SOURCE: "The Old South," in Thomas Nelson Page, Twayne Publishers, 1967, pp. 39-77.

Gross, Page's biographer, assesses three late stories in which Page illustrates the poignant aftermath of the Civil War.

"The Burial of the Guns," although a weak story, reveals most clearly Page's over-all attitude toward the South and the Civil War. The guns that are buried (by a company of Confederate soldiers) are of course Southern guns, and the burial is that of the South's hopes for ever winning the war. As Page describes these weapons, they seem almost human and animistic; they certainly are more human than the characters themselves. This observation is not surprising, for in "The Burial of the Guns" the author is not really interested in people or guns but in what they represent, in the concept that they dramatize. In this case, the guns symbolize the Southern honor and duty and loyalty...