ADDRESS 
 
 JOS. B. GUMMING 
 
 ON 
 
 THE OCCASION OF THE ERECTION 
 OF A MONUMENT ON THE SITE 
 OF FORT AUGUSTA. (ST. 
 PAUL’S CHURCHYARD) 
 NOVEMBER 22, 1901. 
 
 Chronicle Job Print, 
 Augusta, Ga. 
 
All countries of this planet are equally old — yet we speak 
 of old countries and new countries. When we speak of the 
 new we mean a country newly opened to civilized man. 
 
 A new country addresses the sentimental or spiritual side 
 of humanity only through the manifestations of external na- 
 ture. Such food as this part of man’s organism requires, he 
 must find in such a country in the solemnity of the unbroken 
 forest, the grandeur of the lofty mountain, the majesty of 
 the brimming river ; or in the less obtrusive beauties of foliage 
 and wild flower, vale and rivulet, and the throusand other 
 appeals of unmarred and unscarred nature to man’s spiritual 
 part. 
 
 But the nature stage of a country passes. In the thirteen 
 original states of this Union — in which fair sisterhood Georgia 
 is the youngest — the duration of that stage was short, as we 
 count time in the lives of countries. Then enters a country 
 into the history stage. In this stage, that less gross and 
 material part of man, which “cannot live by bread alone”, and 
 which, in the country’s nature stage, fed upon the food, which 
 nature’s grandeur and beauty provided, finds at least some of 
 its pabulum in the contemplation of the trials and achieve- 
 ments of humanity. 
 
 Let me give a concrete illustration of these abstract de- 
 liverances. I find it on this very spot. Oglethorpe, when he 
 first came to the site of our city, which was to be, a century 
 and two-thirds ago, found himself in the midst of primitive 
 nature. If, outside of his subjective resources, he craved re- 
 freshment for the spiritual part of him, he could find it only 
 in that encompassing nature. What had she to offer him on 
 this spot? Doubtless all the charms of the forest — magnificent 
 umbrageous oaks of every variety of that noble tree and 
 wide-spreading elms and hickories, interspersed with the bay 
 and the magnolia, and intertwined by vines, floriferous and 
 many-colored. To the north and west he looked upon an am- 
 phitheatre of the everlasting hills, also crowned with the 
 glories of the primeval forest. He saw debouching from those 
 hills and flowing under this bluff a majestic river, greater in 
 length and breadth than many another famed in song and 
 story — more beautiful, too ; for then crystal were its waters 
 and emerald its shores. But this spot had no other interest 
 than those unchanging features of nature. It had no history. 
 The country was devoid of memories to stir the blood and 
 quicken the pulse. It held no spot hallowed and glorified by 
 
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a no'ble life or an heroic death. It possessed no locality where 
 one might stand and say: “This is holy ground. This place is 
 baptized in patriot blood. This spot witnessed brave deeds 
 done in a sacred cause.” There was no field on which mem- 
 ory aided by imagination could marshal the spirits of the 
 illustrious dead. 
 
 This same Oglethorpe, who stood on the wooded banks 
 of the Savannah, had many times trod the aisles of Wesminster 
 Abbey. These two extremes present the idea I am seeking 
 to express. The spirit here on the Savannah finding its re- 
 freshment in the beauty and majesty of nature. The spirit in 
 Westminster Abbey feasting on the quickened memories of a 
 glorious history. Which appeals strongest to humanity? Na- 
 ture or history? The everlasting hills, the perennial river, the 
 primeval forest? Or the ancient Abbey, the tombs and the 
 effigies of those immortal “other living whom we call the 
 dead?” Each will answer this question for himself. 
 
