Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1882-06-08

Bile; by great free people for the con-
tinuance of republican government, for
the vindication of the work and honor
of their forefathers of the Revolution.
for the establishment of republicanism
upon republican principles, for the en-
thronement of pure liberty upon true
equality, equal rights and universal suf-
| frage.
! 1t was war waged with a terrible
earnestness of purpose, ''for no swords
are like those beaten out of plough
shares" Waged that free Americans
might tell the coming centuries that a
liberty, though born on Plymouth Rock
and Graded in Puritan prayers, when
rooted in system that sinks the man
beneath the slave, is but an idle dream;
that true republican liberty rests only
in beneficientlegislation and enlightened
policies that come of free, intelligent
suffrage, exercised in complete recogni-
ton of mans common want, common
good, perfect political equality and uni
versal brotherhood.
Inspired by sentiments so worthy no
wonder it was prosecuted with zeal
more earnest than ever animated Cath
ciples so near and dear to liberty, no
wonder its story surpasses in interest
all the wars of history; deciding issues
so momentous no wonder all the world
looked on; waged for mans dearest in
terest, for all that was valuable in hui
man liberty, no wonder it was victori-
Gus.
In that great conflict, the twenty years
of peace it gave us, have not dimmed our
interest. All the wars of history have
been struggle between thirst for power
and love of liberty. Where power has
triumphed, wemay forget, where liberty,
never. The Caesars sought to perpetuate
the memory of their cOnquests by trium-
phal arches, but the memory of Zama
and the Graichii still lives while Rome's
proudest temples are buried in the dust
of centuries.
In the preservation of the Union the
soldier in field and camp, the masses at
home, all had an equal priceless stake.
The soldier who won for Alexander his
conquests, fought for Alexander's glory,
not his own. They who fought at Get
tysburg and the Wilderness, fought only
for themselves; they who with Napoleon
stormed the bridge at Jena, and carried
his banners victorious to the Pyramid s,
fought only for an Emperor. They who
carried the banner of the Union to victory
through the smoke and carnage which,
as pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of
fire by night surrounded the Iron Brig
ade, fought each for his own throne to
which his own manhood, was his only
but indisputable title.
The French soldier at Algeria, far
from home and kindred, fought but to
realize his selfish sovereign's dream of
power, fought for no new idea, no
broader liberty, and, save the fadeless
hope of glory,-as much an Automaton
as the steed he rode, died in agony
in the trenches. unknowing and un-
known, died for no principle, died,
voiceless and forgotten, as the broken
sabre at his side, cruel sacrifice to his
chieftian's ambition. Only, perchance
that far away in vine clad province or
by the groves and green slopes of old
Normandy, some fond mother waited in
vain tears the return of her lost boy, or
some peasant widow clasped closer to
| her desolate heart, the child her king
| had orphaned.
The citizen soldier, who fought at
Gainesville and Antietam, fought not
| for another's glory, not for chieftian S
throne, but for Liberty and Union crys-
talized into nationality-fOr throne
more kingly than proudest monarch
ever found. a throne on which he himself
should sit,-the throne of true liberty
| founded on free suffrage epitomized in
equal law.
How that grand thought nerved your
aim, sustained your courage, animated
your zeal, more than the Greeks at
Marathon, more than the French at
AusterlitZ. And when the war cloud
| lifted. rs reward for every hardship,
almost compensation for every life,
we stood face to face with that grand
conception, grandly realized, the pres
eryed Union of the states there, and ever
more. a nation, how did the accom-
plished prophecy of Daniel Webster
Liberty and Union swell to mighty
pean from the heart of a grateful people.
At the memory of that conflict his
tory will never blush, but like grand
epic, it will live forever, radient with
the noblest triumph of liberty, the COM
/
In the part Grant county took in
that great struggle she may well cherish
an honorable pride.
One week after the guns ut Fort
Sumpter told us that the storm, which,
for half a century had been gathering,
had at last broke upon the country, the
wires announced that Company ''C'' of
the second Wisconsin was ready"
And from that memorable day, all
through those years of peril and pain, of
sorrow and death, till the girdle of Union
was knotted anew, at AppOmattoX never
again to be severed, the boys from
.'Old Grant" were always ready, al
ways brave. Where danger was, where
toll and death, in many a bloody battle,
in many painful hospital, by lonely
camp fires, on weary marches, in cruel
prisons, wherever country called. where
ever duty was, there were they. Great
was the valor, costly the sacrifice,
through which in many brilliant ex-
plot, by steadiness under decimating
fire, by patient heroism, unrivalled in
the story of war, by voluntary surrender
to every form of danger, and death;
before masked batteries, on bloody fields,
in crowded hospitals and the untold hor-
rors of Southern prisons, the second
sixth, and seventh Wisconsin regiments,
won that title, full of grand significance,
The Iron Brigade of the West"
Had Wisconsin never sent another
soldier to the field on that magnificent
corps she might proudly rest her laur-
els. 1t was the Wisconsin troops that
won from a General, who best of all our
commanders knew the qualities of the
good soldier. that high encomium, "they
are the best troops in the world"
As brave private Stevenson, leaping
from his hospital bed at Antietam, said
to his Captain as he bore the colors OF
Company ''C'' to his death, Captain,
am with YOU to the last; so from
many field and camp, all along the
line of that wonderful march of the old
Iron Brigade, from the carnage and
death at GAINESVILLE to the hsroism al
Manassas, from Manassas to the un-
willing retreat at Bull Run, from Bull
Run unconqueled by defeat to the
storming of Turner Pass, from South
Mountain to bloody Antietam and his
toric Gettysburg, through all the suf.
ferings of the Wilderness where bought
the Pharsalias of our liberty, from the
March with Sherman to the Sea,
from Chattanooga and Lookout Noun.
tain, from Chaplain Hills famous fol
Wisconsin cry Lead us to the 'front.'
from Cedar Mountain and Mission
Ridge to final victory at Appomattox