Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1880-01-19
INGERSOLL AT HIS BEST.

Ihe past rises before me like a dream.
Again we are in the great struggle for
national life. We hear the sound of
preparation-th music of the bolster
Gus drum-the silver voices of the heroic
bugles. We see thousands of assem-
blages and hear the appeals Of orators /;
we see the pale cheeks of women, and
the flushed faces of men and in these
assemblages VIC see all the dead whose
dust we have covered with flowers. We
with them when they enlisted in the
great army of freedom. We see them
part from 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
forever. Others are bending over cradles,
kissing babies that are asleep. Some
are receiving the blessings of old men.
Some are parting with those who held
them and press them to their hearts
again and again and say nothing; and
some are talking with wives, and endeav-
oring with words spoken in the old tone
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 sob
bing-at the turn of the road hand
waves-she answers by holding high in
her loving hand 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 die for the eternal right.
We go with them one and all. We
are by their side on all the CORY fields
in all the hospitals of pain-on all the
weary marches. We are with them in
ravines 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
We see them pierced by balls and tori
by shells in the trenches, by forts, and
the whirlwind of the charge, where mer
become iron with nerves of steel.
, We are with them in the prison oi
hatred and famine but human speech
can never tell what they endured.
: We are at home when the news comes
that they are dead. We see the nader
in the shadow of her first sorrow. We
: see 100000 of human beings governed
by the lash; we see them bound hanG
and foot; wo hear the strokes of crue
E whips; we see the hounds tracking wo
e men through tangled swamps; we SCI
the babes sold from the breast of moth
D ers. Cruelty unspeakable ! Outrage
infinite
y Four millions in chains-four millioI
: souls in fetters. All the sacred relations
n of wife, mother, father and child tram
: pied beneath the brutal feet of might
! And all this was done under our OWL
beautiful banner of the free.
e The past rises before US. We hea
: the roar and the shrek of the bursting
e she'll. The broken fetters fall. Thes'
n heroes died. We look. Instead of slav
. cry we see men and women and children
D The wand of progress touches the auc
d tion block, the slave-pcn the whipping
: post; and we see homes and fresides
and school-houses and books, and whers
: all was want and crime. and cruelty
and fetters, we see the faces of the free