Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-06-05

you again touch elbows in the ranks and
march with that old steady tramp which
time cannot disturb, how like a tide the
vanished years come back and how they
dwarf the present with the grandeur OF
| their deeds. The scenes of camp and
march are here-or, rather, you are
there. The haunts.of childhood are not
more familiar than the picket posts you
held You can thread the winding paths
| of Virginia forests, or navigate the ba-
| yous of Louisiana as easily as you wend
| your way through these familiar streets.
You think that you could go at midnight
| to the bivouacs where danger brooded
| DER you, or to the camps where life
though hard was gay. How sounds the
reveille upon your wakening ears. How
the good old bugle echoes all the calls OF
camp How rise before you the
beauteous lines of dress parade, and how
the rattling drum corps rolls out the
airs you thought you had forgotten. The
| only things you cannot realize are the
privations you endured. They may have
! left their marks upon you, but their
twinging torments are like a half for
! gotten dream. You can see the very
swamps where you lay soaked at night,
! but you cannot feel the rain drops as
! they battered on your cheek. You can
! think of empty haversacks-aye, and
recall starvation in the prison pen, but
/ somehow the pangs of hunger do not re-
! turn.
In the glory of achievement, these
things pass away. AS when Phil Kear-
ney, in the heat of battle, grasped at
his bride reiR with the sleeve that had
been elnptied years before, so are we all
prone to forget, in fighting our battles
DER, the hardships that we endured and
the disabilities that we incurred. Be it
so. But the great events which made
the conflict war stand out in bold relief
the blows we gave and took we give and
take again. Somebody listening to me
now recalls Bull Run; another Fair
Oaks; another daShes through the
bloody Warwick Creek; others leap the
death gulch at Antietam scores storm
the nights at Fredericksburg, and more
meet death and conquer scandal down at
| Baton Rouge numbers there are, who
with "Old Joe Hooker penetrated
above the clouds and from the crimsoned
crest of Lookout Mountain, look down
on all their former lives, as little in COM
parison with one great deed; and who,
but thinks of Gettysburg, where trea-
sons highest tide dashed up against your
front and surged, and broke, and ebbed
away!
But not in a general view-nOt as the
civilian sees these great events-does the
soldiers see them even at this safe time
and distance. He sees them only in part,
and of that part was he. Let US go
with him through one scene. Do not
imagine that he is anything but flesh and
blood When he sees cannon placed in
line, and long divisions massing here
and there, he knows there is work
ahead. of which he may not live to tell.
What thoughts of home and kindred
crowd his mind in that dread silence
which prectdes the strife; what conf
dental messages teut-mates and friends
exchange; what silent prayers are said
even by those who never prayed before
Won know as well as | can tell. All yonr
love OF life and all your sense OF civili-
zlti0n rises in protest against the inhu-
man barbarism that is impending. ou
think of the foe not with hatred, but as
human beings, aye, and as brothers, ana
Won almost wonder why the invisible
= Spirit of battle, which you fancy to be
lowering above both armies-you won
der why the all-merciful God whom you
have been taught from infancy to look
To as a loving father-will not touch the
hearts Of the c0mbatants and lead them
then and there to the econsummationo OF an
honorable peace. You watch the flags
; at corps headquarters and every move
ment seems a signal. You imagine that
every courier who gallops to the lines
conveys the all mOmentous order. II
the shots thicken on the shrmish line,
! you hold your breath.
, Call you these musings of coward
There is not one soldier in hundred
, who has not felt them more yiVldly than
| can tell. And yet, these same soldiers
a Daled to the lips, silent, stern, could not
+ bc moved from their posts by anything
: but orders. and when the fierce conflict
, comes YOU see them, self-Controlled, the
bravest in the fight. Did you ever read
, in the newspaper that the army was I'm
excellent condition, and the men were
,.sp0iling for a fight ?" These same men
we're the first whom the prospect OF a
, figbt would spoil Did you never hear a
a soldier say that ''when once fairly in,
he ,shad no fear ?" Such soldiers have
, been known to be the first to get unfairly
, out. Paradoxical as it may sound, there
+ is no bravery without fear, and this same
. tvpical. true soldier whom we com
menced with in the fight, filled with ter
, ror. thoughtful prayerful, sad, is the
/ one of whom history writes the greatest
| deeds and of whom elOquence and poet
Q ry never tire to tell.
! The preparations are all made. The
. army waits. Horses, unconscious OF
3 the general awe, pluck clover in the
field. The little brook that stakes the
q soldiers battle-thirst babbes as sweetly
q as if visited by peaceful kline. The tall
| 1xy q
4 were gathered in their shade. The birds
= float through the air in blissful Ignorance
that soon the swifter-winged messengers
! of death will come The few white,
fieecy clouds above give no portent OF
the gathering storm, and the sun-the
same bright sun which shines upon your
{ dear old home-tells of no hurricane
5 that man cannot control. And yet, you
lie upon the ground and wait and watch,
,, but wait not long.
A white puff, a sharp flash, loud
i crash, blowing through the ar, ana, ID
e an instant, what a change No hurrl-
r cane has come, but the storm of battle
e has, and all along yon bristling ridge you
= see men spring like demons through the
e smoke to serve the fast discharging guns.
n Explosions fill the air. The air grows
IS wild. The whir of iron fragments
IS sounds like the hum of stones from many
d slings. Trees crash and shed their limbs,
d rocks smoke and glance like flint, and
f men are mown down and the earth is
e plowed in this harvest of death and seed.
y time of souls. Why don't our cannon
d oftener reply? WITHSTAND our Officers
l. as if o'erawed /? Why do three miles OF
y men lie still and let three hundred shells
e minute make havoc in their triple
9, ranks? There !. silence! by-and-by,
IL breeze watts up the sulphurous smoke
> and, @, look there The long gray lines
D come on with proud, elastic step. The
IS eyenness of ranks, the wave of banners
II the flash of sabres and the sheen o.
u arms, make up a spectacle as beautiful
d as ever man beheld. But it cannot last
re 1t came to do destruction and it shall b'
st destroyed. A sharp voice at the neares
:? battery commands to fire! and, swifte
At tbao contauinu burSts the Dent-up thun