The National tribune., 1883-11-15
LIKE A DREAM.
Colonel IngersoIl's Apotheoss of the Defenders of
the Nation.
LEWISTON, MAINE.
[From his Indianapolis speech

the Na1i0n.
Iron, his indianapolis speechl
The past rises before me like a dream. Again
we are in the great struggle for national life.
We hear the sounds of preparation the music
of the boisterous drums; the silver voices of the
heroic bugles We see thousands of assem-
blages, and hear the appeals of eloquent ora
tors we see the flushed faces of men and the
pale faces of women; and in those assemblages
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
we loved. Some are bending over cradles, kiss
ing babies that are asleep. Some are receiving
the blessings of old men. Some are parting
with mothers, and some with wives, and en-
deay0ring with brave words, spoken in the old
tones to drive away 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
hand waves; she answers by holding high in
her loving arms the child. He is. gone-and
foreuer
We see them march proudly away under the
Haunting flags keeping 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 side on all the CORY fields, in all the hos
pitfalls 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
the rayines running with blood-in the burrows
of the old fields. We are with them between
contending hosts, unable to move, wild with
thirst, their life ebbing slowly away in the
withered leaves. We see them pierced by ball
and torn by shell in the trenches of the forts,
and in the whirtwind of the charge, where
| men become iron, with nerves of steel. We are
|
but human speech can never tel what they
endured.
We are at home when the news comes that
they are dead. We see the maiden in the
shadow OF her sorrow. We see the silyered
head OF the old man bowed down with the last
grief.
The past rises before me like dream, and we
see four millions of human beings governed by
the lash-we see them bound hand and foot;
we hear the cruel strokes of the lash; we see
hounds tracking women through tangled
swamps; we see babes sold from the breasts Of
mothers. Cruelty unspeakable-o outrage in
| finite
| Four million bodies in ehains-four million
! souls in letters. All the sacred relations of
| wife, mother father, and child trampled under
/ the brutal feet Of lust. And all this was done
under our own beautiful banner of the FREE
| The past rises before me like dream. We
hear the roar and Shrek of the bursting shell.
The broken letters fall. The heroes died. We
/ look-instead Of slave pens, we see men, women,
and children. The wand Of Progress touches
/ the auction block, the slave-pen, and the whip
| ping-post, and we see homes and fresides and
/ school-houses and books, and where all was
want, crime, and cruelty and fear, we see the
faces of the free.
These heroes are dead They died for lib
! erty-they died for us. They are at rest. They
| sleep IN the land they made free, under the
! flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn
pines. the sad hemloeks, the fearful willows,
and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath
the shadow of the clouds, careless alike Of sun
shine and rain each in his windowless palace Of
rest. Earth may run red with other wars-they
1 are at peace In the midst Of battle they
| found the serenity of death. l have one senti-
ment for the soldiers, living and dead-cheers
for the living and tears for the dead.