Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-01-12

A& ~ AOh - - - - - =
: that the mere mechanical appliances of al
] that culture and inventive genius hat
! brought forth, were vain without the MOTIF
Q to construct the implements of war; and i
were vain then, but for the hands to us.
r them, and the sacrificing hearts behint
: them,
We do not turn to the Roman Curtius, MOI
e the Sparton Leonedas, or to Grecian war
riorS for types of this heriosm. No, no
! Your ranks furnish them better to our pur
! pose. At Spottsylvania, when Hancock
! burst from the curtain of fog and fell upOr
Lees lines, with his own and the 9th Corps
. 1900 dead men were piled into a five acre
2 lot, and found the wounded in that engage
ment, in the morning, tapping the dew
moistened leaves to allay their thirst. They
, would do that for the Government
, A young officer who used to be down here
} and on the street in drug store, had a limb
J shattered at Winchester. 1t was amputated
, and after the effects of chloroform had
somewhat passed away, he placed his HAND
upon the bleeding stub, and asked "Where
/ is my leg" When he was told: "Ah!
said he, Good-by, leg; you and have
trudged it together a good while for Uncle
Sam. Good-by."
| AS Farragut, that old waye-beaten sailor
| l.
mouth, into a niche of fame, vacant till
then-as he swept up the Missippie, past
the batteries at Vicksburg, Lieut. Cum
mlngS had limb shot away, and his men
refusing to go further, he shouted: pull
past the batteries, boys, and they may have
| my other leg"
When Commodore Smith, retired veteran,
was telegraphed that the Congress, in
Hampton Roads, had struck her flag
Then" said the old man, " Joe is dead. y
| He was dead; it was the fathers eulogy over
| his dead son. So it was everywhere. A
| little boy in Vermont, whose father had
gone to the war, was compelled to do great
deal of farm work. A gentleman seeing him
at his unequal task, asked him how it was.
"Ah!" said the little fellow, Father is
fighting, am digging, and mother is pray
ing" That was the stuff to win battles.
All, heroes this whole bloOd-washed land is
thy shrine,
Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
This struggle also devezQped Tho true Annert-
can type Of mankind.
War, it h as always been thought, is de-
structive to moral character, and that any
people thus engaged must, of necessity,
abate somewhat of their moral force.
While historians and esSaists, with orators
have embelished their works with the
courage and sacrifice of the soldiers, they
have, at the same time, tainted his morals
Or rather, they have taken the prediction
on this score for granted, without inspecting
an army, or its materials, after service, for
its result. AS general proposition, be-
leve this is more a theory, than well au-
thenticated record. In support of this con-
viction, we know that armies have saved
whole nations from the most demOralizng
tendencies, and made it impossible for them
to resume the. practices that invoked the
arbitrament of the sword Macauley says
in his essay on Hampton, that during thirty
years of war, the morals of the people were
improved. In our own martial history this
charge is suppositious; and it is a question
yet TO be decided, which are most cor
rupted-the soldiers, or an equal number OF
citizens? There were many instances of
the ruin of moral characters by the maturity
of fundamental wrongs But they were not
results of army habits. They would have
brought forth this legitimate fruit in other
society Many, who were worthless before,
put on Uncle Sans uniform, and came out
of the frey ordeal with moral characters
that equaled the brightness of their honor. |
Blood had redeemed them; sacrifice had
enobled them.
There are scores and hundreds of men to |
whom men point and say: "The war made |
them" There are many to whom, think,
the discipline of battle, hospitable and hos
pital ministry, with a grateful sense of
Providental preservation in the hour of hui
initiation and extremity of mortal endur-
ance, were opened the gates of glory. Not
all thuS-all did not return Sunday school
teachers, but they returned like houored
warriors, many other times in history hay
ing opened paths for the missionary.
Look at the records of crime since the
war; the number of good soldiers who have
been brought before the civil tribunes to
answer to the charge of felony, or who have
passed under the eXecutiOner's hand is
small.
The Court calenders have borne the names
Of unworthy substitutes and bounty-jump-
srs for criminal offences, but the returned
volunteer seeks no such unenviable distinc-
ion.
They saw enough of blood in five years of
1gnting, and learned the value of honorable
conduct. Admit that the sight of human
slaughter neltuer preserves nor inspires
moral character, there is sometimes a
working of the soul in struggles for the right I
hat confers invisible epauets upOu him who !
lares confront the wrong.
There is measure of trial in good causes ,
hat develop attachments before unsuspect-
I'd. Your nobility consisted in acts of mower |
lot of time, in noble purpose, courage. self
acrltce, and not in acts of good and eyH as
he philosophers fOndly write, as the usual t
course of promotion. c
Without these cherished distinctions. in r
I'D societies here, we find men who were {
ypes of American manhood.
The old martyrs did not do more for the
jhurch of our Redeemer, as they scaled the = =
burning walls of persecution, and with L
,listered feet trod Immanuel's courts. than f
hey did for the salvation of the Repub lie s
he difference was in the objects gained d
A German Lieutenant, in one of our In 7
antry regiments, once approached Presi-
lent Lincoln, and gained the promise of h
higher rank in the cavalry service. He was =
o delighted with his prospect that he be- J
IAN to tell the President that he belonged d
o one of the Oldest and noblest houses in S
Germany. "lAh! never mind" said he, t
you will not find that an obstacle to your adj t
ancement." All, it was this nobility that I.
ways won success, though not always vic :;
oriouS as commissions.
Did it demorali>e the people ! Some of u
he choicest spirits of all the elect came to u
he rude cot of the dying soldier, or bent
yer his mangled and wasted form on the Il
eldS he had given to fame" with the is
ministry woman's nursing. "
What they did, and what they brought Il
y themselves, and by the aid of commits
ion, were embodied Christian idess.
But these great drafts of time, with all the l..
ndurance, manly and womanly develop u
tents, are not the heaviest burdens that n
he people bore; nor even the treasures so II
athy that did not tire, nor convert this 9
enevolence into mere form of giving: Oh r.
le hearts that kept on aching and would 9,
OF forget i'll their prayerful solitude when -
lend after friend was gone, and hope after !,
ope was withered in the shock, this higher u
flee of charity. "
HusbandlesS, sonless and loveress-when c'
leir own were torn away they kept
n loving the army, SO that this blessed d
umanity adopted every boy in blue. b,
Recent events on the continent Of Europe re-
ave called attention to these features of >,
IT struggle, and wrung the following charge ~
nd confession from a German periodical: q
The Americans, far feom being a very P
tactical and energetic people and fertile of
sw ideas, developed their resources to the il
.most. Their military service produce no al
rategist at all comparable to Moltk, but bi
all sanitary arrangements, in hospital h
and in liberaiity and attention q,
their wounded, the Americans were in r.
vance of continental natives" II