Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-06-02

devotion to the cause for which they gave the last
full measure of devotion; that we there highly re.
solve that the dead shall not have died III vain.
Silence is most eloquent, for how can mortal man
| essay to speak in your presence, oh ye OF the
grand, celestial host of the tried and true-thc
loved and gone,-brothers, companions in toll and
triumph ye, who in victory and defeat through
summers heat and winters SHOWS, stood shoulder
to shoulder with us amid the tempest and wreck
Of war, till you passed the awful curtain of the
| unknown and left us dcsolate, to weep over the
magnificent daring which swept you onward to
immortal fame
Comrades, this is our sacred day, set apart and
dedicated to the memory of our departed heroes.
We march to martial music. for they once kept
step to the music of the Union" We carry the
| flag, for they followed it amid the flame and
| smoke OF battle. We color guard, for
they once carried arms for the Stars and stripes.
| We form in military lines, for they once stood
shoulder to shoulder with us in the ranks. We
have the salute of artillery, for they once walked
to the reveille of cannon. But our muskets are
unloaded, for they fight with us no more. Over
their last resting places the rises and sets, and
on their humble graves the winter SHOWS and sum-
mer rains fall gently, but they who once stood the
| weary hours Of the lonely picket guard, where no
| eve save Gods looked down in sympathy and pity
| upon them, stand no more. Their watch Is over,
their duty done. Beneath their countrys starry
| banner and the starry heavens OF their God, they
sweety sleep till the great awakening of the
Resurrection morning. We speak of them as
dead, but they are
"Only gone before,
To that unknown silent shore"
They "passed on" from sanguinary field, from
hospital tent or prison pen, and we speak OF them
| as "the dead OF the war" But there is rich, full
| sense, in which they are not dead. In their ex-
| amples in their grand achievements, in their
| triumphant virdication Of the government OF the
people, by the people, for the people" they still
live and can never die. They still speak to us in
the thousand "reminiscences which recall their
| l1,r ,n,.t To faifh hful
performance of our duties citizens. They re-
mind US that our obligations to be good men and
true did not cease when we reverently folded our
banners and were no longer thrilled by the clarion
call of the bugles, but that there still remains an
other and a higher duty for us and for those who
shall come after us, in establishing upon the lm-
pregnabe foundations of truth and justice our
Union and the principles of representative govern
ment, and transmitting them to our posterity.
The Roman Senate decreed that the Consul
should see to it that no i'll befell the Republic"
That too is the duty tlevolved upon us Of this
generation; and for the faithful discharge of that
sacred trust we must answer hereafter to our own
conscences, to the valiant and true who fell at our
side on "the perilous edge of battle" and to the
great Judge who knows our motives and weighs
| them in the scales of Eternal Justice
Ii we are true to the memory of our cherished
ones, if catch the inspiration of their spirit and
example, if we feel, we may and should the ln-
iuence of their presence; il we are moved by the
same divine impulses which swept them tearlessly
onward through the portals of death, and sustained
them in the agony of dissolution, then are they not
wholly lost to us, then are they not dead but only
"gone before, and we may rejoice in the blessed
hope that we shall hereafter become one with them
in the deathless bonds of an eternal union. No,
my friends, let not think of them as dead, but
only gone forward as scouts and advance guards,
to select for us an encampment on the celestial
hills. Their brave deeds, perchance, no pen Will
chronicle, their generous actions none may relate,
for history has room only for few great names;
yet somewhere they are written in record which
is Just and perfect and which has place for the
humbcst as well as the highest, and are rewarded
by an Almighty hand which cannot err. We can
not decorate the graves Of all our comrades, but
as we lay our tributes OF tendcrest love and sym
pathy upon the graves on yonder hillside, let us
stand in memory by the last resting places OF those
who sleep beneath the moaning pines of Virginia,
ON the heights where, from the clouds OF Look
out Mountain, they Numbered down the defiance
Of the skies-in the CHASTITY prison pens OF Georgia
and Carolina, under the grand majestic shadow OF
the proud capitol and where the great river
whrls its turbid waters past Nicksburg's heights
and Port Hudsons plains, sleeping where they
fighting fell.
In the truest, fullest appreciation of the day, we
meet in commemoration of all who have fallen,
whether they lie in the quiet cemetery which over
| looks with calm serenity the busv busting city
| beneath, or in some lonely far off spot, where no
tomb shall ever plead remembrance-in distant
Southern soil, where, it may be, not even the sim
resting places, or whether useless coffin en-
shrouding their breasts but wrapped IN the
blanket, which is the soldiers martial shroud they
wait, upon the fields won by their valor, the COM
ing Of the eternal day. soldier who has followed
the dear old flag, who has calmly faced death in
its manifold shapes hundred battlefelds, who
has suffered hunger and thirst and exhaustion on
forced marches, who has sweltered under South
ern July sun, and shivered and frozen amid the
SHOWS of winter; who has marched and fought,
al a month
struggling against adverse fortune, overwhelming
odds, disaster and defeat; who has endured such
tortures and hardships Of prison life as man never
endul ed before in the worlds history, and who has
preserved his faith, and his hope, and his loyal
love of country-a soldier brave and true, whose
| strength, whose energies, whose heart and soul,
and life, even, were his country sis a sublime
Epic "a complete epitome OF the war Tor ather-
land
How MANY men right here in our own midst are
there whom the world daily passes unnotced.
without glance of recognition, without thought
even, whose lives during the four years OF their
glorious service would be Il graphic record OF the
grandest old army in all history! What loyalty,
what herosm, what devotion, what magnanimity,
what fidelity and endurance and restraint, what
patient self abnegation, what sympathy and tender
feeling, what peerless, dashing bravery, the story
of those lives would unveil to mortal eye, never
dreamed by mortal mind! Individuals are lost
among masses of men, isolated instances Ell bril-
liant daring are ecllpsed by the glare OF great
achieveu euS acts of personal CALAMITY are over
shadowed by the magnitude of great results, and
hundreds, thousands, who on a smaller theatre, on
less extended plane of action would have been
hailed as heroes by admiring thIongs of men, are
overlooked, forgotten, nay, never heard Of even,
by the world; and their virtues, their sutferings,
their daring deeds remembered only by the
companions and associates who shared with them
the dangers and the sacrifices which were part OF
the price we paid for the perpetuity of our glorious
Union and free institutions! My friends, there's
not a man among us but holds dear the memory
of some such comrsde gone, but thrills at the cor
dial grasp of the hand Of some such comrade
living And though the great world knows httle
cares nothing for these, to us most precious mem
cries, let us cherish them so long as life shall last
and until we and they are once more reunited, to
renew that high companionship on the celestial
plains.
And this reflection brings me to the more imme-
date point wish to present for your consideration
to-day. The Grecian Statesman said, That
city is best fortified against attack that is walled
around with the ranks of its veteran soldiers"
What striking illustration of this truth has this
nation afforded within the past few years. How
signaly have we verified the wisdom of this utter
ance in our own recent history! The imericom
SoLI;er the volunteer soldier. whose endurance