Due to technical problems our friends up in Indiana had some difficulties posting this so they asked me to do it for them, so here it is:
Mark,
I have spent the last few minutes on SHAPE’s web-site. It was really exciting to see pictures of things happening here in Montgomery County. The Dixie Grays have a web-site now. It is coming along nicely and has some great pictures and interesting information about Confederate Veterans in Montgomery County. Much of what we have done is a direct result of the efforts of SHAPE. I couldn’t figure out how to post a message, so would you please do it for me. I have written a formal statement of our thanks. Let me know if it comes through. I’ve been having problems attaching items today. Also sending along a poem I found in an early copy of the Confederate Veteran.
Many thanks,
Bill Boone
Chaplain of the Dixie Grays
The Dixie Grays Camp # 2155 of the SCV of Ladoga, IN would like to acknowledge the efforts of SHAPE (Southern Heritage Advance Preservation and Education) in researching and ordering the stones being placed by the Dixie Grays. Without their help, we would not be able to erect these beautiful, white marble stones with the peaked tops to honor our Confederate heroes.
Here’s the poem I mentioned:
The Jacket of Gray
Fold it up carefully, lay it aside;
Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride;
For dear must it be to our hearts evermore,
The jacket of gray our loved soldier boy word.
Can we ever forget when he joined the brave band,
Who rose in defense of our dear Southern land,
And in his bright youth hurried off to the fray—
How proudly he donned it—the jacket of gray?
His fond mother blessed him and looked up above,
Commending to heaven the child of her love;
What anguish was hers, mortal tongue cannot say,
When he passed from her sight in his jacket of gray.
But her country had called, and she would not repine,
Though costly the sacrifice placed on its shrine;
Her heart’s dearest hopes on its altar she lay,
When she sent out her boy in his jacket of gray.
Months passed and war’s thunder rolled over the land,
Unsheathed was the sword and lighted the brand;
We heard in the distance the sounds of the fray,
And prayed for our boy in his jacket of gray.
Ah! Vain, all, all vain were our prayers and our tears,
The glad shout of victory rang in our ears;
But our treasured one on the red battlefield lay,
While his life-blood oozed out on the jacket of gray.
His young comrades found him, and tenderly bore
The cold lifeless form to his home by the shore;
Oh, dark were our hearts on that terrible day,
When we saw our dead boy in the jacket of gray.
Ah! spotted and tattered, and stained now with gore,
Was the garment which once he so proudly wore;
We bitterly wept as we took it away,
And replaced with death’s white robe the jacket of gray.
We laid him to rest in his cold narrow bed,
And graved on the marble we place o’er his head,
As the proudest tribute our sad hearts could pay,
He never disgraced that jacket of gray.
Then fold it up carefully, lay it aside,
Tenderly touch it, look on it with pride;
For dear must it be to our hearts evermore,
The jacket of gray our loved soldier boy wore.
–Mrs. C.A. Ball, Charleston, S.C.
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