which gave
pleasant relief to the lawn without encroaching upon the lots,
around which was no other enclosure than a simple curbing. The
request of the Committee on Decoration that private lots should
be decorated on the occasion by their owners was generally
observed, and floral tributes were distributed everywhere.
  The day of the unveiling was bright and auspicious. At an
early hour crowds began to pour in constant streams into the
streets from  every direction.  Trains from  North and South
brought invited guests, and visitors in large numbers from Louis-
ville, Frankfort, Nashville, Evansville, Paducah, Memphis, St.
Louis, Bowling Green, including societies, municipal officials and
eminent civilians and soldiers. The street panorama was magnifi-
cent. Thousands of guests, who had not walked the streets since
the war, when Hopkinsville was a town of 2,500 inhabitants,
wondered at the changes which had taken place since that eventful
period. Main street had been entirely rebuilt with elegant busi-
ness houses, and public schools, factories, five large tobacco
warehouses, mills and busy workshops, bore witness to the
progress of the city, which had now three-fold its war population.
So rapidly had the wounds of the great strife been healed over.
The vast human tide flowed back and forth through the streets,
which for sixteen squares were lined by a forest of brilliant-hued
flags, banners, pennants, streamers, cartoons and mottoes of every
conceivable description, attesting the prevalent good-will and
hospitality. Business houses were all closed, the schools ad-
journed, and all classes wore holiday dress. The interior and
exterior decorations of the mercantile houses were brilliant,
elaborate and tasteful in their combinations of flags, evergreens
and bunting. National shields, with the legend "WELCOME,"

 




ii



hung above door-ways; the Kentucky coat-of-arms, representing
a Union and ex-Confederate soldier clasping hands, bore the
motto " PEACE!;" crossed muskets from Fort Donelson were in-
scribed "WAR IS OVER ;" the name "LATHAM," wrought of
evergreens, was worked in arches at street corners; elegant
chandeliers, suspended from the ceilings, fluttered with a kaleido-
scopic mass of patriotic decoration, and hundreds of men and
women wore on their breasts an elegant medal, struck by an
eminent New York artist, to commemorate the event. At least
20,000 people were on the streets.
  The various orders, committees and individual citizens had
made ample and excellent provision for the refreshment of
strangers, and none went away hungry. The Knights of Pythias,
Odd Fellows, Knights Templar, Masons, Board of Council and
Grand Army Post set elegant tables in various halls, not only for
their guests, but every stranger who appeared to be unprovided for
was greeted without ceremony and invited into some lunch-room.
Many citizens kept open houses all morning and proffered hos-
pitality to strangers at abundant tables. The Latham Light
Guards set lunch at the rink for their military and civic guests.
  The scene in the cemetery was one of unique and pathetic
beauty. Even as the sun tenderly kissed both Federal and Con-
federate graves alike, so did the hands of love and patriotism
plant flags and strew flowers with impartial reverence over all.
  At noon Eichorn's Military Band, from Louisville, struck up the
"Grenadier's March of Triumph," as the signal for the proces-
sion to move in the following order from Main and Sixteenth
street, over one mile in length, a grand American army of peace,
industry and patriotism: Mounted police, ex-Confederate and
Federal soldiers, visiting municipal officials, orators of the day,
governors and distinguished guests, secret societies, Warren's
Evansville Band, Latham Light Guards and South Kentucky Col-
lege cadets, fire department, schools and colored orders, horsemen
and carriages, citizens on foot.
  The procession marched through a forest of over two thousand
national flags, until it passed under a richly draped arch at the
northern entrance of the cemetery and reached the covered amphi-
theatre and grand pavilion which had been erected a short distance
east of the monument.   The amphitheatre was crowded and
thousands stood around the stand. Elegantly dressed women and

 





