CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: SOUTHERN MEN and WOMEN - Smith County, TX

*****************************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm

Submitted by Peggy Brannon - peggybrannon@hotmail.com
16 October 2001
*****************************************************************

TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson

In his address Col. E. L. Russell at the Tupelo Miss. monument dedication 
said:
"If the issue of State sovereignty was the cause of the war, the Confederate 
soldier has won a great victory. There has been since the war a gradual 
growth of the views and sentiments of the South on this question throughout 
the North. The class of statesmen at the North contending for increased 
centralized Federal power is growing smaller and weaker year by year. Today 
the sovereignty of the State, with all of its powers and rights, is 
absolutely recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States.
"God bless the women of Tupelo and of Lee County and of the South! They 
never allowed defeat and disappointment and deprivations to weaken their 
interest in the cause and their sympathy for the Confederate soldier. They 
went to their looms and wove homespun dresses and wore them, and they went 
to the oat fields and with their deft fingers made their oat straw bonnets. 
I can remember when I saw them in homespun and oat straw bonnets, and they 
looked as beautiful and lovely as any queen who ever sat upon a throne.
"Now, comrades, I say to you--you gray-headed and weather-beaten citizens 
who were once the bravest and most intrepid and the most fearless soldiers 
who ever trod the terrible ridge of battle--I have seen you when the sun and 
heavens were concealed by the smoke and flame of battle, and I looked into 
your faces and saw the determination to win, regardless of your own lives; I 
heard your Rebel yell ring out above the din and roar of small arms and 
artillery on clear, crisp mornings when some almost impregnable position was 
to be taken; I have seen you scale the breast-works over bayonets and in the 
face of flaming artillery. You have a record as soldiers that has never been 
surpassed in the history of the world."