the flutter of gay garments, and the smiles of beautiful women
sweet with sympathy; the long line of old soldiers, faded and broken and gray,
yet each self-sustained, and inspired by the life of the South
that flowed in their veins, marching under the old Confederate battle-flags
that they had borne so often in victory and in defeat -- all contributed
to make the outward pageant a scene never to be forgotten. But this was
merely the outward image; the real fact was the spirit. It was the South.
It was the spirit of the South; not of the new South, nor yet merely
of the old South, but the spirit of the great South. When the young troops
from every Southern State marched by in their fresh uniforms,
with well-drilled battalions, there were huzzas, much applause and enthusiasm;
when the old soldiers came there was a tempest: wild cheers
choking with sobs and tears, the well-known, once-heard-never-forgotten cry
of the battling South, known in history as "the rebel yell". Men and women
and children joined in it. It began at the first sight of the regular column,
swelled up the crowded streets, rose to the thronged housetops,
ran along them for squares like a conflagration, and then came rolling back
in volume only to rise and swell again greater than before. Men wept;
children shrilled; women sobbed aloud. What was it! Only a thousand or two
of old or aging men riding or tramping along through the dust of the street,
under some old flags, dirty and ragged and stained. But they represented
the spirit of the South; they represented the spirit which when honor
was in question never counted the cost; the spirit that had stood up
for the South against overwhelming odds for four years, and until the South
had crumbled and perished under the forces of war; the spirit that is
the strongest guaranty to us to-day that the Union is and is to be;
the spirit that, glorious in victory, had displayed a fortitude
yet greater in defeat. They saw in every stain on those tattered standards
the blood of their noblest, bravest, and best; in every rent
a proof of their glorious courage and sacrifice. They saw in those