12



children occupied most of the seats. Never were the " Unknown
Dead " honored with so splendid obsequies before. The shades of
the pilgrims from the Gulf States, who, twenty-six years before, had
hasty burial at the hands of comrades who " bitterly thought of
the morrow," and on that morrow met the same fate, were
appeased. The amphitheatre could not shelter a third of the vast
throng under its double-peaked white canopy, and the remainder
of the crowd strolled off to look at the decorations of the grounds.
  The grave of the Federal General James S. Jackson, who fell at
the battle of Perryville, was decorated with a large flag and a
wreath of laurel, sent by Mr. Latham from New York, decorated
with white roses tied with purple ribbons, bearing the motto:
" HONOR THE BRAVE." Klunder, the celebrated New York florist,
sent a superb floral piece three feet long, exquisitely designed
with the choicest roses, pansies, ferns and laurels, arranged in the
form of crossed swords. The business men of Evansville sent a
model of the monument in white flowers, forming a pillar two
feet in diameter and eight feet high, with the inscriptions: " CON-
FEDERATE DEAD;" PEACE AND GOOD WILL TO MEN;"      EVANS-
VILLE TO HOPKINSVILLE-GREETING."
  Another floral piece from Klunder's establishment, which
attracted attention for its rich material and elegant design,
formed a complete covering for the grave of the elder Latham.
Mr. J. J. Crusman, of Clarksville, Tenn., contributed some
elegant floral pieces.
  Flags and flowers were placed at the grave of a poor and friend-
less Federal soldier, at the special request of Mr. Latham. No
grave was overlooked. From the pavilion and crowded amphi-
theatre, where the colors of the Union waved like rainbows in the
sky, or fluttered like forest leaves, to the farthest corners of the
lawn the eye met at every point the brightest and richest emblems
which affection and patriotism could weave in flags, evergreens
and flowers.
  Friends stood in groups and recounted the events of the past
and the virtues of the dead; children, in the exuberance of health
and youth, ran from place to place, too full of wonder to feel a
thought of sadness; and scarred and armless veterans sighed as
they mused on vanished scenes of camp life-the jests and tales
of the tent, the picket-ground, the midnight alarm, the sudden call
to arms, the sorrowful scenes of the hospital.

 




13



                         MEMORIES.




   "The scene," remarked an alderman, "I is very different from
those which I saw here from November till February in the winter
of i86i-62, twenty-six years ago."
  " What scenes do you refer to " asked a visitor.
  The old man replied:
  " The scenes which caused the erection of yonder monument
and called the crowd here to-day. It was the death of some
two hundred Confederates in hospitals, within two months,
during their occupation of Hopkinsville at the beginning of the
war, which suggested the monument, and, although hardly a
sword was drawn or a musket fired in all that mortality, it is, to
my mind, one of the most pathetic stories of the civil war. The
deaths were so many that funeral marches soon ceased to be
played, and salutes to be fired over the graves. The mortality
was more than that of all the epidemics which have visited the
town since its foundation.
  " General J. L. Alcorn, of Mississippi, with 3,000 troops of
General S. B. Buckner's command, from Bowling Green, Ky.,
entered Hopkinsville September 30, i86i, and made his head-
quarters at the Bank of Kentucky building, whose assets had
been taken to Louisville some time before. He was succeeded
by General Tilghman and General Clark, the latter of whom
remained until the soldiers were withdrawn to take part in the
defence of Fort Donelson, where hundreds of them lost their
lives. The Seventh Texas suffered frightfully, and was one of
the finest bodies of soldiers that I saw during the war."
  " What caused the mortality here, if there was no fighting "
asked the visitor.
  " The plague of the camps, ' Black Measles,' as the boys
called it," was the reply.
  " Hopkinsville was first selected as a recruiting station, and
after a few weeks the soldiers were taken to more active fields of
service, until there remained here only some 1,200 troops. The

 





