eferential homage paid this great citizen by
even the Federal soldiers, as with uncovered heads they contemplated
in mute admiration this now captive hero as he rode through their
ranks. Impressed forever, daguerreotyped on my heart is that last
parting scene with that handful of heroes still crowding around him.
Few indeed were the words then spoken, but the quivering lip and
the tearful eye told of the love they bore him, in symphonies more
eloquent than any language can describe. Can I ever forget? No, never
can I forget the words which fell from his lips as I rode beside him
amid the defeated, dejected, and weeping soldiery, when, turning to
me, he said, 'I could wish that I was numbered among the fallen in the
last battle;' but oh! as he thought of the loss of the cause--of the
many dead scattered over so many fields, who, sleeping neglected, with
no governmental arms to gather up their remains--sleeping neglected,
isolated, and alone, beneath the weeping stars, with naught but their
soldiers' blankets about them!--oh! as these emotions swept over his
great soul, he felt that he would have laid him down to rest in
the same grave where lay buried the common hope of his people. But
Providence willed it otherwise. He rests now forever, my countrymen,
his spirit in the bosom of that Father whom he so faithfully served,
his body beside the river whose banks are forever memorable, and whose
waters are vocal with the glories of his triumphs. No sound shall ever
wake him to martial glory again; no more shall he lead his invincible
lines to victory; no more shall we gaze upon him and draw from his
quiet demeanor lessons of life. But oh! it is a sweet consolation to
us, my countrymen, who loved him, that no more shall his bright spirit
be bowed down to earth with the burdens of the people's wrongs. It is
sweet consolation to us that his last victory, through faith in his
crucified Redeemer, is the most transcendently glorious of all his
triumphs. At this very hour, while we mourn here, kind friends
are consigning the last that remains of our hero to his quiet
sleeping-place, surrounded by the mountains of his native
State--mountains the autumnal glory of whose magnificent forests
to-day seem but habiliments of mourning. In the Valley, the pearly
dew-drops seem but tears of sadness upon the grasses and flowers. Let
him rest! And now as he has gone from us, and as we regard him in all
the aspects of his career and character and