...                                             
                                              General Phillips Speaks
   General Phillips who was on hand in the afternoon, was called upon to make a speach
to the boys who used to follow him where the fury and storm of shot and shell came
stifling over the field.
   He made a splendid speech and the vets cheered him rapturously. General Phillips
is one of the most elequent orators in this whole section of the south, when it comes
to talking about the war, and the boys always love to hear him. He told joke after
joke on this man and that, which he recalled at the sight of their faces in the vast
audience.
   He spoke with tender emotion of the memories of the days when he first came to
his men there at the Big Shanty, how he had seen them come in company after company.
He remembered that the story was told on the men from Habersham, who had come over
across the mountains under the command of Captain Barclay, that there were but two
of them who had ever seen a railroad. When they got near the place they were to
go into camp, they knew they were nearly in sight of a railroad, and when somebody
at a farm house told them the tracks of the Western and Atlantic were right over
the hill in front, they all broke loose from ranks and had a race to see who would
first lay eyes on the concern.
   General Phillips speech was well relished by the crowds.