The Macon Daily Telegraph
27 April 1911

MEMORIAL DAY IS OVERFLOWING FOR PEOPLE OF MACON

Confederate Dead Honored Impressively By Surviving Comrades

EXERCISES AT CEMETERY

Veterans Have Informal Reunion at Courthouse -- Oratory at Auditorium

Perhaps never before has Macon celebrated a more crowded Memorial Day than
yesterday, with a reunion of the R. A. Smith Camp and friends, an
elaborate barbecue served at the Volunteers' Armory to the veterans,
memorial exercises at the auditorium and cemetery, motorcycle races, two
beseball games at the Central City Park, and an elaborate banquet, given
by Lieuts. J. Lowe Wall and Harry Nottingham to the members of the Macon
Hussars, making up a full and pleasing day.

Threatening skies did not serve to hold the people back, and cemetery,
race track and hall grounds were taxed to their capacity with an eager
crowd, seeking to enjoy a real holiday.

The great concourse of people seemed to gather into one crowd at 6 o'clock
along Second, where the military comapnies of the city fired a salute over
the Confederat[e] monument, which had been [?] in advance with flowers and
Confederate flags by the members of the Nathaniel Macon Chapter Daughters
of the Confederacy, assisted by a number of the firemen.

Confederate soldiers, Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy, in fact
almost every man, woman and child in Macon, joined together and paid
fitting tribute to the soldiers of the Confederacy, and the women, whose
sacrifices in the days of '61-'65, elicited the tribute of a world.

From the time the Confederate Veterans gathered at the city court room
until the last note of "taps" sounded by the regimental buglar of the
Macon Battalion floated over the graves of hundreds of Confederate
soldiers buried in Rose Hill Cemetery, many of whom had reaped a soldier's
reward, death on the battlefield, the memory of the spirit of those men
and those who survive them, lingered to the minds of every inhabitant of
what Clarence J. Owens, of Memphis, Tenn., termed "A true Southern city."

Dr. Owens, in his introductory remarks of the memorial oration, delivered
to an audience which packed the auditorium to its capacity, expressed in
an appropriate way Macon's observation of the day, when he said: "A
visitor to your fair Southern city is expressing in words, but far more in
action, a memorable occasion, for on every side there lingers in the air,
as Confederate flags something that seems to say Macon loves breeze from
monument and buildings, and honors the dead and living hero, of a nation,
whose flag unconquered yet unfurled, is carried to the heavens by an angel
to the commander, who waits with Lee and Jackson and Johnston and other
heroes of the South for those whose life battle is almost ended."

A feature of the exercises at the Auditorium was the deliverance of
crosses of honor to veterans. The presentation was made by Mrs. W. D.
Lamar, and crosses were conferred on Smith Daly, private, Company A, First
Georgia Regiment, and to his son, James J. Daly.

T. H. Henderson, private Kirkpatrick's Battery, Nelson's Battalion,
Enell's Artillery, cross to his widow, Mrs. T. H. Henderson, of Ocain, Fla.

Thomas Hardeman, captain, Company C, Floyd Rifles, cross to his son, John
L. Hardeman.

W. L. Mitchell, private Company A, Third Georgia Reserves, Gray, Ga.

U. V. Cowan, private, Comapny C, Eighth Regiment, Georgia Volunteers,
cross to his son, H. O. Cowan.

J. L. Ethridge, private, Company E, Forty-fifth Regiment, Georgia Volunteers.

A. B. Giles, private, Company F, Forty-fifth Regiment Georgia Volunteers.

L. A. Harper, private, Company D, Third Regiment Georgia Volunteers,
Madison, Georgia.

S. D. Massey, private, Comapny C, Second Battalion, Georgia Volunteers.

Alexander Reid, private, Company E, Thirty-seventh Georgia Battalion
Militia, cross to his grandson, John W. Reid.

George G. Smith, chaplain, Phillips' Legion Volunteers.

Vocal selections by the Hamilton quartet, pleased the audience, and they
were forced to respond to several encores.

Following the exercises at the auditorium, the Macon Battalion, composed
of the Hussars, Volunteers and Floyd Rifles, commanded by Major J. A.
Thomas, marched to Rose Hill Cemetery and fired a salute over the graves
of the dead Confederate soldiers, buried in the soldiers' lot.

