The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1885-06-22
THE NATIONAL ENcAMPMENT,

Portland is honored this week by the pres
'ence Of tens Of thousands of the survivors of
the loyal men who fought in the war of the
rebellion. They come from every Northern
State from the Atlantic sea board to the
Pacific slope. Many of them bear today
honorable sears and empty sleeves which
tell more eloquently than words can of their
sacrifices for this country of ours and theirs.
The great majority of them have passed the
meridian of life. Twenty years have elaps-
ed since Lees army laid down its arms at
AppomattoX, and the men who were Young
then have now reached middle life, and the
men who were then in the strength and yiror
OF manhood are now descending the slope.
To many of us the sight of the tents ON Mum
Joy,the martial strains Of music, the hurrying
to and fro of men in blue wildly recall the
days OF 81 when many of these same men
were eneamped about our city waiting the
summons to the front. They went forth
ardent and filed with the enthusiasm of
youth, expecting that few months at most
would see their work ended and themselves
back again engaged in the pursuits of peace
Few of them had any conception of the long
and weary marches, the suffering from disease
the pain from wounds upon the battlefield,
the starvation in Southern prisons, the an
gulsh OF hope deferred they We're destined to
endure before the flag of their country fioated
In triumph over restored union with not
one star effaced. They went forth raw re-
cruits flushed with anticipated victories.
They came back veterans, their valor tested
and proved on many a bloody battlefield
fbnfY~ tiAra
found wanting by weeks and months and
years of weary waiting for the browning act
in the great drama which should return them
to home and friends But hundreds, ave
thousands, and tens of thousands never came
back. Every veteran with us to-day as he
greets comrade whom it may be he has not
met since he stood shoulder to shoulder with
him upon some field of carnage inStinctively
thinks of some other comrade who fell be-
side him never to rise again
Still another thought tempers the ioy of
the reunion with sadness 1t is the ref1ec-
ton that the ranks of the men who survived
the campaigns of Grant and Sherman are
constantly being thinned by DEATH and that
with the lapse of years every vestige of the
Grand Army, except the story of its heroic
deeds and the results which they achieved,
which the hand of time can never efface, win
have passed away.
These are dark sides of the picture;
but it has its bright side. The meeting of
old comrades who for years dwelt together,
who marched and fought side by side, who
shared one anothers privations and bore
one anOthers burdens, must, in the nature
of things, bring feelings of joy and gladness,
tempered, it may be, but not subdued by
the recollection of absent ones.
The citizens of Portland extend hearty
greeting to the veterans who will be with us
this week. They are grateful for the honor
conferred by the selection of their city as
the place of the Nineteenth National En-
eampment. They hope to make the stay of
the veterans so pleasant that their only re-
greet in departing will be that it was so brief.