Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1882-06-15

TRIBUTE TO THE BRAVE.
Extracts from Decoration Day Address Of Rev.
Myron W. Reed, or indianapolis, at
La

INV thV DCtt1 hiSiihCtioho Va III VI
vanished. Irish, German, Yankee, Re-
publican, Democrat, blotted out in the /
flash of Sumpter's guns. Distinction
that marked the day of peace becomes
nothing. The man shoveling in the I
railway cut, the son of the owner of the |
railway fall in together. Winthrop, Of |
the first family, blue blood of New Eng |
land, and Mcclure of the last family, |
red blood of Ireland, puton blue clothes |
out OF the same box, stood side by side |
in the muster in. slept under the same |
blanket, drank from the same canteen,
fell side by side in the muster out of the |
battle and sleep side by side in heroic
death.
Love of country sentiment dead in
America! 1t did not seem so. 1t even
conquered the most desperate prejudice.
Col. Shaw, the consummate flower of
Boston culture led from Boston to Fl
Wagner the 9Th Colored. BURY him
with his niggers'' yelled the chivalry,
and SO they buried him. They do say
of the blood in the trenches at Wagner,
blood of black and white, that it was
all the same color. What a wonderful
time that was? These years from 81
to 60, to reveal to skeptical eyes what
was in the American. Man willing to
die for an ideal should say so, on
both sides. The South is ridged with
the graves of the men in Gray. Mis-
taken, yes, all of them Willful sim
| ners, yes, few of them | grant the er-
| ror, the treason. 1t looks like and it is
it. But it did not seem so to the rank
aud file of the legions of Lee | think
of Hoods, ragged, hungry, barefooted
| brigades living upon sorghum cane and
| acorns. think of Cleburne riding his
| skeleton horse twenty yards forward of
his line, right onto the guns at Frank
lin. Despise his cause; hate it, but
when man starves for mistake, fights
for it, dies for it, you can not despise
him. Stonewail Jackson played the
game and lost it, and paid as bravely
and a. fully as John Brown Let us
save all our contempt for the men who
| played and lost, and sneaked out of paw
ment, men who took no risk, but insist
ed that others should. The men who
are responsible for Andersonville, chief
of all the wretch, JEFF Davis, who play
ed, and lost and ran away, with wagon
loads of money, money of the soldiers,
of dead men, of orphans and widows.
The man who betrayed his country,
the flag under which he learned to drill
at his country's expense, who betrayed
the Confederacy, bis own child, and who
finally betrayed his own sex. The cold
blooded, cowardly scoundrel tried at
last to be his own mother-in-law, and
failed as usual. 1t would afford me the
sweetest pleasure to-day to decorate has
| grave. lean not patiently think of him
as alive. | never attempt to classify
him. he stands alone, singular monu-
ment of Gods mercy and mans for
bearance. He is as unique rs Guteau.
But thinking of the rank and file of the
men in Gray, one can not be bitter, one
can only be sorry, that so much SPLEEN
did yalor was worse than wasted for a
cause that was wrong, and cause that
is lost.
The war did great deal for the in
dividual soldier, revealed him to himself.
He did not know what he could do, nor
what he could suffer, nor how much it
took to kill man. Who could be green
er in the art and practice of taking care
of himself than the average volunteer.
How little he knew what was before
him. You remember the company cook
and his first deadly experiment with
beans. You remember the awful messes
which individual ingenuity turned out
in the first days of hard tack and grease
and honor. How much scrap fat can
raw soldier eat on an August day and
live. The Lord sends meat, and the
Devil sends a cook" That saving
seemed true in those first days. | re-
member the volunteer / can see him
regarding the cap that the Government
furnished him, or the more dreadful hat
| can see him again with sand in his
shoes, climbing the hills of Covington,
which shut out of sight the Ohio and
Gods Country. Cut off from the land
that bore him and the soft bread of his
youth. have seen him clad in the U.
). sackcloth, sitting in the ashes of Ken
lucky doing penance but cheerfully. 1t
was remarkable, the survival of humor
in the grim visage of death. The fonn-
tain of laughter is close by The fountain
of tears. | see him now comforting
himself with roll of bills that in all the
Northern States knew not their re-
deemer. He bought Ohio river pies
with inflated currency, and the victim
of Northern finance and Southern cook
ing blasphemed in one grocery together.
They were no slaves driven to task.
The yoke was heavy but the heart ac-
copied it. There was a virtue in being
jolly, they came out in that virtue
strong.
As rule the volunteer did not die but
but once. He jeered at the disagree
| lRln Il -
inevitable, and held life for all it was
worth, until it was struck out of him.
The war did not make him cruel. Ire
member seeing one who loosing his own
horse was seeking another and found
one in smoke house of a Southern
mansion. 1t proved to be lady's horse
and the pet of the household. AS came
along the ladies were crying, and beg
ging the sergeant MOTTO take the horse.
They said to him you've no heart
Eyes, he said, II have heart as big as
an OK, but my feet are damned sore
The volunteer needed an elastic soul.
Sleeping peacefully on the reserve, what
dreams may come To the man in the
blue overcoat. Dreams cf peace, and
friends and home, but TO awake to I'D
relief fall in TO come from dream of
home into place, to go out in the dew
and darkness to the forks of the road.
and stare at the invisible, and challenge
the wind, is far from gay. 1t tends to
profanity. Then, it might be Christ
mas eve, and that fine sounding sentence
that we heard on the day of enlistment
about being "a Waterman on the from
tiers of liberty is found to be a loaded
musket and an empty man. comprised
about with the dripping wretchedness
OF a December night, and possessed with
the horror of being gobbled. There is a
time i'll which it requires an effort to
think of Libbie, 1.-THE Girl left behind
me, and not to think of Libble the
prison before me-
1t is pleasant to listen to the Camp
bells are Coming on moonlight nights
as you lean out of the window and hear
the buggles MARBLE, but to be a Camp
bell and in . pair Of wet, horse hide
boots, wrinkled at the ankles, undertake
to ccme is different. Light marching
order has graceful airy sound to those
who in rocking chairs and slippers read
the Tribune, and wonder why the army
does not move. 1t suggests the equip
ment of an eagle cutting the air, but let
the orderly define ''igLt marching or
der and it means that you ''fali in
with a load of iron and lead, and three
days rations, and blanket, and piece