Charleston Gazette
Memorial For Riflemen of ’61 Is Dedicated
Far Removed From Scene of Battle, Impressive Ceremonies Are Held.
Chilton Delivers Dedicatory Address
John B. McCausland Only Surviving Gray General, Among Notables Present.
(By Herbert Pfahler)
June 4, 1922
Far removed from any scene of battle, with no suggestion of strife in the world, accompanied by no bugle notes nor a last salute, and militant only by the appearance of a few uniforms of gray, a memorial was dedicated yesterday afternoon at 4:30 o’clock at Kanawha park to the dead and surviving who composed the Kanawha Riflemen in the years of the rebellion.
In a sequestered spot in Kanawha park, just a few hundred feet from “some inland river,” in the shallow of trees whose growth antedates the oldest living person in the valley, the Daughters of the Confederacy erected a monument and bronze tablet to the men of the Kanawha Riflemen, who, in a great crisis, when facing two alternatives, chose what to them was the proper course of conduct to be pursued.
A perfect perspective was revealed yesterday when, amidst the pastoral setting, a few hundred men and women, their children and grandchildren, gathered beneath the kindly shade of the trees in the park and listened to some spoken words and then saw two children, direct descendants of the riflemen, pull some strings which unveiled a bit of polished marble and a plate of bronze on which were engraved the names of the men who in 1856 made the great decision. And in the gathering were men who had worn the blue and men who had worn the gray, and descendants of both. Nothing could have so perfectly revealed the healing influence of time.
The distinguished guest on the occasion was General John B. McCausland, the last surviving general officer of the Confederate army and the man who recruited the Kanawha Riflemen. This 85-year-old veteran, who lives in a great mansion in the Kanawha valley in Mason county, came to Charleston to attend the exercises. While here he was the guest of former United States Senator William E. Chilton, who was the orator of the day. General McCausland also spoke, reviewing some incidents of a long and full life. He was with Stonewall Jackson at Virginia Military Institute when both were instructors there, McCausland being a professor in mathematics. He was in many battles of the war, was with Lee when he surrendered, and was a globe trotter for many years. He recalled an incident when he witnessed Maximillian, who Napoleon tried to put on the Mexican throne, as he stood bareheaded in the palace in Mexico City a few months before he was backed up to a stone wall and shot by a firing squad.
But General McCausland was not the only living link that joined the old with the present. In the audience who listened to his address was the venerable John Q. Dickinson, 90 years of age, and the estimable Mrs. George S. Chilton, 89, both familiar with the history which was being perpetuated by the erection of the inanimate stone and bronze memorial.
The principal address of the afternoon was made by former Senator Chilton, who reviewed the history of the riflemen, conjured up the emotions that must have animated them when they had to face the crisis of loyalty to the federal government or to the fundamental unit, the home, and how in the light of history and events some blamed them, but rather a united people are giving an evidence of a finer civilization by erecting to their memory a monument, not so much to the cause as to the traditional devotion of a free people to what they believed at the time to be right.
General McCausland was retrospective, as becomes all aged men. He lived in the past; he revealed qualities of scholarship and a life so full that much has overflowed in the fullness of the years. He told some amusing experiences and was a bit biographical, and when he had finished was the recipient of many congratulations as the people surged forward to meet him.
A young boy, whose experiences during even the late war are confined to mere memories of the departure of troops and their return and the war activities at home, and a little girl, who has known no note harsher than that of the fireside, pulled the cords that unveiled the memorial. The boy was Fontaine Broun, Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. Fontaine Broun and grandson of Major Thomas L. Broun, a charter member of the riflemen; and the girl was Margaret Ruffner Earwood, great-granddaughter of Captain David Lewis Ruffner and also a great-granddaughter of Captain Richard Q. Laidley.
Mr. Fontaine Broun received the memorial and introduced his son and little Miss Earwood, who did the actual unveiling.
Then when the ceremonies were over and the restlessness of the people showed the end of the dedication ceremonies Miss Adelaide Dana and Miss Betty Smith placed under the bronze tablet and on the marble of the memorial two wreaths of immortelles, and then a little change in the temperature showed that the sun was going down.
The text of Senator Chilton’s address follows:
In his oration over the Athenian dead, who fell in the first Peloponnesian war, Pericles said that those Greek heroes had received the greatest of all praise and the noblest of all sepulchres – not the sepulchre of their bodies, but the sepulchre of their glories, “for the whole earth is the sepulchre of famous men.” That speech was made nearly 200 years ago, and it comes about as near to a true expression of the patriot’s heart upon an occasion of this kind, as is possible in any language which I have ever studied. It remained for Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg speech, to put the cap sheaf upon the dominant idea, upon occasions like this. We cannot consecrate nor hallow this ground, nor can we do anything to add to nor take from the glory of the Kanawha riflemen. What we now say will soon be forgotten, but what our heroes did, will live as long as history shall be read.
