Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1879-09-10
WORTH PRESERV WING.

THE following extract from Colonel
Ingersoll's great speech, delivered at the
Soldiers Reunion, at Indianapolis, Ind,
September, 1876, is well worth preserv-
ing. A better or finer picture could not
be drawn
The past rises before me like dream.
Again we are in the great struggle for
life. We hear the sounds of preparation
the music of the boisterous drum-the
silver voices of heroic bugles. We see
thousands of assemblages, and hear the
appeals of orators; we see the pale cheeks
of women, and flushed faces of men; and
in those assemblages we see all the dead
whose dust we have covered with flowers.
We loose 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 with the maidens
they adore. We hear the whisperings
and the sweet VOWS of eternal love as
they lingerly part forever. Others are
bending over cradles, kissing sleeping
babes. Some are receiving the blessings
of old men. Some are parting with moth
ers who hold them and press them to
their hearts again and again and say
nothing; and some are talking with wives
and are endeavoring with brave words
spoken in the old tone 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 sobbing-at the turn of the road
hand waves-she answers by holding
in her loving hands the child. He is
gone, and forever.
We see them all as they march proud
lv away under the Haunting flags, keep
ing 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 go with them one and all. We
are by their side on all the CORY fields
in all the hospitals of pain-on all the
weary marches We stand guard over
them in the wild storm and under the
quiet stars. We are with them in the
furrows of old fields and in ravines run
ming with blood We are with them be-
tween contending hosts, unable to move,
wild with thirst, the life ebbing away
among the withered leaves. We see them
pierced by balls and torn with shells, in
the trenches by the forts, and the whirl-
wind 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 they are dead. We see the maiden
in the shadow of her first great sorrow.
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 governed
by the lash-we see them them bound
hand and foot-we hear the strokes of
cruel whips-we see hounds tracking
women through swamps. We see babes
sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruel
ty unspeakable! Outrage infinite.
-Four million bodies in chains-four
million souls in fetters. All the sacred re-
lations 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 u.s. We hear the
roar and shrek Of bursting shells. The
broken fetters fell These heroes died.
We look. Instead of slaves we see men
and women and children. The wand of
progress touches the aution-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
iberty-they died for lis. They are at
rest. They sleep in the land they made
free, under the flag they made stainless,
under the solumn pines, the sad hem
locks. the fearful willows, and the en-
bracing vines, They sleep beneath the
shadows of the clouds, careless alike Of
the sunshine or of storm, each in the win
dowless palace Of rest. Earth may run
red with other wars-they are at peace.
In the midst of battle, in the roar Of con-
fict, they found the serenity of death.
I have one sentiment for the soldiers
living and dead-cheers for the living
and tears for the dead
MYRoN w. REED.-A good story is told
of Rev. Myron W. Reed which has never
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