Traveling the BACKROADS

Ashville’s most brilliant and prominent attorneys, whose life has been spent in this peaceful city, has accepted the committee’s invitation to preside.”

As the day approached everyone was encouraged to “... greet every visitor with a smile and a welcome – leave that frown off your face for Ten days and be what God intended you to be, a booster for the Home Comers.”

Undoubtedly on that April morning the old veterans, such as Judge John W. Inzer of Ashville and John Washington Laster Jr., of Springville, recalled their days of service and those whom they marched and fought alongside, saw torn by war and perish from cannon, rifle and saber, and those they suffered with in prisoner of war camps in Illinois and Ohio.

To a crowd of over 2,000, the monument was unveiled by Misses Mattie Lou Teague and Sally V. Inzer. It was reported that the proceedings “... will be long remembered by every person who attended. Ashville was beautifully bedecked with flags and bunting.”

As for the veterans, they “... were treated royally and they seem to have appreciated to the fullest extent all that was done in honor of their dead comrades.”

Remembering the words of General Douglas MacArthur in his farewell address to the cadets as West Point in 1962, “... [T]he soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” l