236 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



issued general orders, mentioning as a subject of special 

 distinction, the name of Sergeant A. J. Hinkle, Twelfth 

 Missouri, and Thomas Connor of the Eleventh Missouri, 

 both killed in that battle. On the Union side, Thomas 

 Hinkle of the Thirty-third Iowa and Thomas Connor of 

 the same regiment were also killed. The Confederate 

 Thomas Connor was mentioned in special orders issued 

 by the rebel adjutant-general at Richmond. His name 

 was published in the "Confederate Roll of Honor." 



Thomas Connor, the Union soldier, has a Grand Army 

 post named after him at Rose Hill, Iowa. Men of the 

 same name, of the same family, fought on opposite sides 

 in that struggle. It was much the best that peace should 

 bring them together again, as a united and friendly peo- 

 ple, instead of as rival and hostile nations. Choice ruled, 

 not chance, and human slavery disappeared forever from 

 the continent of North America. 



The greatest mistake of our country's settlement was 

 the introduction of African slavery. It was the cause of 

 strife. The hold of the slaver that brought the first 

 cargo was freighted with misery to people long after to 

 be born. 



I have recently read and reread Jefferson Davis's His- 

 tory of the Confederacy. It is a large volume of 500 

 pages, and the main purpose of that book was to prove 

 that slavery was not the cause of the war. Even Jefferson 

 Davis, at the end of twenty-five years from emancipa- 

 tion, did not raise his voice in the defense of that institu- 

 tion, but rather sought to relieve himself and his cause 

 of the odium which attached to the defense of so great a 

 wrong. He laboriously attempted to prove that it was 

 not slavery, but the tariff which was the cause of that 

 devastating war. 



No soldier here cherishes ill-will to any Confederate 

 soldier, living or dead — brave men can always be char- 



