The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1880-10-15
lola REGISTER.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER Is, 1880.
worth Reading Again.

Wofth Reading Again.
|(Col. r. G. Insersoll before the Army Re-unio,
Is Indianapolis; 1851
The past rises before me like dream
Again We are in the great struggle fo
national life. We hear the sounds O
preparation-the music of the boisterous
drums-the silver voices of heroic bugles
We see thousands of assemblages, ani
hear the appeals of orators we see the
pale cheeks of women, and the flushed
faces of men and in those assemblages
we see all the dead whose dust we have
covered with flowers. We lose sight o.
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 whisperin 81
and the sweet vows of eternal love as
they lingeringly part forever. Others
are bending over cradles, kissing babies
that are fast asleep. Some are parting
with mothers, who hold them and press
them to their hearts again an d again, and
say nothing; and some are talking with
wives, and endeavoring 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 the road a hand waves-she an.
swers by holding high in her loving
hands the child. He is gone and forever.
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.
We go with them one and all. We
are by their sides on all the glory fields
lin 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 ravines
running with blood-in the burrows 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. We see
them pierced by balls and torn with
shells in the trenches by the forts, and
in the whirlwind of the charge, where
men become iron, with nerves Of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of ha-
tired and famine, but human speech can
never tell what they endured.
We are home when the news come
that they are dead. We see the maiden
in the shadow of her first sorrow. We
zee the silvered head of the old man
bowed with the last grief.
The past rises before US, and we see
LOCO, 900 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 women
through tangled swamps. We see babes
odd from the breasts of mothers. Cru
lily unspeakablel Outrage infinitel
Four million bodies in chsins-four
million souls in letters. All the sacred
citations of wife, mother. father and
:hild trampled beneath the brutal feet
# might. And all this was done under
'ur own beautiful banner of the free.
The past rises before US. We hear the
oar and the shrek of the bursting shell.
The broken letters fall. These heroes
lied. We look. Instead of slaves we
ee men, and women and children. The
and of progress touches the auction
lock, the slave-pen, the whipping-post,
nd we see homes, and fresides, and
chool-houses, and books, and where all
vas want, and crime, and cruelty, and
etters. we see the faces of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died for
iberty-they died for us. They are at
est. They sleep in the land they made
rec, under the flag they rendered stain
sss under the solemn pines, the sad
the fearful willows and the !
vines. They sleep beneath
be shadows of the clouds, careless alike
t sunshine or of storm, each in the win.