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by Steve Lucas
Dallas Texas
The Confederate Veteran printed the entire text of SD Lee's speech in the June, 1906 issue. It is about 2 printed
pages long. Lee gives charges to several different groups in the speech and the charge to the SCV. I'll type the
entire SCV charge here:
To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for which we fought. To
your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the guardianship of his
history, the emulation of his virtues, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved and which you
love also, and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish. Are you also ready to
die for your country? Is your life worthy to be remembered along with theirs? Do you choose for yourself
the greatness of soul?
Not in the clamour of the crowded street,
Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
But in ourselves are triumph and defeat.
That is the entire text of what he said to the SCV. In the April, 1923 CV, in the SCV section, an unidentified
writer wrote one paragraph that uses the charge, almost word for word of what we use today. He says it was
given by SD Lee shortly before his death. SD Lee died in 1908 and I looked at every entry mentioning of his
name between 1906 and his death (and there were many since he was CIC of the UCV) and found no other mention
of his giving the charge or altering it. A little research on my part has failed to reveal where we got the
actual wording we use today, but I'm working on it. The following is the entire text of the article from the
1923 Veteran, titled Sons to the Fore.
Do they still love us in Dixie? - At this reunion time, the query, which Stephen D. Lee put into the
mouths of old Confeds who had crossed over the river and were resting in the shade of the trees and
who thus greeted old comrades just arriving at this final camping ground seems most appropriate to call
to mind. While we can, as a body, throw up our hands and fervently answer "Aye," some there be, alas!
whose conduct, whose indifference, whose actual line of thought and belief might well cause the answer,
on their individual parts, to be "No." Here is Stephen D. Lee's "Commission to the Sons," given out just
before his death. "To you, Sons of Confederate Veterans, we will commit the vindication of the cause for
which we fought. To your strength will be given the defense of the Confederate soldier's good name, the
guardianship of his history, the perpetuation of those principles which he loved, and which you love also,
and those ideals which made him glorious and which you also cherish."
That is the entire text of that article. I can't find, at least in the CV, any other charge or mention of the
charge or "commission". Apparently it was changed and added to over the years. By whom and when, is not clear.
Past CIC Ralph Green doesn't know, but said he believed that SD Lee spoke once in Galveston, but
no mention of that speech is found in the Veteran.
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