F 273 
 .G7 
 Copy 1 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 DEUVKHKD AT TU« 
 
 Jfrmeral of General |f arrg (iregg, 
 
 IM THR 
 
 PiiESBnEKIAN CHURCH, COLUMBIA, S. ('.. 
 
 DECKMBKK 20, I'^Vd. 
 
 By B. M. palmer, D. 1). 
 
 COLUMBIA, S. C: 
 
 •OVTHKRN GUARDIAN STEAM-POWER PRWft 
 
 1868. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 Jfmmilof Enteral HHa^Tg ^r^gg, 
 
 IN THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN^ CHURCH, COLUMBIA, S. C, 
 
 DECEMBER 20, 18G2, 
 
 By B. M. palmer, D. D. 
 
 COLUMBIA, S. C: 
 
 SOUTHERN GUARDIAN STEAM-POWER PRESS. 
 1863. 
 
Pvi'-o TJpivorsity 
 - APR 1 9 1940 
 
 
THE FLOWERS COLLECTION 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 We meet this day in the house of God to mourn — to 
 mourn for ourselves, and for the State, the mother that has 
 borne us all ! "When Death comes in at the window, and 
 steals away its victim from some private circle, a whole 
 community will yield obedience to the law of Christian 
 sympathy, and weep with those that weep. Bat to-day the 
 State, like the Spartan mother of old, receives through us 
 one of her noblest sons upon his shield, and pours out her 
 grief upon his venerated form. Alas, our bereaved mother ! 
 How often of late has she strained her dead sons to her 
 bosom, in the last embrace, and then turned aside, like 
 Eachael, to weep, " refusing to be comforted, because they 
 are not! " Where is the family amongst us that does not 
 whisper its secret grief around the evening hearth ? And 
 where the village cemetery whose sacred inclosure does 
 not shelter some patriot's grave ? Her martj-red sous sleep 
 everywhere upon her soil ; upon the mountain's grassy 
 slope, beneath the peaceful watching of the silent stars, to 
 where the ocean fringes the earth with its foam, and chants 
 with its deep bass the low, funereal dirge ! But here, to-day, 
 in the centre of them all, with his sword beneath his head, 
 we bury the gallant chieftain who led the strife in which 
 they bravely fell. What language can rise to the solemn 
 majesty of this assembly, or speak with the pathos which 
 belongs to unuttered sorrow ! Were I to follow the impulse 
 of my own heart, I would cover my head, and sit a silent 
 mourner beside that bier, rather than be the voice to utter 
 
4 ADDRESS. 
 
 the wail which now rends every breast throughout this 
 commonwealth. 
 
 He whom we now bear to the tomb is worthy of the 
 reverence of these imposing obsequies ; nor do I fear that 
 words of praise will breed in your minds, as with one of 
 doubtful virtue, suspicion of his merit. If there be one 
 word which, more than another, covers the breadth of his 
 character, it is the word manliness. He was a true man, in 
 the full assemblage of virtues which crowd into that short, 
 expressive term. Courage, honesty, and strength, were 
 tempered with the softer graces of gentleness and love ; 
 
 "Elements 
 So mixed in liim, that nature might stand up 
 And say to all the world, this was a man." 
 
 Inheriting a more than Roman virtue from his honored 
 sire, it grew in him to such robustness and symmetry as to 
 command the homage of universal reverence. To say that 
 he was incapable of falsehood, in any of the forms in which 
 it is acted among men, would present but the coarse profile 
 of his immaculate truthfulness. The historian must say of 
 him more than this ; that he could not stoop even to those 
 minor indirections which creep unwittingly into human 
 intercourse, and which are almost sanctioned by the usage 
 of society. His simple word was the gauge of honor, and 
 was always accepted as his surest pledge. His innate sense 
 of right, which could not inflict a wilful wrong, looked 
 with a cultivated resentment upon the wrong perpetrated 
 by another ; and as the arbiter of many a dispute, the honor 
 of a friend was confided to a guardian whose jealousy would 
 not suffer it to be tarnished with a stain. That positiveness 
 of character which marks the independent and vigorous 
 thinker, lost the roughness of its edge in the blandness of 
 address which made him at all times the polished and 
 courtly gentleman. Self-contained and reticent, he was 
 hedged about by a reserve through which no one was bold 
 
