The Hartford herald., 1885-11-04

he was fighting the battles of war
The American soldier will leave tc
posterity a rich legacy, the value ol
which will not he made to depend
upon the color of the uniform he wore,
or the flag around which he rallied.
For through the whole Of that terrible
and bloody conflict, the soldiers on
both sides followed the right as God
gave them to see the right, and wheth-
er they marched under the star,gem-
med banner of the union or followed
the stars and bars of the dead confed.
eracy, all alike were impelled by a
patriotism as lofty as that which in
spired our forefathers to march bare
footed over the ice of the Delaware, or
TO suffer the hunger and privations of
Valley Forge. Through the whole of
those four memorable years Of blood,
you displayed courage and bravery,
on fields of battle, which surpassed the
courage that gave the soldiers of the
American revolution the victory at
Trenton, and which, at last, crowned
their tattered banners with triumph
ant peace at Yorktown.
But magnificent and matchless as
were our armies, the soldiers who cons
posed them carried in their bosoms no
personal hostility toward their adver
saries. There was no personal quarrel
between them; speaking the same
language, citizens of the same country,
descendants from common parent
stock, they were only divided OF II
question Of constitutional law, with no
other court to which they might appeal
for a decision of their differences, ex'
cent to that last and highest of all hui
man courts, court OF arms. There
was but a single issue to be tried, and
both sides were in dead earnest. II
was well understood from the Begin
ming that the discussion was to be final,
but the result was long deferred and
oft uncertain. When Shiloh was lost
and Vicksburg had fallen the God of
battles, II seemed, was on the side of
the "Stars and Stripes" but at the end
of Stonewall JacksOn's splendid cans
paign in the Valley of Virginia, the
whole world stood ready to salute the
triumphant banners of the young Con.
federacy; and thus the pendulum of
the terrible conflict continued to VII
brate from side To side, until the two
conflicting forces that moved 1t had
spent themselves, and then it stopped
"never to go again" Our differences
had been settled, and so it cost the
soldiers, who had figured in the bloody
drama, no sacrifice when the end had
come to beat their swords into plow
shares and their bayonets into pruning
hooks and to step gracefully from the
theatre Of war upon which they had
won so much imperishaDle fame to the
peaceful, but no less honorable walks
of fprivate citizenship. If young America
had been first in war, it was to be first
in peace, for no one knew, as well as
the soldiers, who through the whole
war had been at the front, that when
the armies We're disbanded the war was
over. They knew that the declaration
of peace was in good faith, and all the
demagOgues and carpet knights" who
played the role Of camp followers while
battles We're "lost and won," have
never since been able to show them
that they We're mistaken.
AS result of all this, behold us to-
day, gathering from hill and dale, and
from sister states, the survivors of both
sides, to pledge our united loyalty to
one flag and one country. This indeed
Is purely American, no other country
has or can furnish an example like il. |
But our forefathers made this day
possibility, for they reversed the old |
idea of government, they heroically |
cast aside the dogma that men were
born to stations. They rent at one
stroke the veil of fifty-seven centuries
first to lay the foundations of liberty |
ON the everlasting rock of equality.
One of the lessons taught by this day
is, that the departure thus made by our
fathers has resulted in the formation of
a government which is to he perpetual.
More firmly united now than ever
before, We start upon new era which
will not be fulfilled until one hundred
millions of free, educated and happy
people shall make up the population of
the young American republic, which
our prosecuted ancestors, with the fore>
sight of political prophets and the
wisdom of political philosophers, FASH
iOned In the wilderness without "A
model, for the counter part of the
American system is nowhere to be
found among the living despotisms or
dead empires whose ruins mark the
highways of history.
Judea, they tell us, was a land of
as there burned the celestial
fires, not stolen by Prometheus from
Heaven, but communicated directly
by Heaven itself to a chosen people.
There dwelt the prophets, whose laws
continued 20 bind the consciences of
those people until now. while toward
the historic hills and valleys of that
favored land all christendom will con-
tinue to look as long as faith believes
in the sublime tragedy of redemption.
Blessed by heaven, that land will {
lose nothing of its historic interest to
while the waters of the Jor
Ian hold their course among its ever
lasting hills As they murmur to their
home i'm tine Dead Sea. If Judea was a
land of miracles, if it was the home of
he prophats IL IN ia IN calvary that all