The Hillsdale standard. [volume] (Hillsdale, Mich.) 1851-1909, 1876-11-28
NUMBER 1869.
MOST ELOQUENT INeERsoLE
A PASSAGE OF FsURPAssING RHE.
TOPICAL GRACE AND
.H. G8ANDEUB.
From she speech ~ Deb sngersslls .
before the Union Soldiers and sail.
ers In National Convention ss In-
atanaPOlis Sept. %, 1875.

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 Bolster
ous drums, the silver voices Of heroic
bugles. We see thousands of assem-
blages, and hear the appeal of orators;
We see the pale cheeks Of women, and
the flushed faces Of men; and in those
asscmblages 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 with 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 eter-
nal love as they lingeringly part forev-
er. Others are bending over cradles,
kissing babes that are asleep. Some
are receiving blessings of old men.
Some are parting with mothers who
hold them and press them to their
hearts again and again, and say moth
ing; 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 SEQ
them part. We sec the wife standing
in the door with the babe in her arms
standing in the sunlight sobbing. At
the turn of the road hand waves. She
anwers by holding high in her loving
hands the child. He is gone and for
ever.
We see them 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 glo-
~, to do, and to die for the eternal
right.
We go with them, one and all. We
are by their side on the CORY fields, 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 are with them in ra-
vines running with blood, in the fur
between contending hosts. unable TO
move. wild with thirst, the life ebbing
slowly away among the withered leaves.
We see them pierced by balls and torn
with shells, in the trenches, by forts,
and in the the whirlwinds 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 ware at home when the news
comes that they are dead. We see the
maiden in the shadow of her first sor-
row. We see the silvered head Of the
old man bowed with the last grief.
The past rises before us, and we see
four millions of human beings govern
ed by the lash,-we see them bound
hand and foot, we hear the strokes OF
cruel whips, we see the hounds track
ing women through tangled swamps,
we see babes sold from the breast of
mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Out
rage initiate!
: Four million bodies in chanes, -four
million souls in fetters. Ali the sacred
relations OF wife, mother, father and
children trampled beneath 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
she |. The broken fetters fall. These
hearoes died. We look. Instead of
slaves we see men women and children.
The want of progress touches the auc-
tion-block, the slave-pen, the whipping
post, and we see homes and firesides
and school houses and books, and
where all was want and crime and cru
city and fear, we see the faces OF the
free.
Those heroes are dead. They died
for liberty; they died for us. They are
at rest. They sleep in the land they
made free, under the flag they render
ed stainless, under the solemn pines,
the sad hemlock, and the fearful will
lows, and the embracing vines. They
sleep beneath the shadows OF the
clouds, careless alike of sunshine or OF
storm. each in the widowless palace OF
rest Earth may run red with other
wars; they are at peace. In the midst
of the battle, in the roar OF conflict,
they found the serenity Of death. A
voice-"Gloryl' have one sentiment
for the soldiers, living and dead: cheers
for the living, and tears for the dead.