Or, I recall that story of Bishop-General Polk, about the woman in the mountains of Tennessee, with six sons. Five of them were in the army, and when it was announced to her that her eldest born had been killed in battle, the mother simply said: "The Lord's will be done. Eddie (her baby) will be fourteen next spring, and he can take Billy's place." The hero of this great epoch is the son I have described, as his mother and sister will be the heroines. For years, day and night, winter and summer, without pay, with no hope of promotion nor of winning a name or making a mark, the Confederate boy-soldier trod the straight and thorny path of duty. Half-clothed, whole-starved, he tramps, night after night, his solitary post on picket. No one can see him. Five minutes' walk down the road will put him beyond recall, and twenty minutes further and he will be in the Yankee lines, where pay, food, clothes, quiet, and safety all await him. Think of the tens of thousands of boys subjected to this temptation, and how few yielded! Think of how many dreamed of such relief from danger and hardship! But, while I glorify the chivalry, the fortitude, and the fidelity of the private soldier, I do not intend to minimize the valor, the endurance, or the gallantry of those who led him. GOVERNOR C. T. O'FERRALL'S TRIBUTE [In Southern Historical Papers, Volume 23, pages 361-362.] I think I can say boldly that the bloody strife of 1861 to 1865 developed in the men of the South traits of character as ennobling and as exalting as ever adorned men since the day-dawn of creation. I think I can proclaim confidently that, for courage and daring chivalry and bravery, the world has never seen the superiors of the Southern soldiers. I think I can assert defiantly that the annals of time present no leaves more brilliant than those upon which are recorded the deeds and achievements of the followers of the Southern Cross. I think I can proclaim triumphantly that, from the South's beloved President, and the peerless commander of her armies in the field, down to the private in her ranks, there was a display of patriotism perhaps unequalled (certainly never surpassed) since this passion was implanted in the human breast. But as grand as the South was in her sons, she was grander in her daughters; as sublime as she was in her men, she was sublimer in her women. History is replete with bright and beautiful examples of woman's devotion to home and birthland; of her fortitude, trials, and sufferings in her country's cause, and the women of the Confederacy added many luminous pages to what had already been most graphically written.