The difficulty about a government of the people is their impatience. It is hard for any energetic, enterprising people to take home the lessons of history that fifty or one hundred years may be required to demonstrate the effects of a movement in government. The Roundheads and Cavaliers of England had to die out and a new dynasty succeed the Stuarts, before the full effect of the work of Cromwell, Hampden and Pym, upon the English constitution, could stand out as a beneficent achievement, that placed the power of the people, exercised through an elective parliament, above the ancient hereditary right of kings. It required eighty years for France to filter the good from the bad in her Revolution. In that time she relapsed twice to the Bonapartes, twice to the Bourbons, and once to Orleanists.
Indeed, not until she, as a Republic, fought the world war, along with the United States and England, and saw every dangerous and troublesome crown of Europe fall, did she fully realize that the work of the National Assembly in 1792 and 1796 was permanent, and that neither the blood of the Bourbons, the Orleanists, the Normans, the Savoyards, nor the Napoleons, could overthrow their government founded upon the American Declaration of Independence. We should not wonder that we see now what was not clear in 1861. Then it was a legal question. The lawyers argued it with earnestness, throwing upon the screen all the illuminating facts of history. The North had to explain the Hartford Convention, the utterances of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, and many other items constituting elements of construction of the original compact among the States. The South had to explain the words of a great president from its own people, who challenged John C. Calhoun in the memorable words, “Our Federal Union – It Must and Shall be preserved.” No more solemn and far-reaching decision was ever put up to a citizen than that of choosing between his state and the Federal Government. It looks easy now, and yet think of the awful problem, even now, were it presented. “Shall we help the Federal Government to coerce West Virginia after the latter had voted to resist?” There could be nut one decision now, but now is not 1861. Those of us who are glad that we were not here then to be forced, as were the heroes of 1861, to take a stand between the duty to the State and the obligation to the Federal Compact, have the satisfaction of being able to review the attitude of both sides, after fifty-seven years of calmer discussion, and in the perspective that nothing but time and experience could furnish. Now, no one is so bold nor indiscreet as to use the word “traitor” in connection with the names of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Alexander Stephens nor any of the leaders or soldiers of the South. As well try to make an Englishman impugn the motives of Hampden or Cromwell; a Frenchman desecrate the grave of Napoleon or Gambetta; an Italian denounce the patriotism of Garibaldi, as to expect any sympathy from an American audience with the sentiment that the people of the South could have possibly made the effort, and endured the suffering, of their four years’ struggle, under the inspiration of anything less sacred than the highest patriotism and the most solemn dedication to duty. But it has required the softening influences of more than half a century; the bringing close together of the sections by rapid transit; and the intermarriage of the children of the heroes who tested one another’s mettle, in four years of bloody war, to bring this about.
The Spanish-American war, with the Lees, the Jacksons, the Hobsons, the Wheelers, the Johnsons and the other sons of the south, furnishing in themselves and their children the same pledges of fidelity that they gave at Gettysburg, revealed in a still clearer light the truth that it is as difficult to breed traitors in any one section as in any other.
But when the supreme call to duty and sacrifice came, when the shock of the World War made the dividing line between patriots and slackers in America; and the children and grandchildren of the heroes who charged each other at the Wilderness, at Antietam, at Chickamauga and at Appomattox were called upon to carry in the air, under the sea and into Belgium and France the power of this people, there was no longer the mention of the word “forgiveness” in any nook or corner of this broad land. In the clear atmosphere of mutual sacrifice and unselfish dedication to a common cause and flag there was nothing to forgive. The children of the north then said that there was not rebellion, but duty, at Manassas; that there was not treason, but courage inspired by convictions of right, in the leaders of the south. Frankly admitting that he adopted the tactics of Stonewall Jackson at the battle of the Marne, General Joffre turned back the invading army from Paris. The policies of Lee and Grant were followed by the commanding generals of the allies, and Chateau Thierry was won under the inspiration of the rebel yell, which was then as inspiring to the boys of New York and Massachusetts as to the Kanawha Riflemen in 1862.
