Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-06-07

frugal. lovers OF nome, many OF Jn6m
delicately bred. many of them with
minds teeming with ideas, and fertile in
plans of enterprise-why should they
abandon their chosen vocations, their
loved ones and their homes, for the
fierce, fiery, bloody field of battle?
All, history answers, and doubtless
many of YOU remember that little over
a quarter of century ago, early upon
that crisp morning of April y, 1861,
there went reverberating throughout the
length and breadth of this land, that re-
port-toO true-that old Fort Sumter,
over which f1oated that all-inspiring en-
blem of our liberties, had been vigorous
" attacked; at the call of their country.
in her hour of trial they rose up with
unappeased patriotism, for they were not
mere hirelings, serfs or slaves, but the
purest and best blood of the land-sons
of pious ancestry. With clear percep-
tions of duty, they gathered themselves
together, and rallied to the support of
that wronged, that beautiful flag of the
land of the free and the home of the
brave The halls of theological semina-
ries sent forth their young men, whose
lips had been touched with elOquence,
and whose hearts kindled with devotion
from colleges, stripplings of gentle,
studious habits. with lOvliest characters
and brightest genius, left the classroom,
where brain had been the great potent
factor in winning victories, for the hard
ships of camp life-the professional
man from his books and his desk
lumberman from the forest, and the
mechanic from his shop, where each
had been taught by the exercise of po-
Iitical rights to share in the life and hope
of the Republic farmers and sons OF
farmers, leaving the plow standing IN
the field, grain but half planted, and
waving golden harveSts but partially
gathered, shouldered the muSket and
learned to face without fear the pres
ence of peril and the coming of death,
in the terrible shocks of war.
Doubtless, many of you recall how
loved one bade you adieu-the parting
word, the farewell clasp, or the last long
ing look after some idolized one, as he dis
appeared over the hill in the distance, or
around the turn of the road, never more
to return, or if so, pale and helpless,
upon a stretcher, brought home only to
die and be buried here beside his friends.
All this seems sad; but what have
they given us to perpetuate their men,
ories?-a broken, discovered and bleed
ing Union, composed of many warning
States, blighted by the withering curse
of slavery? No, thanks to the Union
soldiers, both living and dead, we have
united, free country, without master
and without a slave, with union and lib
erty,
Ny friends, no feeble words of mine
can so vividly portray the object of their
going, their gallant conduct while there,
and the grand results by them accom-
plished, as an extract from speech de-
livered by Col Robert G. IngersOll, at a
reunion of the Tennessee Army, at Chi
cago, a few years since, in which he said:
"The soldiers of the North were the
defenders of humanity, the deStrOyerS of
prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in
the name of the future they slew the
monster of their times. They finished
what the soldiers of the Revolution had
only commenced. They relit the torch
that fell from their august hands, and
filled the world again with light. They
blotted from off our statute books laws
passed by hypocrites, at the instigatiOn
of robbers, and tore with brave, indig-
nant hands from the Constitution Of
these United States that infamous clause
which made men the catchers of their
fellow men. They made it possible
for judges to be just, for statesmen to be
humane, and for politicians to be hon
est. They broke the shackle from the
limb of the slave, from the soul of his
master, and from the Northern brain.
They kept our country on the map of
the world, and our flag waving glorious
ly in heaven. They rolled the stone
from the sepulchre of progress, and
found there two angels, clad in the
shining garments, Nationality and Lib
erty. The soldiers of the North were
the saviours of this Republic. They
were the liberators of men. In writing
the Proclamation of Emancipation ,Abra-
ham Lincoln, greatest Of our mighty
dead, whose memory is even yet as gen.
tie as the summer air, when reapGrS sing
amid the gathered sheaves, simply
copied with the pen what the grand
hands of these brave comrades had
written with the sword, stained in hu-
man gore. Grander than the Greek,
nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of
the North, with patriotism as stainless
as the air, battled for the rights of 9th
ers, fought for the nobility Of labor;
fought that mothers, black as well as
white, might own their babes; fought
that this, our country, should not be-
come many-headed monster, composed
of warning States, but a Nation, sover-
eign, great and free. For this purpose,
blood was as water, money as leaves,
and with these brave men life was as
common air, until one flag floated over
this one Republic, without master and
without a slave"
Noble words, eloquently describing
noble cause, followed by noble results.
My friends, deplOrable as is war, it new
ertheless appears to my boyish Judgment
that to lose ones life is not to die. As
the poet has said, ''TG live in hearts we
leave behind" as these soldiers to-day
Nv JuC lIC6tI 70 VI JllC1I COunll
sis not to die-for, sit is not all of life
to live, nor yet all of death to die."-
There, though no tear can disturb their
profound slumber, and no perfume of
flowers make their rest more sweet, still
how eminently fit and proper that all
loyal hearts should enlist in the Obsery-
ances of this day in rearing rich chap
let's of flowers and In sfpewinG the heau
ties of nature on the graves of our he
roes, queitly resting beneath their tents
of green. But in strewing them, let us
in our imagination scatter some for
those who died in distant lands, where
'lifeless famine Knocked at want,
and who to-day sleep in unknown, sunk
en- graves. And let us scatter some for
the MANNED, whose frightful scars, ema-
ciated appearance, or empty sleeves and
emOty nantS-lep DANGLING abOut helm