The Cass County Republican. [volume] (Dowagiac, Mich.) 18??-1880, 1864-01-07


ipfsnts to the christening ,an1bulap ces|
had been drawing up to the church
doors all night, with their burdens, and
within those walls it looked one great
altar of sacrifice. The nearest Of these
edifces is hardly dozen PAGES from
my quarters, and l go cut and 81, upon
its step in the sun. 1t is the same
building wherein the gifted Murdoch,
only few days before, had given his
splendid rerdsuings of drama and ly-
rio. | do not hear the music of his
voice, butt do net hear moan. The
doors are noiseiessly opening and
closing, and see pale faess-bloody
garments. Right hands lie in. the
porch that have offended aud been cut
off; cast away feet are there too, but
there is nothing about SHINING feet in
the Sermon on The Mount (! 1t is not
the house Of wailing on whose thresht-
old / am waiting it is the house of
patience. Five stil figures, covered by
Eve brown blankets, are ranged on the
door beside me. Their feet are man
acled with bits of slender Irvine, but a
spiders thread could hold them. /
lift corner of the blankets and look
ct the quiet faces. By the gray coat /
ee that one is dead rebel. Do mems
look nearer alike when dead than when
alive? Else how could it have Glanced
that one of these sleepers in Federal
blue should resemble that rebel nearly
enough for both to have been "twinned
ct birth ?" They are not wounded
in the face; and SO there is nothing 10
shock you thay fell in full strength.
Tread lightly, lest they be not dead,
but sleeping. The silence within op-
presses me; it seems as if an accent
of pain from some sufferer in that
solemn church would be a welcome
sound, and / think of a brave bird
wounded unto death, that have held
in my hand, its keen eye undimmed
full upon me, tbrobbipg with the pain
and the dying, and yet SO silent
But am not trying to write poem,
and so. at the risk of startling you, l
must tell you that the grating sounds
of busy life around, are set to no minor
key, in keeping with the scenes. Ma
ture never sympathizers with human
suffering, though in our little vanity we
sometimes think she does, and | am in
clined to believe that man and nature
re often much alike. Three or four
little Africans-by some singular acct
dent born unbleached-are playing
shop Scotch" on the sunny slope at
the corner of the church, gurglng like
iapsnned water spouts with laughter,
and exploding now and then into the
unmittigated "yah, YAH" A couple of
soldiers are going by and several white
wood cafins are being borne up to the
porch. They stop, give glance, and
one says to the other, 81 say, Jack, our
boys killed on Mission Ridge' yester-
day, are laundering lucky@dont you
think SOP" "Why 2" said his cemrade.
because they can all have wooden
overcoats r' It was no heartlcss jest,
~ yen might fancy, but an old cam.
paigner's way of putting things. Alas,
for the battle-6-lds to whose heroes the
luxury of coffin must be denied, and
yet they sleep as sweetly close folded
in the earth. ] go around the church ;
q soldier has his foot upon aspade, dig
ging a hole. / ask him its purpose.
He never looks up, but keeps crowd
ing the rusty b.ade craunchingly into
the red earth, and losses the answer to
me sullenly over his left shoulder ::
"burying legs!'' look down and see
uncertain shapes beneath blanket ly-
ing OH the ground, 90 to the right
about and walk gently away. The
ragged cut he gave me, was even more
painful than the TimbuctOoan explo-
sives, bat when think of it, tits only
the blunt edge OF use with which he
did it. He would have played sexton
TO his o,cn limbs as eoolly.
You wander down into main street !;
hospitals there. You go up the hill by
the Market House hospitals there.
You see thirty unarmed men drawn up
on the side walk, a Lieutenant COM
manding. -Four soldiers are bringing
strange weapons to them across the
street: their arms are full of shoyels !;
you zee the builders of the doomsday
houses; it 10 the Shovel Brigade. An
order is given and away they move,
up the hill, out of town, to the east
ward. They are not sad men, as the
lsmenting Rachols would believe, but
cheerful, if not smiling. Shall we fol
low them TO the place of graves ?
There it is, the slope turned towards
the setting sun, that even now is
promising glorious morrow )" a
strange piece of check. work a. spot
already honey-combed with graves.
And the Shovel Brigade begins to
widen the breadth of the solemn tihage;
doing for dead comrades what, for any
thing they know or think, somebody
may do for them the next day or the
next. There were seven hundred and
forty-two graves in that one place, on
Thanksgiving night. $50 runs the
world awayw
Turning again toward the town, we
mass the burial place of rebels, and
step over, the little red ridges to read
here how "James Henderson fell in the
service of his country" and "Henry
Culver died q martyr" So CHASTITY
6elnsion suilea ahove their graves.