14



soldiers from the Gulf States wore light clothes when they came
here, and the supplies of the quartermaster's department were in-
different in respect to winter outfits.
  " Winter arrived, and the soldiers, hundreds of them mere boys
-look at that headstone, ' Aged i6 years,' and that one, ' Aged
I8 years'-began to suffer from lack of warm clothing and blankets.
Then proper medicines and food were wanting.  Most of the
doctors were young and unfamiliar with the climate and its
diseases. While half the camp were down with measles, cold,
drenching rain set in, and death began its work in good earnest.
There were so few well soldiers left in a short time that men were
sent, still weak and staggering from disease, to do picket duty.
Pneumonia and erysipelas followed. It was a reign of terror."
  "Were no regular hospitals established " was asked.
  "I Yes; ten of the largest buildings in the place were taken for
that purpose. You can imagine what the amount of sickness was
when you learn that the Ninth Street Presbyterian, Cumberland
Presbyterian, Christian, Methodist and Colored Baptist Churches,
the old County Seminary, the Ritter Hotel, South Kentucky Col-
lege and Baptist Bethel College, and Mr. B. E. Randolph's resi-
dence, then General Forrest's headquarters, were all filled with
sick soldiers.
  ",Numbers of officers were taken to private houses. An officer
of the Ninth Street Presbyterian Church told me that every pew
in that church was occupied by a sick soldier. Of course the
women did all they could to relieve the sufferers. They organized
a society, including nearly every woman in the place, and two of
this number were detailed to visit each hospital daily. A lady
visiting the Ritter House one day saw twenty corpses laid out for
burial. Dr. R. W. Gaines, President of the Kentucky State
Medical Association, who was employed in Forrest's command
for some time as assistant, states that there were thirteen deaths
in three days at Bethel College.
  "I' They died like sheep,' said one of the visiting committee.
Two soldiers were sent one morning to purchase shrouds for two
of their dead comrades who were lying at South Kentucky College.
On their way back one of them dropped dead on the street, and
the other died a few minutes after reaching the college. It was
no wonder, when soldiers, too feeble to leave the hospital, were
sent to stand guard in the chilly rains and snows of winter
nights, coughing pitifully as they shivered in ragged clothes and
almost unshod feet. Several pickets died on guard."

 
This page in the original text is blank.



 






































     REV. DR. C. H. STRICKLAND,
Pastor First Baptist Church, Naskville, 7enn.



I
i11,
         I I'

 



15



   "Were they all buried here " inquired the stranger.
   "About one-half," was the reply. " One hundred and one lie
buried at the foot of the monument, and a comparison of the
statements made by the undertakers, physicians and nurses of the
place leads to the conclusion that more than twice that number
perished in the mortality of that autumn and winter."
  As the narrative of Old Mortality ended, the exercises of the
solemn pageant began at the monument. On front of the
speakers' pavilion was the verse:

             "Not for the meed of praise
                 Did he this deed of love,
               But on a bright, unfading page,
                 Tis registered above."

  On the grand stand were the Hon. W. C. P. Breckinridge,
Rev. Dr. C. F. Deems, Rev. Dr. Strickland, Rev. Dr. A. D.
Sears, Hon. James Breathitt, Hon. E. D. Standiford, Governor
Knott and staff, General S. B. Buckner, the Board of Council of
Hopkinsville and their invited guests, including a number of
ladies, the little girls who were to perform the ceremony of un-
veiling the monument, and the correspondents of the Louisville
Courier-Journal, Nashville American, New York Times, Atlanta
Constitution, Evansville Journal and Tribune, St. Louis Globe-
Democrat and a large corps of the local press of Kentucky.
  On the right of the stand was the legend: "IALL HONOR TO
OUR DEAD HEROES;" on the left: " ONE COUNTRY, ONE FLAG,
ONE DESTINY." A portrait of Mr. John C. Latham, Jr., was
displayed on the speakers' stand.





                      INVOCATION.




  Rev. Dr. C. H. Strickland, of the First Baptist Church of
Nashville, offered the invocation, praying for the prosperity and
peace of the Union. " We have met to honor those who died in

 




