Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1870-06-01
DECORATION DAY.
An Immense Concourse of People March
TO the Cemetery.
Decoration of the Graves by Young Ladies'
Speeches of Hon. n. y. Burdett and Col. y
N. Boyd. of Missouri.


Col. Thornburgh and his aids were in the sad
die by eleven o clock, and the procession began
forming half an hour later, in front of the court
house. on Main street. in the following order,
to-wit:
1st-Chief Marshal.
2d-Brass Band.
3d-Wagons with flowers.
4th-Mayor and City Council of Knoxville
5th-Speakers III carriages, escorted by College
Cadets on foot
6th-Car, with Misses representing the several
States of the Union.
7th-Steam Fire Engine, j. O. Luttrell ;
Fountain No 2 and Niagara engines.
8th-Citizens in carriages
9th-Citizens on horseback.
The procession moved in the order designated
in the programme previously published, and was
preceded and followed by thousands to the Ma
tional Cemetery.
The grounds were entered from the western
avenue, from the Jacksboro' Pike and arriving
opposite the speakers stand, the young ladies
wearing badges bearing tho names of the diff
ferent States of the Union, alighted and formed
around the flagstaff, and in few moments they
proceeded to the decoration ceremonies assisted
by nearly all the ladies and little girls present,
the band playing dirge while the flowers were
being stewn
After prayer by Rev.T. w .Humes, ID, d., Judge
o. p. Temple, in a few eloquent remarks, intro
duced to the audience Hon. S S. Burdett, of
Missouri who addressed the immense concourse
as follows:
MIR. BURDETTs SPEECH.
Hurrying through valleys and over mountains
made classic by portentious events, whose results
of veal and woe are branded into the enduring
history of the ages, j greet to-day vast congre-
CATION upon whose faces / have never looked
before, whose forms, after these. sad rites shall
have ended, may never see again; yet greet
YOU as kindred, for have we not come, though
from affair, to toll the bell for brethren departed
to say in the congregation of the dead, "Alas !
my brotherf
One year ago CHANGED to be in the city of
New Orleans, and rambling in its environs saw
a place of sepulche, and over its gateway writ
ten 1.-THE Hebrew Rest" The place was beau
fill.n its garniture of marble slab and shaft and
shrine-the handiwork of mortas whose busy
hands as with repeated blows, they smoothed
and shaped the ready marble, but told the COM
ing, coming hour of dissolution to each busy
workman; and still more beautiful in its rich ar
ray of tree and shrub and flower, each by its
summers perfection, its winters death, its
spring-time bloom, presaging that mortality
which blanches the face IN the day OF mans
strength and pride, and foreshadows that immor-
tality whose bloom of hope is the souls heritage;
and vet more beautiful than ALL it seemed to me,
was that fit and happy writing DER the portal,
which, to the passer.6y, whose feet were weary
gave word of wecome--not to the dark, the
dank the dread the cold burying yard-but TO
every wanderer of Israels race, gave beclon-
ing to rest
Since that day, have never passed place of
sepulchre but to see in fancy written DER its en-
trance, 1.-THE place of rest, and SO our brethren
sleep here; here our comrades rest But sleep
ia the nights calm--the silence of darkness.
Rests demands for herself that no sound of foot
steps, no voice of contention, mol jargon of fiat
terry or of blame arrest her quiet. Of all sounds
that fall from human lips, distant music is TO
her alone welcome, for there is somewhere with
in us all, whether civilized savage, a recog-
nition in the poor melodies of earth, of the
grander anthems of the eternal, and toward
which the ear will unbdden turn. But why,
then, come we here to wake the slumbering
echoes in this their refuge from ifes too rude
alarms? Why beat the drum whose clangor
drowned their last sad cry of painP Why
march with martial tread among their graves,
and call their names, and laud their deeds
They do not hear, They are not here. The
worm has claimed them. Of all the three thou
sand, there is not left line, lineament for re
or would look within and say, This is he, my
first born this was he, my child Are we,
then, hooking their shadows? oh, no We
have brought an ofering-not of food and drink
and clothing, or of implements of warfare or the
chase as ruder peoples do for fancied use Their
dead companons-but of flowers, fragant flow
ers natnre's own incense to natures God, chap
lets not so much for the graves inhabitants fol-
their works which do follow them. To-day ano
perhaps tomorrow the household kindred viii
pronounce the names written on your numbered
records, with recollection Of the forms and looks
and voices of the lost ones but another genera
ton shall scarce have filed our empty places er,
individual sacrifices shall, save TO the few con
spieuous names who CHANGED TO lead the strife
be lost to recollection, and only the great result
commemorated by those who, reaping the result
of this our human planting may pause as they
gather in the rich havest to bless the hand tina
sowed for them the costly seed We may wei
pause ere we give reply TO the question whicl
confronts us for answer, whenever we marsha
on occasions of this kind the great cost in lif
and treasure-if we did not succeed at too grea
q sacrifice; and yet cannot find ether repl,
than that to have done less would have proye'
us unmindfu of the duty we owed TO patriotism
to our own generation. to the past, and more es
pecially to that great future Of whose budding
glores we catch faint glimpses when we lift on
eyes from present pursuits and ambitions. No
do believe that, after the grave shall hay
gathered in the generation who now possess tn
land, hiding in its ample chambers as well tn
personal recollectons and vauntings Of the sue
cessful, as the wounded pride, the bitter mem
cries of the defeated, that there will be touno
within the borders of our common inheritance
SINGLE American ctizen-no matter who HI
ancestor no matter what the traditions of HI
housewife will not join with uncovered hea
in that requiem which each year shall be ohante