Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1879-06-11

by Northumberland freedmen are to-day
fiying from their homes to save their lives.
Insult stamps upon the graves of our dead
in the South, and revolution is complete in
its violence only that a solitary Union sol
der who happens to be at the head of the
Government stands alone in the breach.
mo, we cannot preach over the dead yet
Other battles are to fight. II were an empty
offering. We do not mean TO mock their
bleaching bones. They did not bleed and die
for few empty eulogies and handful Of
half-faded flowers cast upon their graves once
wear. They ask bread and we give them
stone. They rot in their graves with gaping
wounds of swords and bullet and bayonet,
and the death stare of those who starved in
prison pens vet traceable in the dust under
! their coffin-lids We push aside their manned
comrades TO make room for the men who
| laughed at their dying scream for food, and
ordered guards to shoot the poor crazed ma
Mac who dared reach over the dead-line for
haIf-putrid bone, and now come in token OF
our appreciation with wilted flowers. How
these dead skeletons must appreciate their
c0stlest offering. God forbid we should APP
proach their graves until we can carry the old
flag over a land united and free, such as they
dreamed of in their last delrum. Let other
hands carry flowers. 1t is meet that pure and
lovely maidens should do this. 1t is all they
have. Let those preach sermons of eulogy
who never shivered in the Wilderness nor
heard the roar of the battle above the clouds.
We shall stand in silence over the old battery.
We are still on picket. The war is not over.
The distant mutter of the conflict can still be
heard We are vet to lay other treasures
AWAY in the grave-murdered on the altar of
revolution We cannot insult our comrades.
over their graves before the God of the ma
ton we have sworn allegiance to the cause |
for which they died, and stand ready for the
next bugle call, but we have never scattered
flowers and never will, until the right shall
finally triumph, and the enemies of our com
mon country are driven from the place of
power Let the dead sleep. We are
ashamed publicly to speak of their heroism
in the history of to-day. They have passed
beyond the stencil and corruption. the flies
and the maggots, the hunger and thirst under
burning Southern suns, and no longer ask
iught of us. Our heart aches. Ii is all a
huge farce; righteous indignation consumes
is. The government is heartlcssly cruel.
Il called them to sacrifices a thousand times
more terrible than the Juggernaut, and has for
gotten the purchase price. The enemies that
ollowed them with bloodhounds now seek the
life of the nation, and crate the principles of
he rebellion in the Senate Chamber. No.
We scorn this empty STEERING. Turn out these
ebels Tear down their flags! Send trail
ors where they belong; and God will carry
he flowers in the def fingers of the sunshine
md the raindrop, and will weave wreaths and
yarlands by the agency of the winds. and
will make melody by the orchestra of all ma
ure. Until then we shall leave our harp on
he willows, and continue to cry out How
ong, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou
lot Judge and avenge our blood on them"