More "Bloody Shirt" Talk

During a Memorial Service for the Battle of Petersburg during the Civil War, a Pastor raises the question whether full National unity has been achieved.

Memorial Day at the spot where the Union Soldiers made the first attack upon Petersburg, VA, was observed. [ unintelligent]. at the onset his remarks had the right ring, but as he warmed up to his subject he drifted away from the policy which he had previously enunciated. Here is what he said:
“Ladies of the Memorial Association, soldiers, veterans, ladies, and gentlemen. Well there can be no repentance where there is no consciousness of error, let us turn our faces to the Sun and put the Shadows of the past behind us, I speak today in the spirit of political philosophy, and not in that of sectional feeling. Let us honor our dead sons and Berry all sectional Prejudice. Love and not hate in God's way. Let us be true to him, and time will be true to us all. In the mind of God there is no South and no North.”
The above is well said, And tends to eliminate the hatred of the past and invite the prosperity of the inture. but he immediately got off the track which he had laid when he said:
“Above the graves of these Sleepless Heroes, continue the speaker, are the simplest principles for which they died. Those principles, like the pressure of the arch, never sleep. They are like the centripetal and centrifugal forces of nature in the very structure of things. Whether the Stars shall be bridled to the center or shall fly away from the center, abide in internal operation of these spheres. Far above all Memorial monuments Will Go On The Silent conflict of opposite forces. Whether the government shall draw all its powers to and from the center; or whether, as in nature, harmonious motion shall be the compromise between the states or the general government will ever live the question whether State sovereignty or consolidated despotism shall guide the Liberties of the people.”
She has raised the berry question which the War settled. He prophesies another war:
“The wheels of government are now locked by the conflict of interest. The vital interest of the country await the section of a congress, handicapped by sectional strife. When all diverse interests are prepared by their future development for their possible gigantic struggle, a million of soldiers will need to stand between the contending combatants. The financial system of the East will be shaped by the Agricultural and Mining power of the West. Coxeyism is a prophecy of the future. The Points of Power will be the point to be destroyed.”...

“More "Bloody Shirt" Talk,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed January 19, 2026, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1528.