Helena weekly herald., 1879-06-19
DECORATION DAY.
Extracts from the Grafton of Delegate
Maginnis delivered at Arlington, Va.


A year ago to-day, stood, for the first
time since the war, upon the sloping crest of
the historical fields of Gettysburg, which,
stretching westward from my feet, peacefully
bloomed in the Warm spring sunshine, their
| wayward grain and tender turf and glstening
woodlands, backed by the dark blue noun
tains, forming the very ideal of pastoral re-
pose. The farmers looked askance at the in
truders on their fields; the sheep started in
surprise at the invasion of their quiet; there
was no trace Of battle, no scar of shot or
shell, the very trees had outgrow their
wounds, and nature had left no token of bat
tie on those vernal slopes, unless the blood of
thousands gave greener hue 10 the grass or
a warmer tint to the flowers. AS in other
| lands she had buried the remains of mans
pride and magnifcence, so here she had oblit-
Grated all traces of his ferocious passion from
| the breast of the lovely earth.
| 1t was difficult to recall the dreadful sights
and sounds of battle which had covered that
| turf with the mangled forms of men and
| shaken the hills with the reverberations of
cannon and the din of musketry; that had
| filled the pure air with the sulphurous clouds,
amid which the struggling hosts contended
until it seemed as if that dread day had come
| when the heavens shall be rolled up as
scroll, and men shall call upon the earth to
cover and the rocks to hide them.
NV recollection was of that supreme mo-
ment when the fierce waves of battle, which
for three days had beat upon that line, swell
ling into one overwhelming billow, rolled out
of the dark tempest OF artillery smoke and
lightning, and, with crest of glistening steel
and crimson Southern battle-t1ags, and a foam
of fire, dashed upon that line, only to be
hurled back, broken, bloody, mangled, into
the chaos from whence it came, amid the
ringing cheers of the Union line, which, ris-
ing above all other sounds, rent the air from
Round Top, to the right.
began to realize that the war was long
time ago; that its incidents were being con-
fused amid the throng of occurrences that
crowd our busy lives, and that its memories
began to pale as seen through the medium of
accumulating years.
But when turned to the cemetery itself.
| there was the never-faiing reminder of the
comrades who had fallen-th those with whom
we had shared the march in heat and cold, on
nights of rain and tempest, and on nights
when the soft moon and stars shone down on
the rivers of steel that flowed through the
forest paths of Old Virginia.; on days of
darkness and defeat, and of brightness and
hope, when the heart swelled at the glory of
the martial scene, and the soul stirred at all
the magnificent panoply of war; those who
shared with us feast and famine, bivouac and
battle, sorrow and joy, hardship and danger,
until they were linked to our hearts with that
spirit Of comrade-ship which passes the love
of brothers. The forms of these came back,
and they stood before me as if the sod above
them had in single night grown green.
The uprising of the Union people was
in the temple of patriotism. They felt that if
they we're to have any country this whole
country was theirs; that they would make
anv sacrifice rather than see it shattered into
antagonistic fragments. They saw no hope
for liberty but in unity-no country but one
country. They secuted the idea of peacea-
BILE division, and denied the right of revolu-
ton without adequate cause. So they were
one in purpose-divided as they might be in
regard to methods. They were awkward and
unused to warlike ways, and the military en-
| thusiasm that marked the beginning of the
war was as ridiculous in many of its Incl
dents as its spirit was sublime. =
Let all bitterness and nalice die, but let
the experience live,, the history be made up
| and the record stand. Certainly the Union
cannot forget the cost at which its power
and unity perpetuity were vindicated; the
grand armies of her citizens who bore her
| banners; the great chieftans who led them
on; the fields where disaster checked her
career, as well as those which were the VIC
| torious footsteps of her march to final trl-
umph, and, above all, the Republic cannot,
without being false to herself, fail to cherish
| the memory of those martyrs who cementec
with their precious blood the disjointed stones
of her tottering arch and received upon her
altars from the Angel of Death the ''sacra-
ment of eternity
* X y
There is 70 reason why the war or its
81 ecrifces or its Lesson should be forgotten.
Oblivion is not fraternity, nor forgetfulness.
| friendship. In spite of men who sneer and
! doubt. our comrades did not die in vain. The
| war of the Union was great success, and its
| incidents, involving the emancipation and
enfranchisement of race are among It's SET
Elements that will surely stand. *
The day has gone by when the American
people were hunters and rifemen. The best
means should be taken to keep up the old
universal standard of excellence in marksman-
| ship, and to keep our country provided with
officers of thorough military training. Our
little army on our wide frontier has its hands
| full. 1t is not idle. 1t has no easy place. 1t
is not seeking war. For an Indians cam
paign with its exhausting marches, its battles
| under the old inexorable conditions OF savage
warfare, kill or to be killed, slay. or to be
slain, to be ridiculed if unsuccessful, to De