Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1888-08-31

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voters were born since it began. To those it
is simply history. Merely this and nothing
more. Strange as 1t may seem or sound, q
history even of which they are mainly igno-
rant. Chauneey NJ. Depew said only the
other day: "It is astonishing, the ignorance
of the rising generations of the events
of the war. I met" said he, "the other
day, young lady of unusual intelligence:
She had been literally educated in Europe
and in this country, and yet our civil war
was to her as q sealed book. She knew, in
deed, that there had been war, but that was
all. And this is but fair specimen of the
rising generation. And yet these same young
people have been taught the history of an
Gent Greece and Rome; have read Xenophon
and Cesar; they can describe their military
achievements and those of Alexander, Hanni-
bal and Scipio. And yet, lying at Riverside
Park, within sixty miles of this place, are the
ashes of that great soldier who died three
years ago. who commanded vaster armies,
who won better victories than even Alexan-
der or Caesar, beneath whose victorious eagles
their own fathers and elder brothers fought
and conquered or fell, but concerning whose
real achievements, the fruits of which they
are enjoying every day and every hour, they
can tell nothing. It would be well If Young
America knew and pondered something of its
wondrous history; counted something of the
cost of the glorious heritage and birthright
of freedom into which it was born. The
ballot in the hands of the voter would mean
something more If it were understood and
recognized and felt that it was purchased
by the buller in the hands of the patriot.
Our starry flag would signify more than a
mere holiday emblem If the thought dwelt
in the heart, as it should, that quarter of a
century ago its stripes were dyed and made
crimson by the blood of four hundred thou
sand of its loyal supporter. OF these great
truths there are to-day, through the length
and breadth of our land, two vivid remind
ers-the Grand Army of the Republic and
the monuments which gratifed people erect
to the memories of the war. If the former,
beneath the ever present pressure of the
hand of death, are daily growing less, let Us
trust the latter shall increase and shall en-
dure, until when the soldiers living pres
ence shall soon have passed from our midst,
no community from which he went forth to
battle, or to which he returned, shall lack
these reminders that loyalty had its abode
therein.
Whoever understands and appreciates the
cost in treasure, sacrifice and life to the
loyal North, of the great war for the preser-
walton of the Union, must recognize that the
principles at issue, the object attained
by the struggle must have been of
transcendent importanance to have induced,
warranted and justified that outlay; and
whoever fully comprehends those principles
and those issues will fairly admit that enor-
nous as the outlay was, it was worth all the
cost It was worth the while to incur the
vast debt of thousands of millions. To take
from the arties of trade, commerce and
agriculture two and half millions of the
best, strongest and most energetic of our
productive forces, to make the land flow
with rivers of blood with acres of tears, to
store it with broken hearts and soldiers
graves. Worth all this-and more than all
this. Worth the whole priceless, infinite, in
computable sum it cost, that through and by
the throes and agonies of war, out of which
the nation emerged in it's new birth, in its
fuller baptism of freedom, the two great
vices of our national structure which men,
aced its existence and portended its destruc-
tion-the existence of slavery aud the doc
trine of the State right of secession-should
be eliminated and new union founded upon
none save free soil and cemented by blood
into an indissoluble whole which no State
line could ever again scare and threaten to
disavow should stand in its place, steadfas t,
imn-ovable and eternal.
Citizens of Milford: 1t was for this your
fellow townsmen fought. It was this they
won. It mattered not to them that they
gave their lives to win it. But it did
matter. It does matter something, every
thing to you. They died for you and for
me. They died that the nation might live
And it lives, and shall live as long as we
deemed it. It ought to live no longer than
that. But may God grant that shall be for
ever. As long as the'stars stand in the sky
may those whose valor kept them there be
there in memory among the stars.
By those endearing memorials a grateful
people commemorate the services of its citi-
zen soldiers regardless of rank or station,
and this to my mind is exactly what should
be commemorated and honored. A gentle
man present at the recent joint reunion at
Gettysburg, hearing the speeches in which it
was declared that General So-and-s did this
and did that, remarked that it seemed to him
the generals must have done all the fighting
in the war. And sometimes to
the reader of history, as his
tory is written in books it must SO appear.
But to those who lived in those troublesome
times, to those who followed the war day by
day with anxious, longing, bleeding hearts,
to those who shall read history upon that
monument it will not SO seem, and it was not
80. All honor to Grant, to Sherman, to
Sheridan, to Meade, Thomas, Hancock, Ho-
vey. Above them all and more than all to
Abraham Lincoln, the bravest, noblest, gent
lest man that ever carried the burdens of
great nation in his bosom, never laying them
off or down save every night and morning as
he bowed before Gods altar in prayer. All
honor, 1 say, to these, and to every COM
manding officer who did his duty and led his
men to battle. But though We honor these
what shall We say of those-the silent num-
bers-rank and flei They who made gen.
erals, who won victories or plucked success
when those who led them Numbered on defeat
They did not fight for glory, and they sought,
they won no fame. Their names have per-
ished and they sleep, perhaps, in I'M
known graves. And yet it was their service,
Their sacrifice rather than that of any other,
more than that of any other, saved the
nation and brought it forth out of the
smoke, the shock the storm of battle, into
the radiant sunlight of prosperity and
peace. 1t was the shining of those humble
tapers that dickered and went out forever in
the night, that guided and kept our grand
old ship of state among the rocks and break
ers and led it on to anchor in the quiet
waters. They who have written their names,
flashing in letters of living light, over the
pages of our. country's history, and made it
lustrous with the record of their deeds did
well. But they, whose deeds are not writ
ten, whose deeds will never be told save by
this monument and others like it, did as
grandly and merit as fully their couutry's
gratitude and undying love.
It would be grand thing, because it would
be a right thing, if in the capital of this
nation, side by side with the loftiest shaft on
earth. which commemorates the memory of
Washington, there rose another and still
OTTER shaft, inscribed to that patriotism
which binds not alone a single heart, but
which animated the breast of millions, dedi-
Gated to the citizen soldiers OF our land The
common soldiers who wave no stars mo eagles,
II leaves, or bars, who carried no swords to
wave but rifles to fire. Who fought, who |
oled, who conquered. Who died in the |
'anks. Those ranks in which our victories
iags were borne. Those ranks from which |
Iwept the thunder, lightning and leaden hail |
which tore away treason, secession and rebel
ion, and established union and loyalty in
heir stead. Such q monument exists to- |
lay. Though nature erected it, not man. IL |
& the Soldiers cemetery at Arlington. From |
hose superb heights the bivouac of the dead |
ooks down upon and guards the capitol. It |
8 all quiet on the Potomac, for the silent |
entineIs are ever there on guard. There |
hey rest; there they live and there lie. Sher- 1
dan in his chosen resting place in their /
midst; no longer the great commander, but /
common soldier. Among the common SOL |
liers whom he loved; asleep in the ranks of |
he dead. And SO to those whose lives may
AVE been humble indeed, but whose service /
or their country was grand and noble in
Iced. To those who, however poor their
worldly estate and condition may have been,
ave bestowed upon the community from 4
which they went priceless and immortal
m 4