New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1868-05-31

country was borne onward to victory. We
remembered that it was the flag which Jasper
lost his life in attempting to save; that it
hoated over Porter on the Essex, and over
Grant at Yieksburg, Chattanooga, the Wild
erness, and SpottsylVania. Two millions of
men bore that flag to victory, and among
them were our fellow comrades here. They
fought not alone for union, not alone for
nationality, but like the patriot fathers of
the revolution, they contended for the
rights of human nature.
White men, remember that you stand
here to day in the enjoyment of the great
constitutional principle of free speech un-
disturbed, that you are now relieved from
the fear of grasping and intolerant aris
tocracy. r aH
Black men, you are redeemed and disen-
thralled, not alone by the irresistible genius
of universal emancipation. You stand here
with the hopes and privileges of men, be-
cause the soil of the country has been boun-
teously saturated with the blood of patriots,
and because their bones whiten upon six
hundred battle-felds.
Let us now and here resolve that we will
stand by our country in war and
in peace, and that we are the certain and
eternal enemies of treason under all circum-
stances. We were permitted to survive to
aid in achieving the victories of peace.
Let us now, in the presence of these graves
of our dead comrades, resolve that we will
in war and peace, in such manner as shall
leave these sheeted regiments no occasion
to rise up and rebuke us. prolonged ap-
plause.) ..
Captain Armstrong then reminded the
audience that they had often heard of
man who had one foot in the grave, taken
in fgurative sense, but he had the honor
of introducing one who had literally buried
one leg in his country's cause, Henry G.
Dibble, ESQ, who would speak on behalf of
the Grand Army of the Republic.
Mr., Dibble then delivered the following
address: ...... .....
Speech of Henry c. DIbbIe, Esq.
COMRADES AND FRIENDS: 1t is made nv
duty to address you on behalf Of the Grand
Army of the Republic. under whose aus
pices this day was designated for tine pur-
pose of strewing with flowers or otherwise
decorating the graves of comrades who died
in defense of their country during the late
rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in al
most every city, village, and hamlet church
yard in the land
1t seems eminently proper that the day
should be designated, and the ceremonies
conducted by the organization to which we
| belong. The dead were our comrades and
friends. We cherish the same principles for
which they died. We are united by recol-
lections the most sacred and lasting. We
are gathered together by a common impulse
to cherish the memory of the dead, to cul-
| tivate those ties of friendship among our.
selves which we're formed in the bivouac,
in the camp, or upon the battlefield, and to
care for the widows and orphans of those
who lie around us to-day. But there is in
| our organization something more than these
elements of strength and unity. We are
bound together for the purpose, and sworn
to see that no harm come to the State,n as
| the Roman Senate decreed to their consuls
in the hour of sedition and danger. And so
it has been said that we are politi-
| cal organization. In the sense of party
| preference for men, it is not true. But the
| war for the Union was a struggle for the
ascendency of political ideas. Our armies
were raised, our battles were fought, our
| comrades died, and our victory was won
that the nation might live, that liberty
might prevail, and that the vestiges of slav-
| cry might disappear from the face of the
land. These were the political ideas for
which our comrades fought, and suffered,
and died. Here they lie buried around us
now. Do you expect that the Grand Army
will prove recreant to those principles, po
litical though they may be called? No,
| comrades, our organization is looked upon
| by the nation with that confidence and hope
which our people cherished towards their
soldiers in the days of war. We will deserve
that confidence, and warrant that hope, for
we swerve not one step from that line of
duty in which
-Four hundred thousand men
On battlefield in swamp, and glen
Have died for me and you.
This later May day is about the only time
in the year when all over our broad land
the flowers are in full bloom. Upon the far
borders of the North the chill of
winter has but Just passed away, and
.- The verdure of ths meadow lands
Is creeping to the hills:
The sweet blue bosomed yiolets
Are blooming by the rills.
An earlier day would not have found the
flowers there for the graves. Here in the
South the spring flowers are fast passing
away, and later day might find stint of
those emblems of affection which we bring
with us.
Comrades and friends, pause one moment
and think that to-day, aye at this hour in
the ten thousand burial grounds through.
out the land, more than million men and
women are strewing flowers upon the graves
of fallen heroes. Fathers, brothers,
and sons; mothers, widows, and daughters;
friends severed; lovers eartbroken, have
met bearing sweet tokens of remembrance
to the graves Of those but for whose death
our country would not have lived. How
when we dwell upon the thought it ex.
pands; the recOllections of Individuals part
ing and suffering and death; the story of
thousand battle-felds; the history of ma.
tion,s struggle; the ransom Of q race from
bondage. .---...-.- a,--z..-5.
If we could only hear the story of each
one of these graves we would know nearly
all that is good in human nature. How the
old man lett his grandchildren and came
away with his son to lie down here in
grave marked "Unknown.n How the young
man whose quickened mind was all agloW
with thought, and whose heart was throb-
bing with Yirtuous ambition, left his wife of
q month, she who dared not bid him stay
for his honor's sake, to meet death with less
Of sorrow than hope, and with no feelings
of disappointed ambition, but rather the
sense OF glory achieved. How the middle
aged man gave up the pursuits of business,
severed himself from an affectionate family.
and concentrated those engergies which he
had developed in an active life to his coun-
try's good; how he gave up all TO perform
duty which he deemed paramount, and at
at length gave his life which he could spare
n such cause without a sigh. H. nd
When among the dead we usually expert
ence a sense of gloomy sorrow; but some
Z how 1t seems to me to-day, when l remem.
Der how these heroes fell-died that a vieto.
ry might be won for the right-that this is
not the most gloomy place on earth, for
oniy tnlnk that each grave is surrounded
BY halo OF glory not to be likened to
ut is the purpose Of the commander.in-
chief to inaugurate this Observance with the
hope that Il win be kept up from year to
year while a survivor Of the war remains to
honor the memory of his departed COM
rades.' And SO we have come today to
perform this sacred duty for the first time,
but let Us hope not for the last time We
meet here under circumstances differing
from those which surround our friends in