The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1876-10-11
50 PER ANNUM,
Z ELOQUENT lNcERsoLL.
oNE on Us rEN srR1KEs.

Wv Ahui"htPOHo CVitf6uIIOu, Inc IN
splration of the occasion caused him
to give impromptu utterance to the
following eloquent, touching and pa
thetic passage. We have never read
anything Of the kind equal to it. 1t
proves him to be natural born ora.
tor Of the highest order. haf OH
lie was recalling the scenes Of the
var, and said --.fi
The past rises before me like a
dream. Again we are in the great
struggle for national life. We hear
Che sounds of preparation Emusic
of the boisterous drums--the silver
voice of the heroic bugles. We see
thousands of assemblages, and hear
the appeals Of orators 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 free
dom. We see them part from those.
they love. Sore are walking for the
last time in quiet woody places with
the maidens they ador e. We hear
the whisperings and the sweet VOWS of
eternal love as they lingeringly part
forever. Others are bending over
cradles kissing babiessthat 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
endeavoring with brave words spoken
in the old tones to drive from their
hearts the awful fear. We then part.
We see the wife standing in the door,
with the babe in her arms-standing
in the sunlight sobbing-at the turn
of the road a hand waves-she ans.
wers by holding hi2l. in her loving
hands the child. He isgoue and foreyei.
We see them all as they march
proudly away under the Haunting
flags, Keeping time to the wild, grand
music Of war-mal ching down the
streets of the great cities, through the
town and across the prairies, down to
the fields Of glory, to do and to die for
the eternal right. f-aai-fo -E3a
We go with them one and all. We
are by their side on all the glory fields
--7in al 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
ravines running with blood-in the
burrows of old fields. We are with
them between contending hosts, unable
to move, wild with thirst, the life eb-
bing slowly away among the withered
leaves. We see them pierced by balls
and torn with shells in tho trenches
by forts, and in the whirlwind of the
charge, where men become ircp 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 they are dead We see the
maiden in her first sorrow. We see
the silvered head of the old man,
bowed with tile last grief. Fal.
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
the cruel whips we see the hounds
tracking women through tangled
swamps. We See babes sold from the
breasts of mothers. Cruelty unspeak.
able /! Outrage Infinite!
-Four million bodies in chains-
four million souls in letters. All the
sacred relations of wife, mother, father
and child 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'll The broken fetters fall. These !
heroes died. We look. Instead of !
slaves we see men and women and
children. The wand of progress
touches the auction block, the slavo
pen, the whipping post, and we sec
homes and fireNdca, and school houses
aud books, and where all was want,
aud crime, and cruefty, and fetters, we
see the faces Of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died |
for liberty-they died tor US, They !
are at rest. They sleep in the land |
they made free, under the flag they
rendered stainless, under the solemn |
pines, the sad hemlooks, the fearful |
and the embracing vines.
They sleep beneath .he shadows of
the clouds, careless alike of the sun
shine or Of storm, each in the wih-
dowless 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 sereni.
ty of death. "a. voice "GlOry.") l |