General J.O. Shelby's Address to His Troops After Lee Surrendered

CONFEDERATE PERSISTENCY.

Last Desperate Utterances of Gen. J. 0. Shelby, After Lee Had Surrendered,

The following is from an old clipping, dated Pittsburg, Tex., 'April 26, 1865.

 How vividly it recalls the spirit of the Confederates in that eventful period!

Soldiers of Shelby's Division, the crisis of a nation's fate is upon you. I come to you in this hour of peril and of gloom as I have come when your exultant shouts of victory were proud on the breeze of Missouri, relying upon your patriotism, your devotion, your heroic fortitude and endurance. By the memory of our past efforts, our brilliant reputation, our immortal dead, our wrecked and riven hearthstones, our banished and insulted women, our kindred fate and kindred ruin, our wrongs unrighted and unavenge, I conjure you to stand shoulder to shoulder and bide the tempest out. In union there is strength, honor, manhood, safety, success; in separation, defeat, disgrace, disaster, extermination, death. I promise to remain with you until the end, to share your dangers, your trials, your exile, your destiny; your lot shall be my lot and your fate shall be my fate; and come what may--poverty, misery, exile, degradation--O never let your spotless banner be tarnished by dishonor! If there be any among you that wish to go from our midst when the dark hoar comes and the bright visions of peace are paling beyond the, sunset shore, let him bid farewell to the comrades that no danger can appall and no disaster deter, for the curse of the sleepless eye and the festering heart will be his reward as the women of Missouri-the Peris of a ruined paradise - shall tell how Missouri's braves fought until the Confederate flag- was torn by inches from the mast.

Stand by the ship, boys, as long as there is one plank upon another. All your hopes and fears are there; all that life holds nearest and dearest is there; your bleeding motherland, pure and stainless as an angel-guarded child, is there. The proud, imperial South - the nurse of your boyhood and the priestess of your faith- is there, and calls upon you, her children, her best and bravest, in the pride and purity of your manhood, and your blood to rally round her altar-shrine, the blue skies and green fields of your nativity, and send your scornful challenge forth: "The Saxon breasts are equal to the Norman steel!"

Meet at your company quarters, look the matter fairly and squarely in the face, think of all that you have to lose and the little you have to gain, watch the fires of your devotion-as you would your hopes of heaven, stand together, act together, keep your discipline and your integrity, and all will be we'll as you strike for God and humanity. I am with you until the last; and 0 what glad hozannas will go up to you when our land, redeemed, shall rise beautiful from its urn of death and chamber of decay; the storms of battle and the anguish of defeat floating away forever!

If Johnston follows Lee and Beauregard and Maury and Forrest-all go-and the Cis-Mississippi Depart- ment surrenders their arms and quit the contest, let us never surrender. For four long years we have taught each other to forget that word, and it is too late to learn it now. Let us all meet as we have met in many dark hours before, with the hearts of men that have drawn the sword and thrown away the scabbard, and resolve with the deep, eternal, irrevocable resolution of freemen that we will never surrender. If every regiment in this department goes by the board, if coward fear and dastard treachery dictate submission, we will treat every man that leaves his banner now as a base recreant, and shoot him as we would a Federal. This Mis- souri Division surrender? My God, soldiers! it is more terrible than death. You, the young and the brave of poor Missouri, who have so often marched away to battle, proudly and gaily, with love in your hearts and light in your eyes, for the land that you loved best; you, who are worshiped by your friends and dreaded by your enemies; you who have the blood of cavaliers in your veins-it is too horrible to con- template!

No! no! We will do this: we will hang together, we will keep our organization, our arms, our discipline, our hatred of oppression, until one universal shout goes up from an admiring age that this Missouri Cavalry Division preferred exile to submission, death to dishonor.

Jo. O. SHELBY, Brigadier-General Commanding.

Pittsburg. Tex" April 26, 1865.