terested, because it was not only the unveiling of a monument
for the old commander, the greatest and loftiest Southerner, and, as
the South holds, man, of his time; it was an occasion consecrated to the
whole South; it was the embalming in precious memories, and laying away
in the tomb of the Southern Confederacy: the apotheosis of the Southern
people. As such all were interested in it, and all prepared for it. It
was known that all that remained of the Southern armies would be there:
of the armies that fought at Shiloh, and Bull Run, and Fort Republic;
at Seven Pines, Gaines's Mill, and Cold Harbor; at Antietam,
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg; at Franklin, Atlanta,
Murfreesboro, and Chickamauga, Spottsylvania, the Wilderness, and
Petersburg; and the whole South, Union as it is now and ready to fight
the nation's battles, gathered to glorify Lee, the old commander, and to
see and glorify the survivors of those and other bloody fields in which
the volunteer soldiers of the South had held the world at bay, and added
to the glorious history of their race. Men came all the way from Oregon
and California to be present. Old one-legged soldiers stumped it from
West Virginia. Even "No. 4", though in the gutter, caught the
contagion, and shaped up and became sober. He got a good suit of
clothes somewhere--not new--and appeared quite respectable. He even got
something to do, and, in token of what he had been, was put on one of
the many committees having a hand in the entertainment arrangements. I
never saw a greater change in anyone. It looked as if there was hope for
him yet. He stopped me on the street a day or two before the unveiling
and told me he had a piece of good news: the remnant of his old company
was to be here; he had got hold of the last one,--there were nine of
them left,--and he had his old jacket that he had worn in the war, and
he was going to wear it on the march. "It's worn, of course," he said,
"but my mother put some patches over the holes, and except for the stain
on it it's in good order. I believe I am the only one of the boys that
has his jacket still; my mother kept this for me; I have never got so
hard up as to part with it. I'm all right now. I mean to be buried in
it."

I had never remarked before what a refined face he had; his enthusiasm
made him look younger than I had ever seen him.

I saw him on the day before the eve of the unveiling; he was as busy
as a bee, and looked almo