Shade of Beecher! Come back to Washington and see President and Cabinet and Congress and Army and Navy gather in tears around the coffin and do the grand honors at the grave of the Confederate General Wheeler! The truth is the true comrades from both sides have been coming "closer" to each other ever since the bloodshed at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, whenever the politicians would let them. The old "vets" understand each other whether other people do or not. We are "comrades" indeed. Now, comrades of the North, let an old "Confederate vet" who has gloried in the privilege of frequently grasping your hands for forty years, say a parting word to you. Your country is our country. Your heroes are our heroes. We claim the honor of having such patriotic countrymen as Lincoln, such heroes as Thomas, Meade and Hancock, and McClellan and Grant, and McPherson and Farragut. If there were such men as Butler and Milroy and Hunter, they were our countrymen, too, and if they did things worthy of condemnation, let Southerners condemn them with a feeling of sorrow over the failings of erring countrymen--just as Northern men should look truthfully at the lives of Southern leaders and condemn, when it is just, but condemn in sorrow our erring countrymen. But, comrades, "come closer." Read the humble tribute of this book to the memory of Southern women of 1861-1865. They were your countrywomen. Their virtues are the glory of all America. We have tried to help you and the world to know them better. We have all come forth from the ashes now. We are rejoicing in a prosperous South and a prosperous North. Our women nobly did their part in the war and nobly have they helped to rebuild the South, not only for our children, but for your sons and your daughters. Our sunny South belongs to the whole country. Our noble women and their children love their whole country. They have shown themselves true to principle and true to duty. "Come closer, comrades," and study these Southern women. If you find anything wrong in their spirit or conduct, hold it up to just retribution. If they have set a glorious example of courage, of sacrifice and of patriotism, help your children and our children to "come closer" in following their example. End of Project Gutenberg's The Women of the Confederacy, by J. L. Underwood