CONYERS, Ga. – Saturday morning, April 26, 1913, was “a dark, threatening morning,” as The Conyers Times described it.
The clouds “soon materialized into rain,” but that apparently didn’t curtail the festivities surrounding the new Confederate monument unveiled in town at 2 p.m. that day.
The unveiling capped a day of festivities – that included music from a Lawrenceville band and a luncheon – attended by about 50 Civil War veterans, a news account indicated. Leading up to the unveiling, Col. E.R. Clarkson gave an address “as fine as any one ever delivered in Conyers,” the newspaper noted.
In his address, Clarkson lauded the South and talked of “New Patriotism, the patriotism of the New South, a South that is rapidly coming into its own,” The Conyers Times reported.
“And so today, we would not have any man pick a flower with a desecrating hand, nor would we have one word of praise removed from the monuments in cemetery and town,” Clarkson noted in his address, according to a transcript. “We would leave them there that every school boy might become familiar with the meaning of these stones – that patriotism – the New Patriotism – might find expression in the lives of our children.
“My theme is this: The war is over – no longer is father arrayed against son, nor brother against brother – but peace – sweet peace may reign supreme,” Clarkson added. “The voice of hate has long since fallen into silence, and the State rose nobler, grander, stronger than before – for peace and union pledged forevermore.”
With a tug of the cord by Clyde McDaniel, the monument was unveiled. The monument, as The Conyers times noted, “will ever stand as a silent tribute to the Confederate Veterans of Rockdale County.”
Interestingly, Rockdale County didn’t send any soldiers to fight during the Civil War. The county, then part of Newton and Henry counties was formed in 1870.
