New Market Day at V. M. I. 175
to allow any demonstration of approval. Occasionally the speaker would indulge in flights of oratory, but generally the address was in plain language the story of New Market and of the Institute in the days of '6i-'65. There was applause long drawn out at the con- clusion of Dr. Upshur's address, and the band played " Dixie."
Then Hon. Holmes Conrad was presented and spoke for an hour. In a general way his speech was along the lines pursued by Dr. Upshur, but he stuck to the official reports of the commanders on both sides in the battle. The last half hour of the speech was de- voted to a comparison of leaders of the North and the South, along the lines of an address delivered in Lee Camp Hall in Richmond a year or two ago.
Great applause followed the close of Major Conrad's address.
. MONUMENT UNVEILED.
Everybody then went to the parade grounds, where the battle monument was unveiled. The exercises were severely simple. The captains of the four cadet companies pulled the cords that released the veiling and disclosed to the spectators the beautiful monument Virginia mourning her dead.
The cadets fired an artillery salute, the infantry boys saluted with rifles, the old boys cheered for the moment, for New Market, and the V. M. I., and then everybody went to dinner.
ALUMNI MEETING.
The old boys were slow in reassembling in the hall for the annual session of the Alumni Association, but at 4 o'clock the hall was filled, the place of honor, as in the morning, being given the New Market men, in the centre block.
Captain J. R. Anderson, Jr., president of the Alumni Association, called the meeting to order, and then had Mr. Alexander. Hamilton, president of the Board of Visitors, take the chair. M. H. Crump, of Kentucky, class of '93, was made secretary. Mr. Hamilton briefly expressed the gratification of the board at the remarkably large attendance of old cadets, and said he could not foresee any time when so many would again be together.
Colonel W. E. Cutshaw, of Richmond, came forward to offer cer- tain resolutions, after a resolution of thanks to Captain Anderson for his services as alumni president had been adopted amid tremen- dous applause.
