Lesson 282: Our Confederate Dead


Maj. William A. Obenchain, CSA
Combat Engineer, graduate of VMI, Lee's Staff, ANV, Educator, Sr Warden, Christ Episcopal Church

Before we read Major Obenchain's address, let us begin with a prayer familiar to the Major and appropriate for the coming Kentucky Confederate Memorial Day:

ALMIGHTY and everliving God, we yield unto thee most high praise and hearty thanks, for the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all thy saints, who have been the choice vessels of thy grace, and the lights of the world in their several generations; most humbly beseeching thee to give us grace so to follow the example of their stedfastness in thy faith, and obedience to thy holy commandments, that at the day of the general Resurrection, we, with all those who are of the mystical body of thy Son, may be set on his right hand, and hear that his most joyful voice: Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. Grant this, O Father, for the sake of the same, thy Son Jesus Christ, our only Mediator and Advocate. Amen.

[1892 BCP, a prayer with which Major Obenchain was fully familiar]

Lesson:

Fairview Cemetery, Bowling Green, Kentucky, Kentucky Confederate Memorial Day, 3rd instance of June, 1902, to the Daughters of the Confederacy and comrades.

We are met here again, as is our custom, to do honor to the memory of our Confederate dead. We are met here on this occasion, not only because it is a sacred duty, but also because it is a labor of love; for deeply enshrined in our hearts is the memory of those who, with heroic devotion, laid down their lives in the cause of the Southern Confederacy.

There is a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will.
[Shakespear: Hamlet to Haratio in Act 5, Scene 2]

The events of recent years show us that we were destined as a people to play an important part in the affairs of this world; and so, in order that we might go forth in our greatest strength it was heaven's decree that we should remain one nation, under one flag, and become more firmly united than ever before. Why, then, you may ask, that long and bloody war? Why so much destruction of life and property? Why so great sacrifice and suffering?

The story is long, but it may be briefly told. The thirteen original colonies were separate and distinct, and independent of one another---their only bond being their allegiance to the British Crown. A common cause and a common danger united them in their struggle for independence. The war of the Revolution won, each colony was, in its individual right and in its own name, acknowledged by Great Britain as a free and independent State. The old Confederation was a creature of the thirteen original States, each acting in its sovereign capacity. The Federal Government, formed later, and by a process revolutionary in itself, was also a creature of the thirteen original States, each State acting separately through its own people, and in its sovereign capacity, and not a creature of the people of the United States acting collectively, as some have claimed. In no sense were the States the creatures of the Federal Government. The creator must exist before the creature.

At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, and for more than three decades afterwards, national sentiment was very weak; in fact, it hardly existed at all. State sentiment was everywhere predominant. Alexander Hamilton was the most pronounced nationalist of his time, and yet there was hardly a man from Washington and Hamilton down, who did not regard the new government as an experiment, and believe in the right of a State to secede from the union when it so desired. These are not fancies, but historical facts. The men of that time would have laughed at the idea that the Constitution of 1787 gave birth in 1789 to a national government, such as that which now constitutes an indestructible bond of union for the States.

The national idea had yet to be developed. The Constitution is a flexible document; and, says Woodrow Wilson: "It is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the English race whose political habit has been transmitted to us through the sagacious generation by whom the government was erected, that they have never felt themselves bound by the logic of laws, but only by a practical understanding of them based upon slow precedent. For this race the law under which they live is at any particular time what it is then understood to be; and this understanding of it is compounded of the circumstances of the time. Absolute theories of legal consequences they have never cared to follow out to their conclusions. Their laws have always been used as parts of the practical running machinery of their politics, parts to be fitted from time to time, by interpretation, to existing opinion and social conditions."

The North and the South, differing in religion and in public policy, though of the same race, and with different climates, developed along different lines. The North became chiefly commercial, the South agricultural. The North, as its commercial spirit grew, inclined more and more to nationalism. The regulation of commerce was one of the powers delegated to Congress. Actuated mostly by its own interests, the North came to believe that one of the main objects of government is to aid private enterprise by bounties, subsidies, and protective tariffs. Naturally, then, it fostered the idea of a strong central government, which it expected to control. And so it adopted a loose-construction view of the Constitution.

The South, on the other hand, clung to the idea, as enunciated in the Declaration of Independence, that government is instituted to protect men in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It adhered also to the original theory of our government, as understood by the framers of the Constitution, as understood by the people when the Constitution was adopted, and as understood by a majority of the people of both sections for more than a generation afterwards.

The South held to conservative views, and believed, then, in a strict construction of the Constitution. It sought no government aid in private enterprise; it was opposed to class legislation, and all undue restrictions of trade. Above all, the South insisted on limiting the Federal Government to its distinctly delegated powers, for, as it believed, it was only by a strict construction of the Constitution that the rights of the States could be preserved.

Such were the fundamental differences between the two sections. Such were both the cause and the effect of the different lines of development. The North grew more rapidly in wealth and population than the South did. Foreign emigrants settled mostly on Northern soil. Largely ignorant of our institutions, and un-imbued with the spirit of government as developed among the early colonies, they were, as a rule, national in sentiment.

