The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1888-08-29
Sprott Guard Dinner.

Last Thursday the Sprott Guard survivors
assembled at their usual festive grounds at
Juneville, to enjoy a bountiful repast, and
once again to enact in social converse the
bivouac and battle field, drawing up from
those sacred fountains of the heart memo
ries that can never die.
It was good to be there and talk of times
when men and women were tried in the ter
rible crucible of those days, when trial and
suffering, privation and want yielded the
pure ore of God-hke virtues and Spartan
courage 1t was sad but pleasant to speak
Of those, who are resting fer away in the
"bivouac of the dead" on lonely battle fields.
Year by year the ranks of the living become
smaller and thinner, no answer here and
there at TIE roll-call Let the few who re-
main still meet their comrades and speak
to the sons of those no longer around the
board Tell them Of heroic deeds, and fan
within them the flames of high aspirations
and noble aims in life. A spirit to emulate
the actions of their sires will prove in many
the guiding principle Of life and make them
what they ought to be in society. There is
no organization amongst US more calculated
to yield benefcert fruit than these old SOL
der and survivors associations. They are
specially instructive in making patriots, in
unifying the right sentiment, grinding
down the asperities and rough corners of
people at enmity, and encouraging social in
tercourse and friendly interchange. This
friendly intercourse was once so common
among US, but now almost entirely dead in
many sections. People who remain closest
at home are those most ready to find fault
and imagine every one plotting against
them. Leave this atmosphere of exclusive
ness; fraternize with our neighbors, and we
will soon find the best of men among those
previously looked upon with the evil eye Of
suspicion. These soldier-reunions can
work out marvellous results # continued,
held everywhere, and properly fostered.
How happy the old Sprott Guard appeared
after the festivities of the day! Long may
their banner wave, and when the last survi-
vor of that association shall have been call
ed upon to lay down the burden Of life and
''cross over the river, the young who listen
to them now will tell in their turn of the
veterans who stood on that spot when they
were boys.
The good example set before US By the
Sprott Guard should be initiated all over the
country. Where such is practicable, kindred
associations could unite under Q general Or
der. The cause is one worthy of notice,
and once set properly in molten, would
force its way into every good work sooa be-
come popular, and in the end render itself
the corner stone Of a worthy social fabric.
It would become a traditionary, if not a his
torical, depository of the principles for
which We fought; that our deeds 60 not
down to posterity under the ban Of censure
and no voice to gainsaY when these are
gone Acts of personal heroisn,. at home
or abroad, ought to so down to coming gen.
erations, as the history Of their fathers and
their country. The great Napoleon inscrib,
ed on the oldest of the pyramids the names
of the first soldiers Of the French army who
J fell in battle there He knew the effect OF
! this act Where is the column to tell that a
Clarendon son ever fell n his country's
cause? Shall it be alway thus? No :! Then
rally around the Sprott Guard as starting
place, and let not the memory of those who
gave their lives, in after years sink into the
voiceless silence Of oblivion.