File:49. Jerry Cross, Researcher to Jerry C. Cashion Supervisor Research Branch, October 7, 1983 Page 15 (45d31438-cf23-4235-aee1-04e46fdac41a).jpg

White paper with typed black text

Presentation Address By Mrs. Marshall Williams, Member of the North Carolina Gettysburg Memorial Commission Said Stephen Vincent Benet: Thirteen sisters beside the seas Builded [sic] a house called Liberty And locked the doors with a stately key. They wrote a Constitution in which each state should be free. By and by there was rumbling within from Massachusetts and others. Then the territories knocked loudly at the door; rumblings again, and the very constitutionally of the Constitution was questioned. At last broke the tempest like a veritable cyclone over the panorama of the Republic, and brother fought brother; here loomed up Gettysburg on a crimson field of glory, leaving both sides a noble story. “The erection of monuments and markers is a custom which dates back to remote ages. It is the offspring of exalted sentiment and high ideals.” The Southern people have erected to their Confederate dead memorials in stone, bronze and marble than any other people of any age have ever done in any land. Nearly every county in North Carolina has a Confederate Monument. As far back as 1915 the United Daughters of the Confederacy had erected over 700 monuments; many have been costly and imposing. The one at Fairmont, Kentucky, to Davis, is next in height to Washington’s monument. The beautiful Confederate monument at Arlington is not only a token of our love, but is a symbol of a generous attitude of the Federal Government. The Daughters of the Confederacy, backed by the cordial sympathy of Governor McLean, of North Caro-

• Keywords: Gettysburg; Gettysburg National Military Park; Photography; monuments; memorials; virtual experience; battlefield