Slavery was a pretext, and not really the cause of the Civil War. The causes of that war lay deeper than slavery. But slavery was used to intensify sectional feeling, and to prepare the minds of the people of both sections for the clash of arms that, sooner or later, had to come. For whatever of sin there was in the institution of African slavery in this country New England was no less responsible than the Southern States, and old England most of all. But while some of us may be unwilling to admit that slavery, as it existed in the South, was a sin, but few, if any of us, will deny that it was an evil, that it retarded the development of the South, and intensified sectional feeling. We must never forget, however, that, originally, slavery was forced upon the South, until by reason of the large increase in the number of slaves it became a political necessity. It was not so much a question of the abolition of slavery as what to do with the negro if emancipated. Self preservation is the first law of nature, and the majority of the Southern people believed, as far back as Jefferson's time, that life and property would be unsafe if the negroes, semi-savages as they were then, were set free and turned loose in their midst. Nor must one forget that slavery had a legal status, that it existed in all the thirteen original States, and that its protection was guaranteed by the fundamental law of the land. Had we all been wise and unselfish, both North and South, and worked along on harmonious lines for the common good, we might, perhaps, though I doubt it, have accomplished peaceably what it took a long and bloody war to bring about. But human nature is very perverse, and

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform.

I am inclined to the belief that there is a deeper meaning than is generally supposed in the words that "without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins." That war had to come, and it had to be fought out, too, to the bitter end. We were destined to be a great nation, one and inseparable for divine purposes. The two sections were drifting farther and farther apart, and there were vital questions that could be settled, and settled permanently in no other way.

This is neither the time nor the place to discuss the question as to who was the aggressor in that war, or as to which side was in the right, from a constitutional point of view. Suffice it to say, the only appeal that the North had was the preservation of the Union; the South fought for the maintenance of her constitutional rights. It was not that the South loved the Union less, but States' rights more. We will admit, however, that vital questions may be settled by might, if not by right, for the good, in the long run, of all concerned.

Far be it from me to say anything to-day, especially on an occasion like this, to arouse old animosities or revive sectional bitterness. I have grown broader in my views as I have grown in years. I glory in being an American. I believe that, under the providence of God, all has happened for the best; that we are all the mightier as a nation for the terrible war between the States through which we passed; that we are the better able to take and hold our place among the nations of the world for the world's good. And I am sure that I voice the sentiment of every able-bodied old Confederate now living, when I say of myself that I am as ready and willing to serve under our flag to-day as I was to serve under the Confederate flag two score years ago, and that, too, without expectation of reward, save that which comes from the sense of duty performed. But born and reared on Southern soil, the older I grow and the more I study this question, the prouder I am that I was a Confederate soldier throughout that long and bloody war; that, in a word, I was loyal to my native State and true to my kith and kin. If we were rebels, then was rebellion honored. If we were traitors, then treason meant loyalty to one's State and the defense of one's home.

I would not detract one iota from that patriotism and heroism of the Federal soldier, nor underestimate his devotion to his cause. But when we consider the magnitude and duration of the war, the limited resources of South, shut in as she was from the outside world, and the immense difficulties under which she labored; when we recall the privations, hardships, and sufferings of the Confederate soldier---the fact that he was scantily clad, half fed, often ragged and barefoot, staining the snow with bloody footprints on many a weary wintry march; when we remember that he was outnumbered four to one, that the North had not only double the population and unlimited resources, but the whole world to draw from; and that, in spite of all his disadvantages and all this disparity, he won many a hard-fought battle and held out for four long years, the whole world must admit that his devotion to his cause was sublime, and that his heroism was unsurpassed, even if equalled, since history began. Exhausted, he went down finally in defeat, but unconquered in spirit. Never was there a greater war; never was there a braver and more chivalric people than the Southern people; never was there a more heroic struggle.

Although the cause was defeated, as long as men love liberty the principles for which the Confederate soldier fought will never die. While memory lasts, and patriotism and valor are appreciated, the splendor of his deeds will lose nothing of their lustre. And his


fame, on brightest pages,
Penned by poets and by sages,
Shall go sounding down the ages.


[Abraham Ryan, Unconquored Banner]

And men and women for generations to come will proudly trace their ancestry back to some Confederate soldier.

It is meet and right, then, that we should honor the memory of the Confederate soldier; that every year, loving hands should deck with flowers the graves of those who wore the gray in that terrible struggle. There is not a worthier object; there is not a more sacred duty.

May each and every one of us here to-day, and generations to come, exclaim then in the spirit of the Jews of old:

If I forget thee, 0 Confederate soldier, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!



As this passage was printed in 1902 by veterans of the Confederacy, it exists in the PUBLIC DOMAIN by law. No part of it contains anything, to this editor's knowledge, that was added to the original manuscript in subsequent publications. This photograph of Major Obenchain is in the Public Domiain under fair use rules and is not subject to any spurious copyright claims

[http://www.civilwarhistory.com/Confederate%20Veteran/CV4/Our%20Confederate%20Dead.htm]

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill
He treasures up His bright designs,
And works His sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain. 

Sir Wm. Cowper, before 1800

His obituary in the Confederate Veteran His wife was a famous Kentucky Author by the pen name of Eliza Calvert Hall