PART III.
AFTER TWENTY YEARS.[2]
[2] These articles, originally prepared for _The Southern
Bivouac_ and "South Illustrated," are here republished by special
request.
CHAPTER I.
"MY BOYS."
_Address to the Wives and Children of Confederate Veterans._
I have been often and earnestly requested by "my comrades" to address
to you a few words explanatory of the tie which binds me to them and
them to me. They tell me, among other things, that you "wonder much,
and still the wonder grows," that I should presume to call grave and
dignified husbands and fathers "my boys." Having promised to meet
their wishes, I must in advance apologize for the egoism which it is
quite impossible to avoid, as my own war record is inseparable from
that of my comrades.
Does it seem strange to you that I call these bronzed and bearded men
"my _boys_?" Ah, friends, in every time-worn face there lives always
for me "the light of other days." Memory annihilates the distance
between the long-ago and the present.
I seem to see them marching, with brave, bright faces and eager feet,
to meet the foe. I hear the distant boom of cannon, growing fainter as
they press the retreating enemy.
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