countless deeds of heroism performed by both sides in the
struggle. The captains and the armies that, after long years of
dreary campaigning and bloody, stubborn fighting, brought the war
to a close, have left us more than a reunited realm. North and
South, all Americans, now have a common fund of glorious
memories. We are the richer for each grim campaign, for each
hard-fought battle. We are the richer for valor displayed alike
by those who fought so valiantly for the right, and by those who,
no less valiantly, fought for what they deemed the right. We have
in us nobler capacities for what is great and good because of the
infinite woe and suffering, and because of the splendid ultimate
triumph. We hold that it was vital to the welfare, not only of
our people on this continent, but of the whole human race, that
the Union should be preserved and slavery abolished; that one
flag should fly from the Great Lakes to the Rio Grande; that we
should all be free in fact as well as in name, and that the
United States should stand as one nation--the greatest nation on
the earth. But we recognize gladly that, South as well as North,
when the fight was once on, the leaders of the armies, and the
soldiers whom they led, displayed the same qualities of daring
and steadfast courage, of disinterested loyalty and enthusiasm,
and of high devotion to an ideal.

The greatest general of the South was Lee, and his greatest
lieutenant was Jackson. Both were Virginians, and both were
strongly opposed to disunion. Lee went so far as to deny the
right of secession, while Jackson insisted that the South ought
to try to get its rights inside the Union, and not outside. But
when Virginia joined the Southern Confederacy, and the war had
actually begun, both men cast their lot with the South.