Once more the dream! Once more the dream! And floats to me upon the stream From Memory’s generous spring some form Or voice I loved beyond the storm. And thus does Memory surely prove Herself an angel, born of Love. ’Tis not a dead past that she brings, For past is present when she sings. And thus old joys once known with thee, I live again, my Tennessee. Thus let me dream! Thus let me dream! Nor Time deprive me of a beam. For, oh, that heart is happiest Which dwells on pleasures past and best! And that heart bides in saddest gloom That broods upon some ill to come. Let these old joys and loves be mine Till life shall drift beyond the line From heaven that is to heaven to be, From thy warm heart, my Tennessee. GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON Born at Longwood, Prince Edward County, Virginia, February 3, 1807 Died at Washington, District of Columbia, March 21, 1891 By Robert L. Taylor When the restless spirit of Johnston took its flight from earth the South bade farewell to as brave a knight as ever shivered a lance “when knighthood was in flower.” His death following so quickly that of William T. Sherman, was a dramatic coincidence. They had fought a long and bloody duel—hilt to hilt and toe to toe, and the arena extended from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean. Sherman advanced with sword and torch in the hands of his splendid army; Johnston met him with strategy and the stubborn resistance of his thin lines of gray; the duel ended only when the resources of military art were exhausted and the shattered remnant of Johnston’s weary columns was overthrown by Sherman’s overwhelming numbers. When the conflict was ended and the battle flags were furled, these two great captains met in the capital of the republic and shook hands across the bloody chasm. Sherman died in February, 1891, and Johnston, broken in health and feeble with age, was one of his pall-bearers, an office which he had also performed at the funeral of his friend, General Grant. A month later he joined the silent hosts to which these antagonists on many a field of glory had preceded him.