Читать книгу The Women of the Confederacy - J. L. Underwood - Страница 11

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There is no more popular living hero of the Federal army of the war between the States than Corporal Tanner, who is Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. He left both legs on a Southern battlefield and is a universal favorite of the Confederate Veterans. The following is an extract from his speech at the Wheeler Memorial in Atlanta, Ga., in March, 1906:

“The Union forces would have achieved success, in 22 my opinion, eighteen months sooner than they did if it had not been for the women of the South. Why do I say this? Because it is of world-wide knowledge that men never carried cause forward to the dread arbitrament of the battlefield, who were so intensely supported by the prayers and by the efforts of the gentler sex, as were you men of the South. Every mother’s son of you knew that if you didn’t keep exact step to the music of Dixie and the Bonny Blue Flag, if you did not tread the very front line of battle when the contest was on, knew in short that if you returned home in aught but soldierly honor, that the very fires of hell would not scorch and consume your unshriven souls as you would be scorched and consumed by the scorn and contempt of your womanhood.”