All this was done, I learned, for I was not there to see! Colonel Mapleson, however, did not forget me. He sent me the monogram cut in gold of Washington and Lee University, and I often wear it as a souvenir of my charming hours with good Mrs. Dix and her friends.
When I came to the city to live, I found that Dr. Dix, his lovely mother, and many of the ladies of our committee still remembered me. This was not the last time we were together in a benevolent enterprise, nor the last time Patti honored me. Childish as were the little arts attributed to her by Colonel Mapleson, she could give evidence of a big warm heart on occasion!
In 1877 the leading citizens of Brooklyn invited General Pryor to deliver an address at the Academy of Music on Decoration Day. This was an opportunity he had long desired, and the invitation was eagerly accepted. With great zeal and bitterness some of the veterans of the Grand Army resented the invitation, upon which my husband promptly declined the honor. I do not give the names of the old soldiers—they have long ago been forgiven and are fully understood. A heated correspondence followed—one side generous, fraternal feeling, on the other the bleeding afresh of old, unhealed wounds. Finally, the general,—although the charm, the grace, of the compliment was all gone,—perceiving it would be childish and ungrateful to persist in declining to speak, consented.
The interesting nature of the occasion, and the conflict it had aroused, drew a very great audience to the Academy of Music. My husband never needed notes in speaking, but this time Gordon, in a very large, clear hand, wrote out his address that he might refresh, if necessary, his memory.
It was not necessary. He was full of fire and enthusiasm, and nobly gave the noble sentiments eagerly quoted next day by the _New York Tribune_. The closing paragraph strikes no uncertain note. It must have surprised his audience:—
"From the vantage ground of a larger observation, with a more calm and considerable meditation on the causes and conditions of national prosperity, I, for one, cannot resist the conclusion that, after all, Providence wisely ordered the event, and that it is well for the South itself that it was disappointed in its endeavor to establish a separate government. Plain is it that, if once established, such a government could not have long endured. It was founded on principles that must have proved its downfall. It must soon have fallen a victim to foreign aggression or domestic anarchy. Nor to the reëstablishment of the Union is the Confederate soldier any the less reconciled by the destruction of slavery. People of the North, history will record that slavery fell, not by any efforts of man's will, but by the immediate intervention and act of the Almighty Himself. And in the anthem of praise ascending to heaven for the emancipation of four million human beings, the voice of the Confederate soldier mingles its note of devout gratulation. And now in the unconquerable strength of freedom we may hope that the existence of our blessed Union is limited only by the mortality that measures the duration of all human institutions. [_Prolonged applause._]"—_Tribune_, May 31.