Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1879-04-10

THE waving of the Confederate flag il
the House and the charges of blood
shedding brought against the North will
be strange reading for Union soldiers
who fought to put down the Shareholders
rebellion. In connection with that de-
bate we ask the boys in blue, who may
be beginning to think that perhaps they
were on the wrong side Of that great
contest, to read again Col. Ingersol's
speech before the Army Reunion in In
diapOlis in 1876:
+ The past rises before me like dream
Again we are in the great struggle for
national life. We hear the sounds OF
preparation-the music of the bolster
Gus drums-the silver voices of heroic
bugles. We see thousands of assemble
ges, and hear the appeals of orators; we
see the pale cheeks of women, and the
flushed faces of men; and in those as
semblages we see all the dead whose
dust we have covered with flowers. We
lose 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 in quiet woody places
with the maidens they adore. We hear
the whisperings and the sweet VOWS of
eternal love as they lingeringly part for
ever. Others are bending over cradles,
kissing babies that are asleep. Some
are receiving the blessings of old men.
Some are parting with mothers who hold
them and press them to their hearts
again and again, and say nothing, and
some are talking with wives, and en-
deavOring with brave words spoken in
the old tones 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 road
a hand waves-she answers by holding
high in her loving hands the child. He
is gone, and forever.
1--WE see them all as they march proud
ly 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.
hO SO Will Il1CL1 OilO tuu d1ks We
are by their side on all the CORY fields
in all the hospitals of pain-on all the
weary marches. We stand guard with
them in the wild storm, and under the
quiet stars. We are with them in ra-
vines running with blOOd-in the fur
rows of old fields. We are with them
between cOntending hosts, unable to
move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing
slowly away among the withered leaves.
Wesee them pierced by balls and torn
with shells in the trenches by forts, and
in the whirlwind 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.
I'VE are at home when the news comes
that they are dead. We see the maiden
in the shadow of her first SORROW. We
see the silvered head of the old man
with the last grief.
"The past rises before us, and we see
four millions of human beings governed
by the lash-we see them bound hand
and fOOt-we hear the strokes of cruel
whips-we see the hounds tracking wo-
men through tangled swamps. We see
babes sold from the breasts of mothers.
Cruelty unspeakablei Outrage infinite!
-Four million bodies in chains-four
million souls in fetters. All the sacred
relations of wife, mother, father, and