 This spot has passed beyond the nature condition and 
 entered not a little way into the history stage. I fear its de- 
 parture from the former has been proportionately greater than 
 has its entrance into the latter. “What man could do man 
 hath well done” to mar “the changeless things" — the hills, the 
 river. The noble forests have fallen. The axe has denuded 
 the hills. The plough has stained forever the limpid river 
 with the color of the upturned soil. One must find interest in 
 this spot in other features than those which characterized it 
 in Oglethorpe’s time. While in fancy we picture its then 
 natural beauty, and while we lament its disappearance, we are 
 largely consoled by reflecting on its present interest, deeper 
 than forest or hill or river ever inspired. Since that time it 
 has become the site of a temple of the living God, to which 
 generations have brought their prayers and praise, their chil- 
 dren to be baptized, their parents to be buried, and their lovers 
 to be wedded. But its special interest, which has brought us 
 here today, is the first fact in what I have ventured to call the 
 history stage of this spot. We are here under the auspices of 
 that noble band of patriotic women, the Colonial Dames, 
 whose motto is “Virtutes majorum filiae conservant,” to take 
 part in the ceremonies, intended to perpetuate the memory 
 of the fact that this is the site of the little colonial fort which 
 Oglethorpe builded one hundred and sixty-six years ago. In 
 those far off days this outpost of civilization, which has grown 
 into our fair city, was known not as the town of Augusta, but 
 as “Fort Augusta”. To this place traders resorted both for 
 its commercial advantage and for the protection which this 
 
 4 
 
little fortification afforded from the denizens of the neighbor- 
 ing boundless forest. 
 
 But everything passes— colonial days went by, and states 
 struggled for independence. Then a more dramatic interest 
 gathered about this spot. Within the compass of these walls, 
 above these graves, in the sight of yon onlooking hills, in 
 hearing of the murmurs of the near by river, men fought and 
 bled and died in and around a larger fort — each in the cause he 
 espoused', each under the flag he cherished. Here men fighting 
 loyally for their king, and men fighting unselfishly for their 
 country have hallowed the spot and given it an interest, which 
 it could never have derived from the mere beauties of nature, 
 were they ever so great. 
 
 In response to that sentiment of our nature which dis- 
 tinguishes and consecrates localities where critical parts of 
 the historic drama have been acted, we come to this place after 
 the lapse of one hundred and sixty-six years since the planting 
 of the little colonial fort to commemorate that event, and that 
 one, too, of larger interest — the siege and capture of the Revo- 
 lutionary fort, within whose lines we are now standing, some- 
 time British and sometime American, changing its name with 
 its shifting fortunes, now “Cornwallis” and then again and 
 lastly “Augusta”. Henceforth while granite and bronze en- 
 dure, this monument will keep these historic memories from 
 perishing from the earth. 
 
 i With all reverence for the teachings imparted for genera- 
 tions in this nearby sacred edifice, I say it: How little we 
 
 know of that other world in which we all believe t How far 
 is it? How near? How thick the veil which hides it from our 
 mortal vision? How thin? While “across the narrow night 
 they fling us not some token”, are those on the other side 
 better endowed than we, so that 'While we cannot penetrate 
 the veil they may see and know what passes here? If that 
 be true and there be among those lookers and listeners from 
 the other side any who tasted here the double bitterness of 
 death and defeat, they will know that we erect this monument 
 not in triumph but simply in memoriam — in memory of the 
 little fort, in this region the first bulwark of commerce and 
 civilization ; in memory of the Revolutionary fort, the goal 
 and prize of disciplined battalions; and in memory of victor 
 and vanquished alike. Success is an ignoble shrine at which 
 to worship. Courage and devotion to duty, these be worthy of 
 monuments. We are a people who have not hesitated to erect 
 memorials to failure. Witness our noble Confederate monu- 
 ments, all of them recording a magnificent failure frankly and 
 
proudly, because filled with brave and noble self-sacrifice. 
 We have imparted a new meaning to battle monuments. The 
 theme of our monuments is not victory — perhaps unmerited : 
 but courage and devotion to duty— though defeated. Let this 
 monument, which we unvail to-day, stand on that high moral 
 plane — a monument to duty done, an equal memorial to the 
 victor and the vanquished, the successful and the unsuccessful 
 brave, the men who found their duty in fighting for their 
 country, and the. men who saw theirs in upholding the standard 
 of their king. 
 
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