The Typical Confederate Soldier By G. H. Baskette, Nashville, TN 1893 "The Confederate soldier was not an ordinary soldier, neither in appearance nor in character. He may even appear ludicrous on a display occasion of holiday pomp and splendor of war.But place him where duty calls, in the imminent deadly breach or the perilous charge, and none in all the armies of the earth can claim a higher rank or prouder record. He may be ill-fashioned in dress, but he has sublimated his poverty and rags. The worn and faded gray jacket, glorified by valor and stained with the life blood of its wearer, becomes, in its immortality of association, a more splendid vestment than mail of medieval knight or the rarest robe of royalty.That old, weather-heaten slouched hat, seen as the ages will see it, with its halo of fire, through the smoke of battle, is a more kinglier covering than a crown. Half clad, half armed, often half fed, without money and without
price, the Confederate soldier fought against the resources of the world. When at last his flag was furled and his
arms were grounded in defeat, the cause for which he had struggled was lost. But he had won the fadeless victory of soldiership."
"The
South is a land that has known sorrows;
it is a land that has broken the ashen crust and
moistened it with tears; a land scarred and riven
by the plowshare of war and billowed with the
graves of her dead; but a land of legend,
a land of song, a land of hallowed and heroic
memories.
"To that land every drop of my blood, every
fiber of my being, every pulsation of my heart,
is consecrated forever. I was born of her womb;
I was nurtured at her breast; and when my last
hour shall come, I pray GOD that I may be
pillowed upon her bosom and rocked to sleep
within her tender and encircling arms."
Edward Carmack United States House of Representatives
"When my bones they lay down
In the cold cold ground
Have someone play Dixie for me."
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