ADDRESS. O 
 
 enough rudely to break, but which never degenerated into 
 morose and repulsive austerity. It was but the guard with 
 which every man of true self-respect fences around his own 
 ^ personality, and which knew how to let itself down in the 
 genial flow of confidential intercourse. I may not, before 
 this public assembly, lift the veil of domestic life, and re- 
 veal the tenderness of a strong man's love : which, not 
 weaving ties of its own, twined itself around the venerable 
 mother, who, by a timely release, is just spared the anguish 
 of weeping over his bier; and around endeared sisters, who 
 to-day mourn with a sorrow which sisters are seldom called 
 to feel. Be it enough to say, that he belonged to that select 
 class of the bravo and true, whose hands are strong in the 
 great battle of life, but who love with a woman's heart at 
 home. In this rare union of gentleness with force, he be- 
 came a tj'pe of the Southern gentleman ; and fathers proudly 
 pointed their sons to his model, as they gazed upon a 
 character so massive in its strength, with such an undertone 
 of honesty and truth, and so tempered with urbanity. 
 
 Too grave and earnest in his nature to be seduced by the 
 low, material pleasures of the world, he sought refreshment 
 amidst professional labors, in the retirement of his home, 
 and in the pursuits of a scholar. In the seclusion of his 
 study, surrounded by the great immortals who survive in 
 books, he not only found companions congenial to his taste, 
 but drank in the wisdom of the past, and secretly elaborated 
 the principles upon which he foresaw the destinies of his 
 country must one day turn. Inditferent to the prizes of 
 ordinary political ambition — perhaps in some measure pre- 
 cluded by the stern jealousy of a profession which admits no 
 rivalry in its successful prosecution ; and possibly unfitted 
 for the machinations of party by the rigor of his character, 
 which could not bend to compromise — he moved but little 
 upon the stage of party politics, and was seldom com- 
 mingled in its transient issues. Yet, in every great crisis, 
 when in national assemblies the assertion of some great 
 
O ADDRESS. 
 
 political truth was imperatively demanded, the eyes of the 
 State always turned upon General Gregg as the champion 
 equal to the task. More than once, with a courage superior 
 even to that he displayed in arms, has he aihrmed principles 
 in these national convocations, which were any thing but a 
 passport to public favor, and which shut down upon him 
 the gates of political preferment. It was his sublime mis- 
 sion, in short, to stand sentinel over the master-principle of 
 State supremacy, the corner-stone upon which rests, with 
 us, the whole fabric of constitutional republican liberty. 
 Through long j-ears he maintained his silent watch, like 
 some reformer of olden time, content with recording his 
 protest in days of defection and apostacy ; knowing that 
 truth will experience a resurrection, and come forth from 
 the record, to be once more a power in the hearts of men. 
 Thus he stood upon the tower of observation, calmly wait- 
 ing for the historic moment when the revolutionary sword 
 should again cut the cords of political bondage, and set his 
 country free. ]N"o. sooner did the State unfurl the banner 
 of her sovereignty to the breeze, than he leaped from his 
 retirement, to bear it on to triumph against the fanatical 
 crusaders who threatened to tread it in the dust. The first 
 to lead the sons of Carolina upon the battle-plains of Vir- 
 ginia, his unimpeachable courage was marked b}' the cool- 
 ness and self-possession which had signalized his whole 
 previous career, and infused into his troops an enthusiasm 
 equal to his own. His military skill and intrepid bearing 
 soon promoted him from the colonelcy of a regiment to the 
 command of a brigade ; and by the fireside of many a 
 soldier it will be told, in future days, how, amidst the 
 shower of leaden hail, he brought his regiments one by one 
 coolly into line, and flaunted defiance against the foe. At 
 last, in his fourteenth battle, he fell, upon the hills of Fred- 
 ericksburg, and, like the gallant Wolfe upon the heights of 
 Abraham, in the arms of victory. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 It is given to no man, my friends, to evade the shaft of 
 death ; ^,but only the good and great know how to render 
 death sublime. It is always glorious when it places its seal 
 of attest upon the principles of a noble life-time. Then it 
 comes like the chorus to a chant, into which is breathed the 
 very soul of song. An epic unity runs through the career 
 of General Gregg, whose stern consistency demanded a 
 heroic death. His dying message to the State, transmitted 
 to his Excellency the Governor, gives the key which makes 
 his life a perfect poem: "If I am to die now, I give my 
 life cheerfully for the independence of South Carolina." 
 Let the touching words in which the true patriot renders 
 back his life's trust to his country, be engraved upon his 
 tomb ! And Providence itself, as if mindful to preserve 
 the poetic harmonies of such a career, permits us to bear 
 his body to the grave on no other day but this second anni- 
 versary of his State's secession from the old Federal Union. 
 On this very day, two years ago, his hand signed the im- 
 mortal instrument which made South Carolina a free and 
 independent Commonwealth ; and now, with his flag for 
 his winding-sheet, we lay him down upon his mother's 
 bosom, to a soldier's rest. Who shall say that we have not 
 here a true and perfect epic ? 
 
