The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1868-06-04
OgATION

OFFICERS AND MEMBERS OF THE CRANE
ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC, OFFICERS AMI
SOLDIERS OF THE ARMY OF THE UNITED
STATES, AND FELLOW CITIZENS:
While any effort of the body or of the in
tellcct NAV attract to itself admiration and
applause, every effort of the mind or body
receives its character from the nature OF the
effort ITSELF If the act be meritorious in its
purposes and in its results, then it should
gather to itself all the commentator of a
deed inherently good. But if the act be
wrongly purposed, and evil in results, it
ought to receive merely the natural tribute
bestowed upon muscular exertion or intel
lectual power. This language is, indeed,
automatic, and to utter it is but to ltcrate
truisms; but these distinctions arc too often
forgotten in the honors which men pay to
the living and to the dead. Therefore it is,
that in the opening sentences to he uttered
over these green mounds, think it proper
to indicate this distinction between the
deeds of men, so that, in respecting the nat
ural ties of humanity, we may bow at the
shrine of patriotism-sO that we may recall,
not merely the brave soldier whose martial
figure strobe over the battle field, and fell
in the combat, but that we may bring here,
with these fresh wreaths, the full volume OF
homage to the sacredness of law, of liberty,
and of justice
Honor, then, to the fallen heroes of the
nation Gathered from distant States, fol-
lowing the fortunes of great armies, they
sleep here at last peacefully within this con-
secrated enclosure ! Distant from homes
where their memories are still fresh in sad
dened hearts, the paternal hand of the
nation has gathered them to this last repose,
beneath the ever-waving folds of the nations
VI ,Io Fall f1Qn Inr
ramparts Ye, who moistened yonder for
ests with your blood Ye, who from the
accursed pens of Andersonville were borne
hither, haggard with famine, but to die |!
Brethren with us in arms! Companions in
a great struggle for the preservation of a
nation Soldiers of the yet invincible Re-
public !-Prouder than the sepulchres of
kings are the graves in which ye sleep!
To-day under that military escort which
the exigencies of war had not permitted, to
the slow measure OF the dirge we have per
formed these funeral ceremonies. By solemn
prayer and the vollies of musketry we have
committed these dead anew TO the earth,
and they now sleep in soldiers graves.
In the winter and spring of 1865 the bodies
now deposited in this cemetery began to col
lect in this vicinity. The first expedition
against the Notifications at the mouth of the
Cape Fear left but few. The second expedi-
ton, which was the last and successful one
furnished, probably, nearly thousand from
Terry's Tenth Corps alone. Soon after the
fall of Fisher, and, in consequence, all the
other Notifications at the entrance to this
port, the Twenty third Corps under Scho
field arrived. which also furnished its quota
for this phalanx of the dead. On the morn
ing of the 22nd of February Terry's column
entered the city of Wilmington, while Cox
had already appeared on the Brunswick
side of the river. Early in March Sherman's
army struck the Cape Fear at Fayetteville,
and sending to this place his sick and
fields of Bentonville and Averasboro', and
thence to Goldsboro' and Raleigh. from
which places the sick and wounded also
reached this city. Previous to this. how
ever, nearly ten thousand Federal prisoners
had been exchanged at this point, who had
been collected from various Confederate
prisons, many of them in the last stages of
starvation and disease, and more than a
thousand of whom were unable to walk.
The military hospitals were filed to over
flowing. Pestience, and disease, and death
held high carnival, hooking alike at the
skill of surgeons or the care of nurses. Five
of the medical corps fell before the deadly
pestilence. Meantime the scenes at Amelia
Court House and Durhams Station trans
pired, and the dissolying armies of Lee and
Johnston scattered homewards. The strug-
gle was ended. Its victories and its defeats
were behind US, and the stern visage of war
relaxed. But the pestilence still kept its
sway, and the dead cart still bore constant
ly to the common grave those who, having
escaped the battlefield, had famished in
prisons until they were ripe for disease.
Thus it was that there were at that time
A. ~
and soldiers from nearly every army of the
United States. There were those who, in
spired by the first enthusiasm, had mingled
in the anticipations and disasters of the first
Bull Run. There were those who had adj
vanced with Mcclellan, on the Peninsula,
and told stories Of Seven Pines and NAL
vern Hill and the Chickahominy. Old SOL
diers who had fought with Joe Hooker and
Sumner, and who marched with Meade to
the victorious height of Gettysburg, recoun-
ted adventures with those who charged in
the fearful assault at Wagner. Also, there
were the bold and daring Westerners who
remembered the early days in Missouri. who
boosted of Shiloh, and Vicksburg, and
Chickamauga, mingled with those who
coursed through the valley of Shenandoah
with Sheridan, and afterwards encircled
Richmond and Petersburg with Grant
Many of these soldiers of the Republic, after
an experience which we cannot now definite
ly know, were scattered, some on the sands
of Federal Point; some in the pine woods on
either side of the Cape Fear, near where each
might have fallen, while others were colec-
ted in the long trench within the limits of
Oakdale. The government, with tender
regard for those who served it, has prepared
this last resting place, and within it, has
Jxl,io ho
found. This the government has done, not
so much in care for the perishable earth
which they have become, as in recognition
of the services rendered by these men to
their country, and as a testimony, which
shall be imperishable, to fidelity and loyalty.
To-day we dedicate to this sacred purpose,
this National Cemetery. These hallowed
precincts shall ever, hereafter, be protected
by the national flag and the national power.
Sacred to heroism and to patriotism, no sac
religious foot shall tread these paths or
breathe this air, but it shall remain like
national altar, which each patriot may in all
future time find unpolluted. And in some
long distant day, when posterity shall read
of those bitter times as we now read of
Kings Mountains, and shall recall the name
of Sherman as we now recall that of Greene
or Sullivan,-when this slender shrubbery
may have become an over arching shade of
majestic trees and these slopes peopled, may
be, with statuary which shall image the
deeds of the men who rest beneath the turf.
shall have hecOma sacrod from,