Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1876-10-13

II any have thought that Colonel Robert
lngersoll was merely brilliant stump speak
Cr, destitute OF the genuine qualities Of the
great orator, let them read the following
passage from his address to the soldiers, at
indianapolis,
The past rises before me like a dream
Again We are ia the great struggle for ma
tional life. We hear the sounds for prepa-
ratlon-thc music of the boisterous drums
the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see
thousands Of asSemblagcs, and hear the ap-
peals Of orators we see the pale cheeks Of
women and the flushed faces of men and
in those assembages We see all the dead
whose dust We have covered 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 whisperings and
the sweet vows Of eternal love as they lInger-
ingly part forever. Others are bending over
cradles, kissing babies that are asleep. Some
are receiving the blessings of old men. Some
are parting who hold them and press them
to their hearts again and again, and say
nothing and some are talking with wives,
and endeav0rlng 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 arms-standing in the sunlight sob
binc-at the turn Of the road hand waves
she answers ly holding high in her loving
hands the child. lie 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.
We 20 with them one and all. We are
by their side on all the CORY felds--in all
the hospitals Of pain-on all the weary
marches. We stand guard with them in the
wild storm and under the quiet stars. We
arc with them in rayines running with blood
in the lurrOws of old fields. We are with
them between contending hosts. unable to
move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing slow
" away among the withered leaves. We see
them pierced by balls and torn with shells in
the trenches by forts, AMI in the whirlwind
Of the charge, where men become iron, with
nerves of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of hatred
and famine but human speech can never
tell what they endured.
We are at home when the news comes
that thev are dead. We see the maiden IN
the shadow of her first sorrow We see the
silyercd 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 unspeakable Out
rage infinite
Four million bodies in chains-four mil
lion souls in fetters. All the sacred rela-
tions of wife, mother, father and child
trampled beneath the brutal feet of might.
And all this was done under our own beau
tiiul banner of the free.
The past rises before us. We hear the
roar and shrek of the bursting shell.
The broken letters fall. We look. Instead
of slaves we see men and women and chill
dren. The wand Of progress touches the
auction block, the slave pen, the whipping
post, and we see homes and firesides, and
schoolhouses and books, and where all Was
want and crime and cruelty and fetters, we
see the faces of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died for
liberty-tney died for us. They are at rest.
They sleep in the land they made free, un-
der the flag they rendered stainless. under
the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks,
the fearful willows and the en-
bracing vines. They sleep beneath the
shadows of the clouds, careless alike of the
shine or of storm, each in the windowless
palace of rest. Earth may run red with
other wars-they are at peace. In the midst
of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found
the serenity of death. "a voice Glory y
have one sentiment for the soldiers living
and dead-cheers for the living and tears for
the dead"