Address By The Late H.D. Findlay At The Reunion of Confederate Comrades, Pollard, Escambia, Alabama http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/escambia/history/hdfinlay.txt ==================================================================== USGENWEB PROJECT NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Project Archives to store this file permanently for free access. This file is copyrighted and contributed by: Lygia Cutts ==================================================================== September 1998 Address By The Late H.D. Findlay At The Reunion of Confederate Comrades Pollard - 1910 On May 13, 1910, Comrades of Genreal Clanton's Camp 1072, Unites Confederacy, held their annual reunion at Pollard. It was the eleventh annual reunion of the Comrades. The following is the address given by the late H.D. Findlay, Mayor of Pollard. " Just three days ago I was installed in the Mayors office of this little town. Just prior to my installation my good neighbor and one of your distinguished Confederate veterans came to me and informed me that it would be incumbent on me as Mayor to welcome his comrades in arms to our town. The first thought that flashed through my mind was that I would go to some of my friends and secure the services of a talented speaker, one whose oratorical powers would sway you to and fro as if by magic. But while seated on my front porch, surrounded by wife and babies, another thought came to mind. Amother picture passed in front of me. I recalled that nearly seven years ago this same body of veterans met in Pollard. I scanned the then thin ranks in my mind and I found that some of my nearest and dearest friends had fallen by the wayside. It occurred to me that I still had some noble friends among your ranks and figuring on the same basis of it being seven more years before you come to us again, the opportunity to welcome you might be forever gone. A more appropriate place to hold a reunion than old Pollard does not exist. We are proud of our town and proud of our ancestry and proud of our prosterity. This is the town, sirs, that has sent her sons and daughters forth on many battlefields. We can point to you the Empire County of Jefferson and show you our posterity reigning like a queen on South Highlands. Turn back to the Gulf of Mexico and you will find the second largest county of the state, Mobile, and here you will find our sons ruling and shaping the political and business destinies of Mobile. You will find our lawyers, whose services are sought by half dozen states. Turn to our sister states and you will find our sons captaining the great manufacturing and commercial industries. You will find our professional men at the head of their profession. Go to the fertile plains of Texas and we are there. Go to the rich gold mountains of Colorado and we are there. Turn back to your home county of Escambia and search your records and you will find that we have furnished you more than our share of officers whose records are untarnished. Go back fifty years to yonder hillside and you will find us training and disciplining as noble and brave a body of soldiers as ever went on a battle field. This is the kind of soil you are treading on today. Still, with all our pride of ancestry and hope of posterity we deem it an honor and a priviledge to entertain you and yours, and to show our appreciation we have gone to our herds and killed the fattest cattle and the tenderest lambs. Our housewives have repaired to their pantires and prepared you the daintiest breads and, last but not least, we have gone to the flower gardens, as it were, and selected the choicest buds in the personage of these beautiful young ladies and place them at your command in charge of yonder special table. Now in the name of the people of Pollard I not only extend to you the right hand of welcome but both hands of welcome," Source: JDDC Library, AL Room, Vertical file, Pollard