16



their country's service, obscure and unknown. Unknown, and
yet
           "On fame's eternal camping ground,
               Their silent tents are spread,
             While honor guards with solemn round
               The bivouac of the dead.
  "Oh, God, we do not weep this day for our unknown brothers,
for indeed
       "They need no tears who lived a noble life.
           We will not weep for these who die so well,
         But we will gather round the hearth and tell
           The story of their life.
         Such homage suits them well,
           Better than funeral pomp or passing bell.
  4 We pray for the generous citizen, true comrade, sincere and
liberal-minded patriot, who this day gives to his native place a
token of esteem worthy of himself and those who receive it.
           "May none know him but to love him;
             May none name him but to praise.
  "Protect, we pray thee, this stone from the lightning, the
storm cloud and the earthquake. May the fingers of time touch
it lightly as it stands through the years, whispering of the loftiest
virtues.
  "1 As it towers aloft, may it speak to all beholders, of devotion
to country and heroism under trial.
  " May the stainless purity of this shaft be an inspiration to
purity of thought and life.
  "d May its solidity and strength suggest to youth the desirable-
ness of a strong and solid character, and, as with index finger, it
points to that sky where the ' blue and grey ' are forever and
happily blended, may it ever tell of peace on earth and good-will
to men.
  " We beseech thee, Almighty Father, Lord of heaven and
earth, as we this day worship thee underneath the flag of our
common country and are secure, so may this, our beloved, our
fatherland, be ever shadowed by thy wing, all of which we ask in
the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost-Amen."
  At the close of the invocation Hon. James Breathitt made the
following address:

 
This page in the original text is blank.



 















































H N. JAMB W. BREI11AITTH



 




17



       Address of Hon. James Breathitt.




  LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:-Over a quarter of a century ago the
foundations of American free government were shaken by the
convulsions of civil war, and for a time it seemed that that grand
structure would crumble into ruin. The war between the States
was the natural result of the political conditions which had existed
in the United States for a long period prior to the final outbreak.
And, looking back at the events which were transpiring during
the last quarter of a century just preceding the breaking out of
hostilities, it is difficult to see how the important and exciting
questions then dividing the sections could have been settled
except by an appeal to arms. And if the brave men, living and
dead, of this generation, had not fought that war, it would have
descended as a bloody inheritance to their children.
  But instead of this it may be said that, as our reward for all
that we suffered on either side in the settlement of these great
questions, the " American nation had
                  A NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM

and that the only true government of the people, by the people
and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
  It matters but little to-day what part we may have played in
that memorable struggle, nor how conscientiously we may have
entertained the principles for which we fought, nor does it matter
that even to-day, as we look upon this scene, we feel as if we
were surrounded by the same circumstances, National and State,
that we would be willing to play the same part over again. There
are but few men in this land who do not rejoice in the re-union
and prosperity of the North and South, Who is it in this broad

 




18



land who does not feel in his heart, whether he stands on the
shores of the lakes of the north or beneath the groves where the
"gold orange grows," that " this is my own, my native land "
  The war had its bad results, but it cannot be doubted that
much good has resulted from it. The only question which has
ever seriously threatened the Union has been settled forever.
And in its settlement deeds of patriotism, valor and skill in arms
were performed by the American soldiers of either army which
add to the nation's glory and renown in war, and command the
respect and admiration of the civilized powers of the earth.

                 WHEN AN IMPARTIAL HISTORY

of that period shall have been written, and the student would
search its pages for a true type and illustration of the American
soldier, he will admire and praise, in equal degree, the skill and
valor of Stonewall Jackson, in the valley of the Shenandoah, and
Albert Sidney Johnston, yielding up his life for principle at the
battle of Shiloh, with Grant, Sherman and others leading to
victory the armies of the Union. Where, in the history of the
world, can be found such an interesting picture as that presented
to our view in the meeting of those two great Generals as they
salute each other with chivalric courtesy at Appomattox Here
is a distinctive illustration of the character of the American
soldier-brave in battle, generous and forgiving in victory, and
dignified and imposing in the hour of defeat. Such were Grant
and Lee-the noblest Romans of them all-in this moment of
victory and defeat.
  And whatever else there was noble, grand and heroic in that war
and admirable in the peace that followed is ours now to enjoy,
but soon to enrich the nation's history and become the proud in-
heritance of a common posterity, and, like the deeds of our
Revolutionary fathers, the glory of every American patriot. It is
therefore
                   THE DUTY OF EVERY MAN

who loves his country to do all in his power to wipe away every
tear, to soothe every heart-ache and to allay every embittered
feeling yet remaining in the breasts of the people, in order that we
may have a perfect union of hearts, as well as a perfect union of
law.

 




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   There is a touching incident related of the war, that, during
one of its many battles, a Northern soldier from New Hamp