The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1876-10-12
An ELOQUENT Uutburst.

When COL IngersoIl faced his old comrades,
the Boys in Blue, at the indianapolis Conven-
ton, the inspiration of the occasion caused
him to give impromptu utterance to the fol-
lowing eloquent, touching and pathetic pas
sage. We have never read anything OF the
kind equal to it. It proves him to be natural
born orator of the highest order. He was re-
calling the scenes of the war, and said:
The past rises before me like dream.
Again we are in the great struggle for national
life. We hear the sounds of preparation-the
music of the boisterous drums-the silver
voices of heroic bugles. We sec thousands OF
assemblages, and hear the appeal or orators
we see the pale checks Of women and the
flushed faces of men and i'll those assemblages
we see all the dead whose dust we have COW
cred with flowers. We lose sight Of them no
more. We are with them when they enlist in
the great army Of freedom. We see them part
from those they love. Some are walking for
the last time in quiet woody places with the
maidens they adore. We hear the whisperlngs
and the sweet vows of eternal love as they lin
geringly part forever. Others are bending
over cradles, kissing babies that are asleep.
Some are receiving the blessings of old men.
Some are parting with maldens VINO
hold them and press them to their
hearts again and again, and say moth
ing F.; and some are talking with wives, and
endeavoring with brave words spoken in the
old tones to drive from their hearts the awful
fear. We see them part. We see the wife
standing in the door, with the babe in her
arrns-standing in the sunlight sobbing at
the turn of the road a hand waves-she an
swers by holding high in her loving hands the
child. He is gone, and forever.
We see them all as they march proudly away
under the Haunting flags, keeping time to the
wild, grand music of war-marching down the
streets of the great cities-through the towns
and across the prairies-down to the fields OF
glory, to do and to die for the eternal right
W. 6ol1 a "
their side on all the cory felds-in all the hos
pitfalls of pain-on all the weary marches. We
stand guard with them IN the wild storm and
under the quiet stars. We are with them Id
ra7ines running with blood-in the burrows of
old fields. We are with them between contend
ing hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst,
the life ebbing slowly away among the withered
leaves. We see them pierced by balls and tori
with shells in the trenches by forts, and in the
whirlwind of the charge, where men become
iron, with nerves of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of hatI ed
and famine; but human speech can never Tell
what they endured
We are at home when the news comes that
they are dead. We see the maiden in the
shadow of her first sorrow. We see the sill
vered head of the old man bowed with the last
grief.
The past rises before US and we see four
millions of human beings governed by the
lash; we see them bound hand and foot; we
hear the strokes of cruel whips; we see the
hounds tracking women through tangled
swamps We see babes sold from the breasts
of mothers. Cruelty uDspeakable! Outrage
infinite! -. Z
Four million bodies in chains-four million
souls in letters. All the sacred relations OF
wife. mother, father and child trampled be-
meath the brutal feet of might. And all this
was done under our own beautiful banner OF
the free.
The past rises before US. We hear the roar
and shrek of the bursting shell. The broken
letters fall. These heroes died. We look:
Instead of slaves we see men, and women, ana
children. The wand of progress touches the
auction-block, the slaye-pen, the whipping
post. and we see homes and hresldes and
school houses and books, and where all was
want. and crime, and cruelty and letters, we
see the faces of the free. =,
The heroes are dead. They died Tor liberty
they died for us. They are at rest. They
sleep in the land they made free, under the
flag thew rendered Stainless under the solemn
pines. the sad hemlocks, the fearful willows,
and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath
the shadows of the clouds, careless alike OF the
sunshine or of storm, each IN the wlndoWless
palace of rest. Earth may run red with other
wars-thev are at peace. III the midst OF bat
tie in the roar of conflict, they found the
serenitv of death. A voice-''Glory."
have one sentiment for the soldiers living and
dead-cheers for the living and tears for the
| dead.