Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1878-06-04
9IEMPHIS APPEAL
I TUESDAY, f: JUNE 4, 1873
HONORs TO THE NOBLE DEAD.

Inc monument erected to the Confederate
dead will be unveiled To- morrow. 1t will also
be an occasion for decorating the graves of
the heroes who died for a cause that was lost.
As we have already announced, General w.
y. C.. Humes has been selected as the orator
of the day. Vocal and instrumental music
has been secured, and the occasion promises
h be one of unusual interest. On Thursday
last Sherman, Banks and Fred Douglas, in
stead of decorating the graves of the Federal
dead, desecrated them, by prostituting the
occasion for partisan purposes. They availed
themselves OF the opportunity to enkindle the
expiring fires of sectional hatreds. They
howled over the graves of the dead with the
view of antagonizing the living and the hope
of retaining power. Such dissertation will
not occur at Elmwood. If General Humes
should Prostitute the ceremonies tomorrow
to vile party purposes, he would be rebuked
by the southern people, whose sensibilities
have been shocked at the unpatriotic speeches
made by leading Radicals on Thursday last.
On tomorrow political and religious diff
ferences will alike be forgotten. The oc-
casion is not intended for political harangues
Three years ago the Federals and the Con-
federates united in paying honors to the dead
soldiers. How proudly does such forgetful-
ness ofthe past contrast with the malignant ha-
treds of Banks and Sherman, who on Thursday
howled over the Federal graves, not in honor
of the dead, but to produce strife among the
living, and thus enable them to retain the Of
fees by which they have grown rich. The
people of Memphis, In the ceremonies to NOR
row, will show to the world that they are &C
tuated by charity, justice, and patriotism.
They will honor the Confederate soldier, who
sacrificed the comforts of home and en-
gagged in the perils of bloody war;
who advanced to meet the enemy with the
conviction that he was defending his home
against an invader bent upon his subjugation
degradation. But nothing will be said
against the Federal dead or calculated to
provoke sectional hatreds. What contrast
between the living and dead soldiers
of the two armies. This contrast should
mollify the hatred of northern fanatics. 1t
should appeal to their magnanimity and
sympathy. The.living soldiers of the FEEDER
al army marched home along a path strewn
with garlands and gladdened with songs of
triumph. They were greeted with bonfires
upon thousand hills, and with grape-not
the iron grape that rained in battle, but the
grape that distills the wine for the banquet.
The Federal soldier returned to land of
plenty, teeming with the wealth and lux
ury which the war had created He returned
home amid the acclamations of happy
and prosperous people. But how did
the poor Confederate soldier re-
turn? Like the poor tramp he
trudged through the wilderness, to find the
grim, charred chimney where he left a cosy
cabin, and found his ragged children cry
ing for bread. He returned ragged and PEN
niless, to find his friends as ragged and pen
niless as himself We behold the same sad
contrast between the dead of the two armies
The dead Federal soldier sleeps in magnif-
cent cemeteries, a sentinel placed over them,
with the American flag kept flying from sun
rise to sunset. The Confederate soldiers
grave ia not protected aud honored 10y the
government They are scattered over the
country-most of them sleep upon the FIELD
made illustrious by their valor. But this sad
contrast does not soften the heart of such
pace-hunters as Banks and Sherman. For
vile party purposes they would defle the
graves of the Confederate dead, and would
give the living Confederate soldier more
lonely chimueys, ragged children, and desc
late homes