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From the Baltimore Sun The quarterly meeting of the Baltimore Chapter, United Daughters of Confederacy, was marked yesterday by the reading of an original poem on the Confederate flag composed and read by the President, Mrs. D. Giraud Wright. The poem is as follows: "THE CONFEDERATE FLAG"
The hands of our women made it,
As high over our hosts it floated,
And we went and watched and waited
As they marched o'er vale and mountains,
Cold are the loved hands that bore it.
No hand of vandal shall touch it.
The poem by Mrs. D. Giraud Wright, of this city, on the Confederate flag, read yesterday at the meeting of the Daughters of the Confederacy, will touch many hearts. The titanic struggle of which the Confederate flag is the symbol, and the noble qualities it called forth in a brave, conscientious and chivalric people, must ever command the interest and respect of all generous minds. All the world honors the magnificent efforts of the South in behalf of what it deemed right and expedient, though all the world may not view its failure with regret. The sentiment of loyalty with which ex-Confederates regard their flag is intelligible and commands the deference, if not sympathy, of those who upheld the stars and stripes. There is much that is pathetic in the memories the sight of the flag of the Confederacy invokes, and it has inspired many poems, of which Mrs. Wright's is one of the best. It is with great pleasure that I am able to introduce among the rolls of the Confederate soldiers from Edgefield a poem (see page 471) on the Confederate flag. The author of the poem is a daughter of the late Colonel Louis T. Wigfall, of Texas, who was born at Edgefield. Some years before Secession Colonel Wigfall moved to Texas and was Confederate State Senator from the State during the four years of struggle and trial. Of his career in life I know but little, but I was very deeply impressed by reading a speech he made while in the Confederate Senate. I think the speech was on a resolution to suspend the operation of the writ of habeas corpus; and Colonel Wigfall opposed with all the zeal and strength of a great mind to passage of the resolution. He showed with all the energy possible the evil effects that would follow and what a horrible thing it was to take away at one stroke all the rights of a citizen and all the rights of the States and reduce the whole country to the condition of a military despotism and subject to the arbitrary will of one man. It was a strong plea for individual and personal rights, and for the rights of the individual States. And his plea was successful. "The Confederate Flag" is copied from the Edgefield Chronicle of April 28th, 1897.
Confederate Navy Jack
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