An Unequal Struggle

Looking Back at an Unequal Struggle
 
From: bernhard1848@att.net
 
Hon. A.G. Hawkins of Huntington, Tennessee, Speaking at a Confederate Reunion.
 
“So my comrades, it will be seen that we were outnumbered by foreign and colored soldiers, and had to contend against a surplus of 2,203,215 loyal patriotic soldiers of our own country.  New York, Iowa and Connecticut furnished more men than were in our entire army. They had an army, a navy and ordinance to begin with, while we had neither. They had money and credit abroad, but we had none. And yet, in spite of all these things, it took four long years for the North to overpower the brave South.
 
History presents no grander page than written by the Confederate soldier. We have the right to point our children and the young people of today to the sanguinary conflict which we have passed through, and teach them that their fathers were not traitors, but brave patriotic soldiers.
 
The Confederate went to battle at the call of his State; he recognized its authority as supreme. We believed we were right and have not changed our minds, you believed you were right, and are of the same opinion still. We cannot agree on this question, but since the close of the war the Confederate soldier has been true to that starry flag, and is ready to follow it with the same patriotic heroism which he followed that one with its stars and bars, which flag was ours. We stained it with our blood, we upheld it as long as we could; we love it yet (and) we love the memories that cluster around it…”
 
Confederate Veteran Magazine, October, 1895