The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1879-05-31
PRIVATE DALZELL.
His Decoration Day Speech at
Martins Ferry Yesterday,
An Eloquent and Patriotic Address in
Honor Of the Heroes who Died
for American Freedom

: BY invitation otthe committee in charge
OF the arrangements for the decoration O
. soldiers graves, ! am here to join with
you in praising and commemorating the
virtues Of the men who people this City
OF the Dead. Nor can conceal from you
my profound gratitude to the Committee
OF Arrangements for the honor which they
have conferred upon me In inviting me
here. appreciate the honor all the more
because am astranger.to 10 you and you are
oil strangers 10 me, and would seem that
an occasion OF so much soleInnity and in.
terest as the present should have for It's
orator one whose lips were touched with
the fabled fires OF EoQuence instead oime.
AS the years roll along all distinctions
OF rank are lost sight Of, and we Of the old
armies OF the Union, spared by a merciful
providence 10 commemorate this eleventh
anniversary OF Victory for the Union,
meet no more as officers and men, but Us
coDtrudes. Our army was once one only,
but nowit isdivided into two battalions
separated by Che River of Death. We on
the banks OF Mortality stand to-day look.
ing with the spirits eye across the cold,
dark foods enVeloped In mystery, and we
see beyond our comradesin the bright ranks
and shining garments Of Immortality.
Their garments are. no longer rolled In
blood and their bodies pierced with leaden
hail, their cheeks no longer pale with the
ashen hue Of departing lie, no more their
groans and cries OF pain and anguish
smite our ears; no, no, they stand before
us to-day fair, young aud beautiful rs
when side by side, shoulder TO shoulder,
they marched with us in the ranks OF
the Union Army.
You and may grow old and feeble and
lame and gray, our shoulders may yet
bend under the weight Of years, and our
eyes grow too dim to discern the light OF
day, and our ears too dull TO catch the ac.
cents, Of love and affection. Little child
rem may yet step quickly aside, and with
&Verted faces lightly spring from our pres
enre, as Il they had seen some horrible
and ghastly ghost. We, some Of us, may
tent for the Angel OF Death to release our
souls from the frail tenement OF clay.
But those whose gallant deaths on the
field OF battle we commemorate to-day
shall never grow old in the eyes Of the
people Of America. They dropped dead
in the bloom of youth, and were embalm-
ed beyond the power OF corruption and
decay in the peoples hearts. Time shall
roll its silVery tide along, but not one OF
its gliding waves shall ever come near
the resting place of our patriotic dead but
TO keep their memory green forever. They
shall never grow old. We remember
them as young men. We are glad to re-
member them as the flower OF the land,
most brilliant in talent, daring in soul,
and god-like in physique. Every one OF
them seems to me to-day as / now call the
roll OF the dear comrades gone before, as
glorious in all manly qualities as the mar.
tyrs OF old, whose garments gather bright
ness and beauty from the solf and sombre
shadows Of revolving centuries. Young
and beautiful let the vision ever be. Each
dear head circled with the blazing halo OF
immortal Fame and each manly form
sweetly folded in the robes OF Nations
grateful remembrance, and over all
"a glory that never was on land or sca.
The conservation aud the poets dream"
Occasionally you find a mana woman
never-who affects lofty disdain for
every patriotic impulse and expression.
He regards ceremonies like those you cele-
brate to-day as the merest buncombe, and
every warm and tender allusion 10 our pa.
triotic dead, or TO their holy cause, or to
the banner OF beauty that they followed to
the cannon's mouth as mere spread.eagle-
isim, fanfaronade and fustian. II Is hard
judgment pronounce on such mon
strous man as that. Mark the words well.
| measure their meaning well and with
the utmost regard for Justice and truth.
That man who can look unmoved on these
sacred resting places, who has no kind
word for the memory OF the men who died
for you and me, who can look on the flag
OF his country and not feel emotions strug-
Cling within him as the winds OF heaven
play with Its folds, who never desires to
hear one word said for the cause Of the
Union orfor the men who died upholding
1t, that man, mark my words we'll; | mean
them just as utter them, and deplore the
weakness OF the language at my command,
and would strengthen 1t thousand foldif
could-that man was either cotrdrd or a
traitor in warl And let him choose the
epithet that suits him best. He was either
a coward or a traitor.
1He Is ht for treason, Stratagems and spoils,
Let no such man be trusted"
My friends, as we stand by the side OF
these eighty-one national cemeteries, five
hundred battlefields, and tour hundred
and twenty-one thousand graves, conse-
Grated forever as the resting places OF our
gallant and honored dead, cold, cold must
that heart be that does not feel within 1t
rising the pious purpose and the solemn
resolution that "the government OF the
people, which these our comrades died to
save, shall not perish from the earth"
"The silent pillar, lone and gray,
Clalms kRdTed With their sacred clay,
Their memory Sparkles DER the fountain,
| Their spirits wrap the dusky mountain, 's
| The mereSt Till, the nightiest river,
Rolls mingling With their fame forever"
To-day, my countrymen, we call to
mind the battle cries OF Antietam and
Gettysburg, OF Nicksburg, OF Chickamauga
and Lookout Mountain, oi Chancellors-
Vile, Corinth and Fredericksburg, and
nearly nvr hundred other battles Of the
war for the Union, and as we behold the
smoke OF the conflict lifted to the skies we
seem TO see our patriotic dead ascending
from the torn and bloody sod OF the bat
tle6eld, and as they aoat away from our
view forever We seem to hear them calling
to us, "Faithful until death, no more can
We do. The work Is left for you to finish,
and we shall stand on the battlem6Bta Of
heaven and be witnesses OF your Valor,
your faith and devotion" Tho men who
rest so sweetly here to-day under the grass
and the flowers, never thought once OF
themselves. II they had thought OF them.
selves alone they would have been stand
ing where you stand to-day, and you
and they would both be sheltering your
heads like slaves under some foreign flag
II they had thought Of safety, Of comfort
and home, and wife and children, II they
had stopped to think Of pain, and hunger
for but one single other thought or ambi.
tion than God and Fatherland, your sep:
ulchres weuld have not claimed them and
their dark vaults would to-day be yawning
for you and me and our children and our
children's children through lpgoqnted
generations Of ignomy, degradation snd