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Show DEATH OF GENERAL GORDON. The last light; of the Confederacy has been extinguished. ex-tinguished. General Gordon is dead the last of the lieutenant generals, the last of everything that was great, noble, chivalrous and brave among the commanders of the boys in gray. Xothing is left now but history, the songs of Father Ryan, perhaps per-haps a few shreds of the "bonnie blue flag" concealed con-cealed somewhere, so as not to mingle with the -trophies of war in the capitol at Washington. But we forget. There Terffains Fitzhugh Lee. There remain veterans hobbling about on crutches, but not many. Old soldiers,- with empty sleeves, but not many.- Still fewerarc they who can walk with erect step in the' funeral march to the tomb of General Gen-eral Gordon in Georgia, unless, perchance, a mir- ' acle would change the music of the "Dead March in Saul" to the old rebel yell. Xot that the rebel yell -would mean anything more than this, for General Gordon, more than any other man, helped to bind up the; wounds of fratricidal strife and unite the blue and the gray. .But the're come3 the paSssion . we cannot control, to' list to the song that cheered men on to the cannon's mouth, even as we yearn to hear the baby name called from the cold lips of a dead mother. Oh, what a jangling, nerve-destroying melody is "Sherman's March Through Georgia," beside the soothing notes of "Maryland, My Maryland!" Mary-land!" .; : : ; 7:- uniy a week ago the soa was piacea over tne cold form of the onl "Longstreet, tho last of the great corps commanders of the Confederate army. 1 And now it is the last of the lieutenant generals who is being laid away in Georgia, even as we write. . . Say what they may of the Southland and its people, no general of the "lost cause" ever did aught to disgrace the colors. Xo charge of peculation, or corruption, was ever laid at their doors. Xo water cure ever inflicted, no cruelty to helpless prisoners. What say yen of the blue uniform i Xot to the faded blue is this challenge put out. Xot to the veterans of the 0. A. II.. From out the hearts of these old men gushes a feeling of pity for the soldiers they fought in Gordon's legion. From out the souls of these aged veterans, finding expression in voice subdued, we can almost hear "Hurrah for the blue and the gray!. Peace to the ashes of John B. Gordon!" |