EPITAPHS AND INSCRIPTIONS

THE author began the collection of Epitaphs and Inscriptions under the impression that the Southern States had been signally neglectful of their honored dead. Before completing his work he became convinced that no section of the United States has erected more monuments, in proportion to population, than the South. It is to be hoped that each Southern State will soon collect and publish in book form these interesting memorials, both as an inspiration to the living and as a duty to the dead. The purpose in this part of volume XIV. has been to include only such inscriptions as are noteworthy for their beauty, their quaintness, or their historical signifi

cance.

EPITAPHS AND INSCRIPTIONS

ALAMO

[The Alamo Monument, which stood in the hall of the Capitol, at Austin, Texas, was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1881. Only a fragment was rescued; but that fragment, now among the historical relics of the State Library, preserves in legible form the heroic inscriptions. See 'The Alamo Monument' in The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, April, 1903. The inscriptions are four in number.]

To the God of the Fearless and Free is dedicated this Altar made from the ruins of the Alamo.

Thermopylae had her Messenger of Death, but the Alamo had none.

Be they enrolled with Leonidas in the Host of the Mighty Dead.

Blood of Heroes hath stained me; let the Stones of the Alamo speak that their Immolation be not forgotten.

HENRY WATKINS ALLEN

[Monument at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.]

GOVERNOR ALLEN in a letter from the City of Mexico, 25th December, 1865, to a friend in Louisiana, said: "When it shall please God to consign this mutilated body to its last resting place, be it among strangers in Mexico, or friends in Louisiana, I should desire no better epitaph inscribed on my tomb than the sentiment in the closing part of your letter:

"Your friends are proud to know that Louisiana had a Governor who, with an opportunity of securing a million of dollars in gold, preferred being honest in a foreign land without one cent."

Brigadier General in the Confederate Army and last Governor of Louisiana under the old régime.

Born in Prince Edward Co., Va., 29th April, 1820.
Died in the City of Mexico, 22nd April, 1866.

MANUEL ANTHONIO

[St. Michael's Churchyard, Charleston, South Carolina.]

SACRED

To the Memory of

CAPT. MANUEL ANTHONIO,
Who departed this Life
on the 12th. August 1796,
In the 57th. year of his age.

Altho' I here at Anchor be,
With many of our Fleet;
We must set sail one day again,
Our Savior Christ to meet.

NATHANIEL BACON

[This epitaph on Nathaniel Bacon (1642-1676), the central figure of the famous Bacon's Rebellion, was written "by the man that waited upon his person and who attended his corpse to their (?) burial place." Nothing more is known of him.]

Death, Why so cruel? What! no other way

To manifest thy spleen, but thus to slay

Our hopes of safety, liberty, our all,

Which, through thy tyranny, with him must fall
To its last chaos? Had thy rigid force

Been dealt by retail, and not thus in gross,
Grief had been silent. Now we must complain,
Since thou, in him, hast more than thousand slain,
Whose lives and safeties did so much depend
On him their life, with him their lives must end.

If 't be a sin to think Death brib'd can be
We must be guilty; say 'twas bribery
Guided the fatal shaft. Virginia's foes,

To whom for secret crimes just vengeance owes
Deserved plagues, dreading their just desert,
Corrupted Death by Paracelsian art

Him to destroy; whose well tried courage such,

Their heartless hearts, nor arms, nor strength could touch.

Who now must heal those wounds, or stop that blood The heathen made, and drew into a flood?

Who is 't must plead our cause? nor trump, nor drum
Nor deputations; these, alas! are dumb

And cannot speak. Our Arms (though ne'er so strong)
Will want the aid of his commanding tongue,
Which conquer'd more than Cæsar. He o'erthrew
Only the outward frame: this could subdue
The rugged work of nature. Souls replete
With dull chill'd cold, he'd animate with heat
Drawn forth of reason's limbec. In a word,
Mars and Minerva both in him concurred
For arts, for arms, whose pen and sword alike
As Cato's did, may admiration strike
Into his foes; while they confess withal
It was their guilt styl'd him a criminal.
Only this difference doth from truth proceed:
They in the guilt, he in the name must bleed,
While none shall dare his obsequies to sing
In deserv'd measures; until time shall bring
Truth crowned with freedom, and from danger free
To sound his praises to posterity.

Here let him rest; while we this truth report
He's gone from hence unto a higher Court
To plead his cause, where he by this doth know
Whether to Cæsar he was friend, or foe.