Connecticut western news., 1883-06-06
VOL. XII.

Rankanfile seemed lonely. He is think ing, perhaps, of his comrades, the other privates of his regiment. There were several private soldiers in the army. Rankanfle, whom know, was one. The name of the other one has escaped me. Nor do I know where he is. He may be dead. Perhaps he is married. Some thing has happened to him, certainly. l look for him in the Legislature, but his captain tells me he is not there. I seek him in Congress, but his colonel tells me he has not seen him nor heard of him the cabinet He doesn't appear to be consul to any place.
 And yet if he would only come forward and show himself, a grateful country has remembered him. He can secure farm of one hundred and sixty acres in the far West, after the railroad has secured all the best sections, twenty miles from the nearest post office, twice so far from water, and as far as @ railroad train can run in day from @ coal-bank or forest, on precisely the same terms that are accorded to @ man who has been in this land fifteen minutes. It is great boon, and the private soldier should ap- preciate it. And undoubtedly he does in 8 quiet way. He does not make much fuss about it. And really there isn't very much for him to grow enthu- siastic about
 But the private soldier, though indeed he is exceeding rare and marvelously scarce at intervals, is not entirely lost It will rejoice the hearts of his anxious friends to learn that his absence has been noted. People are inquiring for him. Eminent statesmen are looking him up. Distinguished Congressmen, who are not morally certain of "going back" are after him. Great men who have posi- lively "gone out of politics. for good, unless the voice of the people should i'm peratively call them back to public life, are seeking the lost soldier in his retire. ment. The time of the quadrennial re- union draweth nigh. Also the year of the National Convention. In the days gone by, when the private soldier was more numerous than to-day, very nearly thousand of him were required to make one colonel. More than many times so many are sometimes requisite to the election of member of Congress and eke President.
 Therefore he will be found. He will be dragged from his lurking place. If he has not been seen at the polls by P. E. the generals own carriage will come after him. It will not come after him again for another four years. But it will come for him then.
 The pages of history teach us, then, dearly beloved, that the private soldier is extremely necessary during the pro- gress of war. He is indispensable so long as actual hostilities continue he is even useful at intervals in time of peace, but between the intervals nobody appears to want any of him-during the spaces of period that elapse between the times when there is somebody to be elected to something.
 And it is pleasant to see him dragged out into the light of day even once in two or four years. It is pleasant to be thus assured that he is not dead, but only speechless-to know that he is still good for something-that he counts one ] apiece at the polls-that he swells the line of the torchlight procession-that, l &hn 0f ho iS useful in digging trenches, as it were It is great joy to know that he is not all and altogether gone. There used to be so many of him that now we seem to miss him, even when we catch him out alone and count him.
 And we rejoice, too, in the thought that his time is come. One day the pri. vate soldier will shine resplendent, g
 blazing planet against the nebulous
 background of half-forgotten field and
 line officers. It has been ever the fate of the private soldier. Napoleon is dead
 and all his marshals are dead. But the
 private soldier who fought under ''The Little Corporal" at Waterloo, is he no foundin every State ? The ''Iron Duke is dead, but does not the last surviving
 soldier of '"The Guards" die some plac, nearly every month? Washington ii
 dead, but his body-servant, is not hi name Legion of Legion County? And so some day the last genera who fought in the late war will pas
 away; the final colonel, much agains
 his will, must die. Majors and captain will join the innumerable caravan; bu the last surviving private soldier c
 every regiment that fought anywher will never leave us, but will live em balmed in the perennial paragraph l "Iill suns shall rise and set no more."