Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1864-02-04
burial Places Of soldiers.

Alhcl. "a custom of gathering together
the bones Of soldiers, slain in battle,
and appointing their most gifted orator
to pronounce funeral grafton. Classi-
cal scholars will recollect their own
stru, giles, in end avoring to master the
Grafton of Pcricles, as given in the terse,
and rather obscure style of Thucydides,
at the close of the first year of the Pc
lopponesian war. In abiding to what
may have been the faults of those who
fell, he says, "Their last service efiaces all
former demerits,-it extends TO the pub
lie; their private demeanors reached only
to few" Thucyidides remarks, in this
connection, that they deposite their re-
malns in the public sepulchre, which
stands in the finest suburb of the city I;
for 1t has been the constant custom here
to bury all who fell in war, except those
at Marathon, whose extraordinary valor
they Judged proper to honor with a sep
uichre on, The FIELD Of battle"
Everybody has read spoken, or sung
the poem entitled "The Burial of Sir
John Moore" which Byron pronounced
the most perfect in the English Ian
guage The following passage in the
Edinburgh Annual Register, 1908, re-
lates the incidents which the poet has
copied with considerable closeness,-
"Sir John Moore had often said that if
La L. L. 81 IA he Ia ~
,oAeye he fA The body was removed at
midnight to the citadel of Corunna,
(spain.) A grave was dug for him On
the ramparts there, by a body Of the
ninth regiment, the aides de-camp at
tending by turns. No coffin could be pro-
cured, and the officers of his staff wrap
ped the body, dressed as it was, in a
military cloak and blanket. The inter
ment was FASTENED for about eight in
the morning some firing was heard, and
the officers feared that if serious at
tack was made, they should be ordered
away, and not suffered to pay him the
last duty. The officers of his family
bore him to his grave the funeral ser
vice was read by the chaplain, and the
corpse was covered with earth"
Daniel Webster, in his celebrated reply
to the aspersions Of Mr.. Hayne upon
New England, said, 81 shall enter upon
no encomium of Massachusetts, - she
needs none There is her history the
world knows it by heart. The bones Of
Ter sons no,o lie mingled NTH the soil Of eoey
state from New England to Georgia and
there they will lie forever. "@ The poet
Mcclellan, catching inspiration at these
"winged words" exclaims,
ssNew Englands dead, New England's dead
On every hore they Ii,
On every field of strife made red
BY bloody victory
Their bones are on the Northern hill.
Aud on the Southern plan,
By br ook and river, lake and rill,
Aud by the roaring man.
The land is holy where they fought,
III And holy where they fell
For by their blood the land was bought
The land they loved so we'll"
If all this was true when Webster
spoke, and Mcclellan sung, it is dOubly
true now. The bodies of a great nun
Der of "New England's dead" have beer
brought home to their friends. Eulogies
have been pronounced; neighbors ane
strangers have mingled their tears o
sympathy with those of the afflicted re
latives. But how small ratio do these
bear to those that lie on the southern
plains" where they will lie foreverl-
Not only at Gettysburg, whose fallen
braves represent every free state in tn,
Union-not only at Centreville, Frede
ricksburg, Chattanooga, Morris Island
Baton Rouge, where grounds are SCI
apart, and consccrated for the decen
barial of the slain-not only at Licking
ton, KY, where portions of the beautiful
cemetery which is overlooked by tn
towering monument and statue of Hen
ry Clay, arc appropriated to such Uniol
and Confederate" soldiers as have die
in the hospital at that place-but in ev
cry state which has been cursed witt
slavery, has the land been RENDERED
"holy" by being made the resting plac
Of brave soldiers
Ye whose sons, brothers and husbands
are now resting their heads upon til,
lap of southern earth, do you no
feel an unwonted attachment to tina
"sacred soil" The poet true to nature
represents mother who had consignet
her child to an ocean grave as exclaim
ing:
go will love the sea, which holds my darlin
child!.'
1t Is not strange that our feeling
should incline us to bring home the re
mains of loved ones-but what place s,
appropriate to receive them as the on
that witnessed their heroic death =
What monument so enduring and costl
as q whole state redeemed, regenerated
disenthralled'' by the shedding of tn
last drop of their blood? A part O
the Latin inscription on the tomb of 81
Ehriatophnr Wran tba o,ob;to.. - q.