The New York herald., 1869-05-30
NEW YORK HERALD, SUNDAY MAY 80 l8ee-rRlPLE SHEET


right and good, and II the results of our
struggle in their grandeur arc on scale sur
passing the grandeur OF the war itself, the
preservation Of our national cemeteries and
their annual decoration with flowers, accom-
panied with religious rites, cannot be wrong.
Nor can We consistently blend the dead of
the opposing army in these rites. But in
their graves, If we cannot forget we may at
least forgive them, and in this spirit kindly in
dulge the men and women ofthe "lost cause"
not as politicians or rebels, but as men and
women, In all harmless manifestations over
their lost children and brethren
The registered dead of the Union armies, in
summing up the costs of our Southern rebel
lion, exceed three hundred thousand men, cut
off in the vigor Of their youth or manhood
Their cemeteries mark the bloody and fiery
trails Of the war through the Southern States.
beginning at Arlington Heights, within cannon
shot across the Potomac from the Presidents
House. On Arlington Heights, the pro-
perty OF General Lee in the beginning of the
war, a graveyard Of many thousands of Union
soldiers received especial honors yesterday
from General Grant. The special feature of
the occasion at this place was the decoration
of the monument under which lie the remains
Of two thousand heroes marked unknown"
cemeteries through Eastern Virginia down to
Richmond, including Bull Run, Culpepper,
Fredericksburg and the Richmond peninsula.
Thence down through the Carolnas on the
trail of Sherman into the heart of Georgia,
from which, branching off to the southwark,
we halt as Andersonville, the most melancholy
graveyard Of them all, with its thirteen thou
sand victims of imprisonment, torture, ex-
posure, disease and starvation. Thence north
ward through Georgia we 60 along line of
national cemeteries, eliminating In the large
one at Chattanooga, in the gateway through
which ''the confederacy' was broken to
pieces. Thence through Tennessee and Ken
tucky, and thence across West Virginia to the
Shenandoah Valley, aud down il to Harper's
Ferry, from which point, dverging to Antietam
and Gettysburg, we finish circuit of some
two hundred thousand of the Union dead.
Missouri and the line of the Mississippi. Ala
bama, Louisiana and Texas will very nearly
supply another hundred thousand.
There they lie along those terrible lines
of the war-those cities of the Union dead,
whites and blacks, natives and foreign born.
with very few exceptions, more populous than
the cities Of living men in any one of the
Southern States in which these cemeteries
mark the salient points of the struggle. For
instance, within each of the great cemeteries
at fredericksburg, Richmond, Atlanta, Chat
tanooga, Nashville and Vicksburg, lie be-
tween twenty and thirty thousand Union
soldiers, known and unknown" At all or
nearly all the cemeteries along these in
1icated lines of the war there will be to-
day the tributary offerings appointed by
the Grand Army of the Republic. Through
out the South, no doubt, the emanci-
pated blacks will enter most heartily into
the work for they comprehend at least the
main issue. OF 'Iiberty, equality and fra
ternity," settled by the war, they have reason
to rejoice as much in General Grant as in their
Iiberator Lincoln; and they are an enthu-
sastic race. We dare say, however, that the
patriotic celebration in this city and along the
line of march through Brooklyn to Cypress
Hills Cemetery will be the most imposing and
the most impressive of any Of the catalogue
within the limits Of the republic. It ought
to be the crowning glory of that series of
great events which began with the grand
Union mass meeting In Union square in 1861,
for the salvation of the country against the
most formidable rebellion in the records Of
the human race.