| Recommended Readings
Diary
of a Confederate Soldier, John S. Jackman Manassas
to Appomattox, Edgar Warfield Johnny
Green of the Orphan Brigade: The Journal of a Confederate Soldier
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He Voted Right
Some years ago there was offered in the Mississippi
House
of Representatives a bill to appropriate $10,000 to erect a monument to
Confederate soldiers. The most remarkable address and the one which
made the most in favor of the bill was made by J. F. Harris, a colored
man:
"I am sorry to hear the speech made by the young gentleman from
Marshall county. I am sorry that any son of a soldier should go on
record as opposed to the erection of a monument in honor of the brave
dead. And, sir, I am convinced that had he seen what I saw at
Seven Pines, and in the seven days' battles around Richmond, he would
not have made that speech.When the news came that the South was to be invaded, those men went forth to fight for their beloved, and they made no requests for monuments to commemorate their brave deeds and their holy sacrifices. But they died and their virtues should be remembered. Sir, I went with them; I, too, wore the gray, the same color that my master wore. When my mother died I was a boy. Who, sir, then acted the part of a mother to the orphaned slave boy but my 'old missus?' Were she living now, or could speak to me from those high realms where are gathered the sainted dead, she would tell me to vote for the bill; and sir, I shall vote for it. I want it known to all the world that my vote is given in favor of the bill to erect a monument in honor of the brave Confederate dead."
The Adair County News, December 26, 1900.
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