 "A song for the death-day of the brave — 
 A song of pride ! 
 
 For him that went to a hero's grave, 
 With the sword his bride." 
 
 But "I am here to bury Cfesar, not to praise him." 
 There are two lessons which I would seek, by the impres- 
 sive solemnities of this hour, to enforce. The first is, our 
 country is endeared to us by every bereavement we sustain. This 
 death binds with a new sanction to our heart the cause to 
 which he fell so cheerfully a martyr. The privations and 
 hardships we undergo are nothing, when weighed against 
 the precious blood whidh has been shed to purchase free- 
 dom to our land. The wandering exile will bear with 
 
O ADDRESS. 
 
 equanimity the painful remembrance of his dismantled 
 home, when he looks upon the broken families whose sons 
 either sleep upon Virginia's sacred soil, or have been 
 brought back to make more real the loss which can not be 
 repaired. But should every thing be lost, and the base 
 foot of an insolent invader tread upon our high and beau- 
 tiful places, we will rally around the tombs of our dead, 
 and fight the last battle of freedom over their honored dust. 
 If there is not a home within this Confederacy but has a 
 treasured grave, let its sacred relics be the pledge of undy- 
 ing resistance to our country's foe. Never shall he be 
 suffered to erase our inscriptions of love upon their tombs, 
 and write the word 'rebel' upon their sacred dust. Beside 
 this bier we take the irrevocable oath to die upon his grave, 
 ere it shall be thus desecrated. Sleep, honored patriot, in 
 thy peaceful bed, till the resurrection-morn : for thousands 
 of hearts, beating with love of liberty equal to thine own, 
 here record the sacramental vow to redeem their country, 
 or to emulate thy death. 
 
 The second lesson is of sublimer import, for a voice sounds 
 from the eternal world, and warns the nation to trust in the living 
 God. The patriotic ardor with which this Commonwealth 
 now guards its attribute of sovereignty, should teach us 
 to respect the holy jealousy with which, in all history, 
 God has vindicated His awful supremacy. And the world 
 will derive little profit from the dreadful struggle in which 
 we are embarked, if it is not taught to "praise and honor 
 Him that liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting 
 dominion, and His kingdom from generation to genera- 
 tion." If He strikes down our princes and nobles, it is not 
 to lead us to despair, but to a loftier faith in His goodness 
 and power. Our Johnson and our Bee — our Glover, Mar- 
 shall, Means ; and now, at last, our Gregg — are laid low in 
 death ! Who shall lead our forces to the battle, and be 
 strong for us in the day of confiict ? "Our help is in the 
 name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." And 
 
ADDRESS. y 
 
 when the day of peace shall dawn, with its trials, more 
 searching, perhaps, than those of war, who shall be wise for 
 us in that work of construction, and shape the character of 
 our young and pliant nation ? Alas I compatriots, I mourn 
 to-day more the statesman than the warrior ! I looked 
 through the night, now so dark about us, to the auspicious 
 day when Senators should once more sit in their peaceful 
 halls : and in the prophetic vision, I saw him who now 
 sleeps before us a princely leader, legislating for a grateful 
 land. Had he not the higher attributes of an accomplished 
 statesman ? Clear in his conceptions, vigorous in argu- 
 ment, tenacious in his purpose, fearless of reproach, un- 
 swerving in integrity, honest as the light of heaven, and 
 bland as the summer air — who among the living so com- 
 pletely filled up the measure of the Roman poet's eulogy, 
 
 " Justum et tenacem propositi virum 
 Non civium ardor prava jubentium, 
 Non vultus instantis tyranni, 
 Mente quatit solida"? 
 