Dr. Clarence J. Owens, commander in chief of the Sons of Confederate
Veterans, who delivered the Memorial Day address at the Auditorium, made a
decidedly favorable impression on the audience, and his review of the many
acts of sacrifice and bravery of the Southern women during the Civil War
brought forth round after round of applause. The orator of the day
recited with a knowledge of history, the exploits of Confederate leaders,
and every mention of Lee, Johnstone, Jackson and others brought forth plaudits.

The closing remarks of the speaker in which he urged the people of a New
South to exert every energy to build up the Southland and infuse into
those to come later the spirit of determination and love of country that
had been left to them by the gray haired veterans, who would soon join
their beloved leaders and comrades in a grand reunion in the field of
everlasting peace.

To the members of Nathaniel Macon Chapter Daughters of the Confederacy,
and the Sons of Confederate Veterans, belongs much of the credit for the
way in which the memory of the deceased veterans was honored.

The following is the program in full, rendered at the Auditorium:
"How Firm a Foundation," by Mrs. E. A. Gould and assembly.
Invocation, Rev. J. G. Harrison.
Delivery of crosses of honor, by Mrs. W. D. Lamar.
Quartet, by the Hamilton Brothers and Mr. Mitchell.
Introduction of the orator of the day, by Lamar Williams.
Delivery of the Memorial Day address, by Clarence J. Owens.
Quartet, by the [H]amilton Brothers and Mr. Mitchell.
"Dixie," by Mrs. E. W. Gould and assembly.

COURTHOUSE REUNION

The reunion of veterans at the courthouse was one of the old geniune
gatherings of Confederate soldiers, marked by impromptu addresses from
many of the veterans, who, in their own way, reviewed and pictured scenes
of the struggle between the states and the only matter of real business
transacted was the unanimous adoption of a resolution introduced by Capt.
J. W. Wilcox and Col. J. W. Preston, Sr., asking that Mrs. W. D. Lamar
withdraw any intention of declining re-election to the office of president
of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

In the two hours that the veterans gathered in reunion at the courthouse,
which was followed by an elaborate barbecue given at the Volunteers'
Armory by the Sons of the Confederacy, many battles of the Civil War were
revived and many incidents, comic and tragic, related.

Many had followed Lee through the campaigns of the East, and were with the
leader of the Confederate States at Appomattox when the great general
surrendered to Grant.

Others told of the fateful night when the idol of the Confederate army,
Stonewall Jackson, fell pierced by a bullet from the guns of his own men,
and still others related stories of Sherman's march through Georgia, and
of the capture of Jefferson Davis in Irwin County, and his confinement in
a toom at Hotel Lanier, when his captors carried him through Macon to
Nashville. All day long the Sons of Confederate Soldiers played a
prominent part in the exercises, and this part of the day was featured
when the Hussars gathered around a banquet table...[?]...speech gave
evidence that the memory of the Confederacy will linger through ages to
come, the spirit of the Confederate living through the lives of these
stanch militiamen, in whose breast lingers the same old spirit that
prompted the heroism of the sixties.

The war songs of the Hamilton Quartet, who are ex-members of the Hussars,
brought round after round of applause and three husky cheers were given in
their honoe after the banquet. The affair was strictly informal, and was
fully enjoyed by the fifty-eight members of the company and a number of ex-
members. The banquet was given by Lieuts. Wall and Nottingham, the former
acting as toast master.

Wit and humor prevailed throughout, the affair being brought to a fitting
close by the singing of "God Be With You Till We Meet Again." Among the ex-
members present were: P. D. Stamps, Charlie, Harry and John Hamilton, Mr.
Mitchell, Fred Reichert, Charlie DeBorde, and Sergeant Drennan, of the
United States regular army.

Nearly every store and business house in Macon was closed during the
afternoon, and the offices of the courthouse, federal building and city
hall remained closed practically the entire day. A number of the veterans
wore the uniform that had graced the old battlefields, and the flag of the
R. A. Smith Camp, Confederate Veterans, floated from the stage at the
auditorium and courthouse.

Three colleys were fired over the grave of Colonel Thomas Hardeman by the
Floyd Rifles, which company was in the command of this illustrious
Georgian, at the opening of the Civil War.

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Rose Hill Cemetery

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