BOYS IN GRAY 194

CHAPTER XII.

THE BATTLE FLAG 219

SOLDIER LIFE

IN THE

ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA.

CHAPTER I.

A VOICE FROM THE RANKS.--INTRODUCTORY.

We are familiar with the names and deeds of the "generals," from the
commander-in-chief down to the almost innumerable brigadiers, and we are
all more or less ignorant of the habits and characteristics of the
individuals who composed the rank and file of the "grand armies" of
1861-65.

As time rolls on, the historian, condensing matters, mentions "the men"
by brigades, divisions, and corps. But here let us look at the
individual soldier separated from the huge masses of men composing the
armies, and doing his own work and duty.

The fame of Lee and Jackson, world-wide, and as the years increase ever
brighter, is but condensed and personified admiration of the
Confederate soldier, wrung from an unwilling world by his matchless
courage, endurance, and devotion. Their fame is an everlasting monument
to the mighty deeds of the nameless host who followed them through so
much toil and blood to glorious victories.

The weak, as a rule, are borne down by the strong; but that does not
prove that the strong are also the right. The weak suffer wrong, learn
the bitterness of it, and finally, by resisting it, become the defenders
of right and justice. When the mighty nations of the earth oppress the
feeble, they nerve the arms and fire the hearts of God's instruments for
the restoration of justice; and when one section of a country oppresses
and insults another, the result is the pervasive malady,--war! which
will work out the health of the nation, or leave it a bloody corpse.

The principles for which the Confederate soldier fought, and in defense
of which he died, are to-day the harmony of this country. So long as
they were held in abeyance, the country was in turmoil and on the verge
of ruin.

It is not fair to demand a reason for actions above reason. The heart is
greater than the mind. No man can exactly define the cause for which the
Confederate soldier fought. He was above human reason and above human
law, secure in his own rectitude of purpose, accountable to God only,
having assumed for himself a "nationality," which he was minded to
defend with his life and his property, and thereto pledged his sacred
honor.

In the honesty and simplicity of his heart, the Confederate