We need not apologize for Jefferson Davis, whose birthday we commemorate today. He stood with Lee, Jackson, Albert Sydney Johnson and the captains of the Kanawha Riflemen, George S. Patton, Richard Q. Laidley and David L. Ruffner. He was a soldier and his ambitions ran toward leading armies. He was sorely disappointed when elected to the presidency of the Confederacy, wanting to be a commander in the army. He had an army record that was brilliant in the Black Hawk War and in the Mexican War. His regiment made the charge that saved the day at Buena Vista. As secretary of war, he had built many of the forts of the eastern seaboard and had shown a genius for placing his country in a state of defense. He married the daughter of General Zachary Taylor, in command of the American forces at Buena Vista. This marriage was against the wishes of General Taylor and the latter had forbidden Colonel Davis from visiting the general’s home. After the marriage the rugged old general broke off all relations with his daughter. But when Colonel Davis had made the brilliant charge at Buena Vista General Taylor sent for his daughter and begged her pardon, asking her to bring Colonel Davis around, remarking: “You are a better judge of men than I.” The effort to single him out as a peculiar object of obloquy lasted but a short time. He stands now with all the other leaders of the south as a man of genius and courage, who construed his patriotic duty to be one way, and he risked fortune, reputation and life rather than to be untrue to those convictions. His descendants, true to his blood, were with Alvin York, another son of the south, in the supreme test in Europe, and had he been living in 1917 every power at his command would have been exerted for the country which he served as colonel in the army, secretary of war and United States senator.
As I turn to the solemn but pleasant duty of unveiling this tablet to the memory of the Kanawha Riflemen, I cannot forbear to mention the part performed by Mrs. Sallie Ould Donnalson, who years ago began the movement to raise the funds to make this occasion possible. Before she died the money was raised, largely by her efforts, and this consummation has been postponed by many interesting events. But it has all happened for the best. Had the work been done sooner, the tablet could not have been placed in this beautiful park, another tribute to the devotion and effort of the women of this community. The Kanawha Riflemen was a company organized under the militia code of Virginia in 1856, the same plan of organization under which Virginia did her part in the Revolutionary war, the war of 1812 and the Mexican war. Of these gallant men, to whose glorious memory this tablet is erected, only three are living: Alline Brown, now living in Washington, D. C.; Thomas Roberts, now living at _____ and Colonel Henry Daniel Ruffner, who is living in Florida, and is unable to be here today on account of illness. There is not a deserter on the list. Voluntarily they chose to serve their state, and when the state’s call came they marched to duty and proved their mettle on many a glorious battle field. As was said on another occasion “it is beyond our power to hallow this ground,” as it is beyond our power to do anything to add to the luster of any name on this tablet. Men come and go, and each must make his own monument in the hearts of his generation. These did well and nobly. They enshrined duty and courage and we of another generation are here to give testimony and to record permanent evidence of our judgment upon their work. To the many dead, and to the three living, of the Kanawha Riflemen, we offer this testimonial to what they did in the cause of duty.
The rights of states, for which they offered to their own state the last full measure of human sacrifice, is still the most important question that addresses itself to the country. The right of a state to withdraw from the Union has been settled no no [sic] less by the surrender at Appomattox than by a consensus of opinion that it is best as it it [sic], and that any other theory is now unthinkable. But to fix the true dividing line between federal and state power is still a question for peaceful solution by courts and legislation. Between the years 1804 and 1866, a period of 62 years, there was not an amendment to the constitution. But after App[o]mattox we went to patching it, and since that time seven amendments have been added. In addition to this, the courts, pressed by exigencies of our vastly expanding transportation and industrial systems, have enlarged federal power by construction.
It is time for the people to consider well another phase of the general principal for which our heroes of the Kanawha Riflemen fought. “State’s rights” is but another way of describing the idea of local self-government. It is the fundamental idea of Magna Charta and all the bills of right forced from kings by our fathers. First is the home and fireside; then the local government. From these two we made colonial governments and then the states, which delegated certain powers to the federal government. Why should we not be jealous of this local power, in our own hands? A power once delegated into federal hands is gone forever. Our liberties gained by centuries of struggles and sacrifices, found their consummation in the victory at Yorktown. After gaining our independence the states were supreme. Each community was supreme in its local affairs; each state was a sovereign. So they are yet except as we fail to exercise that power or have delegated it to Washington. These heroes of the Kanawha Riflemen preferred to die rather than to surrender any right of their state. We should, while conceding gladly that the power of seceding has been settled rightly and for the best, still the fundamental principle of local self-government may not be surrendered without great risk.
Already the machinery of the federal government has become unwieldly. It is top-heavy and expensive.
We cannot better honor the Kanawha Riflemen and their illustrious captains, than by dedicating a part of our lives to the study of the true principles of government. If they were willing to die for a principle, how small, in comparison, is the service of taking enough time from our business to enable us to so exercise the duties of citizenship as to preserve our liberties and make it improbable that either we or our children will be called upon to make war, or to be quiet to injustice.