Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1874-05-21
LETTER FROM GENERAL. MOVES, OF OHIO.

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CINCINNATI, ONO, May 5, 1874.
Hon. r. j. Mackey Judge Of the Siath Circuit
of South Carolina, Chester, s. c.
DEAR SIR: In the Cincinnati Commercial
of recent date, is copied letter addressed
by you to Colonel Black, United States Army,
commanding post, Columbia, South Carolina,
which states that the remains of two United
States soldiers had been exhumed from their
neglected burial place by the roadside, and
removed to the National Cemetery at Flor.
ence in your State, where they finally rest.
These pious Offices to the dead were render.
ed by a number of ex-Confederate soldiers of
Lancaster. Honors worthy Of being paid to
departed heroes were shown by citizens of
YOUR State to the foemen who had fallen upon
their soil, even in the presence Of sad monu-
ments which the wrath Of war had reared in
their midst.
One of these dead soldiers was member
of the 9th Ohio Volunteers-a regiment be-
longing to the brigade with which had the
honor to serve while in the military service.
On behalf of that regiment and brigade, for
myself, personally, and on behalf Of all the
citizens of this State, thank you and your
comrades for the generous act which your let
ter records.
| cannot express to you how deeply I have
been touched by the noble spirit which
prompted YOU and your friends thus to honor
those so lately your foes, and it comes home
to me the more, since one was private sol.
dier, who fought under my own eyes, and
whose last resting place might have remained
forever unknown, except for the respect he
has 50 signally received at yout hands.
The bitterness of the late unhappy war,
while the war lasted was frenzy that unseat-
ed reason but, now that hostilties have ceas-
ed, let US hope that peace returned is not
merely cessation from strife upon the bat
tlefeld, but the beginning of an era that will
bring again its thoroughly humanizing inAu'
ences to the hearts and minds of men. l am
fully persuaded that those men who actually
contended in arms against each other, when
they laid down with honor the weapons they
had welded with valor, were prepared to put
aside, and did put aside, every feeling that
caused them to look upon their antagonists
with enmity. Brave men, who have crossed
their steels in the fury of passion, when the
fury had passed, could recognize the virtues
of those they fought, and could we'll under
stand that to prolong hate until it reached
vindictiveness was narrowness of spirit, per-
tanning only to ignoble souls. Too much mis-
cry has already fallen upon our common coun-
try during the last twelve years, and no one'
least of all soldier, should desire to keep
alive the feelings which have occasloned 1t ;
rather is it the duty of every citizen, however
humble his sphere, to exert his energies to-
wards healing the wounds which have been
50 fearfully made
1t is my belief that the tenderness you have
thus shown to our Northern dead will prove
itself to be one of those victories for which
peace is more renowned than war. The sen'
timent which that tenderness has expressed
will be felt throughou the Union-will lind
an echo in every heart that beats with the
pulse of true manhood or responds to the best
instincts of humanity.
Thousands in our Northern States whose
sons are sleeping upon the plains of the South
will remember this act of kindness with the
deepest gratitude knowing that the ashes OF
their beloved rest among people who are
generously able to forget the ascerbity of civil
strife, while they are noble enough to treat
the dead of their former foes with the same
respect which they show to their own.
Again thanking you and the friends to
whom 1 feel under so great obligation, am,
very respectfully, your obedient servant,
EDwApD f MOVES