g as a Southerner and an American, I say that this has been
as naught compared to the greatest good this war has accomplished.
Drawing alike from all sections of the Union for her heroes and her
martyrs, depending alike upon North, South, East and West for her
glorious victories, and weeping with sympathy with the widows and the
stricken mothers wherever they may be, America, incarnated spirit of
liberty, stands again to-day the holy emblem of a household in which the
children abide in unity, equality, love and peace. The iron sledge of
war that rent asunder the links of loyalty and love has welded them
together again. Ears that were deaf to loving appeals for the burial of
sectional strife have listened and believed when the muster guns have
spoken. Hearts that were cold to calls for trust and sympathy have
awakened to loving confidence in the baptism of their blood.

Drawing inspiration from the flag of our country, the South has shared
not only the dangers, but the glories of the war. In the death of brave
young Bagley at Cardenas, North Carolina furnished the first blood in
the tragedy. It was Victor Blue of South Carolina, who, like the Swamp
Fox of the Revolution, crossed the fiery path of the enemy at his
pleasure, and brought the first official tidings of the situation as it
existed in Cuba. It was Brumby, a Georgia boy, the flag lieutenant of
Dewey, who first raised the stars and stripes over Manila. It was
Alabama that furnished Hobson who accomplished two things the Spanish
navy never yet has done--sunk an American ship, and made a Spanish
man-of-war securely float.

The South answered the call to arms with its heart, and its heart goes
out with that of the North in rejoicing at the result. The demonstration
lacking to give the touch of life to the picture has been made. The open
sesame that was needed to give insight into the true and loyal hearts
both North and South has been spoken. Divided by war, we are united as
never before by the same agency, and the union is of hearts as well as
hands.

The doubter may scoff, and the pessimist may croak, but even they must
take hope at the picture presented in the simple and touching incident
of eight Grand Army veterans, with their silvery heads bowed in
sympathy, escorting the lifeless body of the Daughter of the Confederacy
from Narragansett to its last, long rest at Richmond.

When that great and generous soldier, U. S. Grant, gave back to Lee,
crushed, but e