 When such are taken away from the council-board of a 
 nation, even "the mighty man, and the man of war, the 
 judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, 
 the counsellor, and the eloquent orator" — to whom can we 
 turn but to Ilim by whom kings reign and princes decree 
 justice, and whose heaviest judgment against a people is 
 that " children shall be their princes, and babes shall rule 
 over them" ? May this curse, which has fallen so conspic- 
 uously upon our foes, never be allotted to us for a portion ! 
 Nor can I omit saying, that no nation was ever called to 
 conduct a great struggle so completely under the shadow 
 of Jehovah's throne. In other ages, the contest for civil 
 and religious freedom has often been renewed ; but the 
 sanctity of our war is found in the fact that in its issue the 
 supremacy and prerogatives of the Divine Ruler of the 
 world are distinctly implicated. A bold and infidel fanati- 
 cism has undertaken openly to impeach the morality of 
 
10 ADDRESS. 
 
 God's administration, and with reckless blasphemy de- 
 nounces as profligate the government of the universe. To 
 the people of our Confederacy the sublime mission is 
 assigned of standing guard for the Divine supremacy. In 
 this we are a spectacle to the world : upon a platform as 
 elevated as our own Alleghanies, we strike for our liberties, 
 and for the rights of God. Grand as the contest is when 
 our firesides and our altars are the stake, it rises into the 
 sublime and awful when the question is whether God shall 
 reign, or take into his privy council the hypocritical and 
 infidel fanatic of the ISTorth. The only parallel which I can 
 discover within the compass of history, is the invasion of 
 Judah by Sennacherib, who boasted to Hezekiah, saying, 
 "Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee." To 
 whom God answered, " Because thy rage against me is 
 come up into mine ears, therefore I will put my hook in 
 thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and will turn thee back 
 by the way by which thou camest." What nation, save 
 Judah alone, ever had such trusts committed to its hands ? 
 and what nation ever had such cause to spread its hands 
 unto heaven, and to feel that the battle is not theirs, but 
 God's? 
 
 My sad office is not done until I have said one word 
 more. It is a fearful thing to stand beside an open grave, 
 and not dare to lift the veil which separates us from the 
 world beyond. Thanks be to God, that with some measure 
 of hope this veil may be lifted by us to-day ! General 
 Gregg, as you all know, made no profession of religion in 
 life. But what one of his peculiar thoughtfulness and re- 
 ticence may have meditated on these momentous themes, 
 will never be disclosed until the judgment. Certain it is, 
 that men of his intellectual mould are often misjudged, 
 and charged with an indifterence to religion, which, in the 
 sight of the omniscient Creator, does them grievous wrong. 
 But he was followed in secret by the powerful intercessions 
 of some who fear and love God. Ah ! ye men of the world. 
 
i- 
 
 ADDRESS. 11 
 
 think not lightly of that wonderful providence which binds 
 you up with the pious in the relationships of life, anjd sur- 
 rounds you with an atmosphere of holiness which you are 
 compelled to breathe. Often, when no other ground of 
 hope is left, the saints of the most high call to remembrance 
 their own fervent supplications; and, knowing that a cove- 
 nant God will gather their tears into his bottle, are more 
 content to leave you in His sovereign hands. In this case 
 there is something more. During the period of his military 
 service. General' Gregg is known to have borrowed from 
 the library of a venerable minister books bearing upon the 
 vital points of religious faith ; and that amidst the bustle 
 and toil of the camp, his earnest mind was engaged in the 
 examination of its most practical claims. After the fatal 
 wound was received, during the six-and-thirty hours of 
 ebbing life — I will not speak of his fortitude, for that might 
 be achieved through the firmness of a Stoic — but he was 
 heard by more than one of his attendants to express the con- 
 viction that his peace was made with God : and in his last 
 message of love to one bereaved, the charge was given, not 
 to mourn his death, but to meet him in heaven. Brief and 
 slender words, indeed ! but fragrant with consolation to 
 those who must pay to his memory the tribute of their 
 grief. Had he died upon his bed, anxious hearts would 
 doubtless have extracted from his lips a fuller testimony. 
 They would have sought to know whether this cheerful 
 hope proceeded from insensibility to the dreadful demerit 
 of sin, or flowed from quiet trust in a Redeemer's blood. 
 But let those judge who knew his perfect truthfulness, 
 whether, in a dying hour, he was the man to " palter in a 
 double sense ;" Or whether such a suggestion to surviving 
 relatives can import less than that he stood upon the same 
 ground of hope with them, in a Saviour's pardoning love. 
 Blessed be God for this solace to our woe! And with this 
 voice of benediction, we commit his body to the earth, and 
 his soul to God who gave it. 
 
II 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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