The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1879-06-19
TPacific Christian Advocate.
Not Yet.

Portland, Oregon, May IA, 1879.
REV. J. II. ACTON,
Pastor N. z. Church, Portland, Oregon
Dear SIR
am instructed to write you to deliver
discourse on the Sabbath preceding
Decoration Day, in commemoration of
the services of our fallen comrades who
gave their lives for the maintainance of
this great free government. If consist
ent we hope that you will be pleased to
comply. Very Respectfully,
n. S. PIERCE,
Chairman Committe.
We must respectfully decline. Nearly
eighteen years since, at the call of the
United States Government, we took up
our line of march for the bloody fields of
the South-not as a commissioned Off
Ger with large epaulets, large pay, and
larger selfappreciation, nor yet as a
chaplain to have, as many did, a good
easy remunerative time out of bullet
range-but as private soldier in the
ranks, with our musket and knapsack
For three years we stood picket, laid in
the trenches, traversed swamps, baked our
own beans-when we had any-shot at
rebels, and in turn made for them a tar
through many bloody scenes, and some
of the most trying battles of the war.
More than once we narrowly escaped the
bayonet, Andersonville or Libbey We
carried ammunition from the pouches Of
the dying and the dead for some of these
same comrades whose deeds we are now
called upon to remember and helped
with our own hands to lay scores of them
in their graves. When the war closed we
Joined in the Nations shout and hung
our sword on the wall. Many of our
most valued friends were left in the
South We tried to dry the tears of
stricken fathers and mothers by reciting g
the heroism of their dead, and then went t
back into the ranks of the Master to pray
for the fatherless and the widows. But
we were happy. A halo of glory hung
over these graves. We looked on the
broad acres Of this great land, and felt it
was enough. We had spent as a nation
more than $4,000, 900, 000 and had sacri-
feed hundreds of thousands of precious
lives, but 1.-The cruel war was over" and
our enemies were ready to accept the
situation.
To day, the men government paid US
by the month for shooting at are our
congressman. Four senators only who
now serve US were union soldiers, while
twenty were in the rebel army. Six pla
ces are yet to fill. Sixty five rebel sold
| iers are in the house. Not solitary
man from all the South who stood Loyalty
| by the Government with his life in his
hand, comes as a representative. More
than two-thirds of the whole number
were in open rebellion and under arms
and yet in six if not seven states of the
thirteen which rebelled, the union vo
ters are in the majority. The tried sol
dier is thrust out. The freedman who
led the way through dismal swamps
found hiding places, and carried a por
ton of their own scanty fare to our starv
ing boys flying from prison-pens, whc
bound mp their wounds and picked th'
worms from their gangrened flesh tori
by blood hounds-these Freedmen ar
to-day flying from their homes to saw
their lives. Insult stamps upon tn
graves of our dead in the South, and rev
olution is complete in its violence onl
that solitary union soldier who happen