Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1889-06-29
WAR ON THEIR MINDS.


When for years already the pro-
gressive North and South have been
thinking of business and living for
the present and the future, a few
old gas pipes of both sides like Ros-
ser and Early open their fossil shells
once year like century turtle af-
ter the deluge of Noah, and boast of
what they are and what they might
have been, had history and the laws
of nature not conspired against their
turtleships. The time to fight battles
and achieve victories and win
Iaurels was way back in the sixties.
Other people OF that cause and this
age let history tell the story, and
though memory may be still fresh
and greenland why not with ne
roes living and dead whom men VIII
never forget,-they regard it as TOO
sacred to tear open the tomb OF fate
for STANDARDIZATION when 1T can do
the dead no good and the living no
harm.
The time for Early and Rosser to
win their spurs, save their country,
and make history, was when Grant
and Sheridan were in the field, not
now when they are in their graves.
The true soldier, whom the world
honors and history immortalizes, no
matter what his cause, is the man
who met his foe face to face, and
settled the conflict forever then and
there.
The New York Mail and EGpress
punctures this bloated frog of fable,
who would rear himself over his fall
en- braves like a taurus of war in the
peaceful Virginia Valley, trample in
to dust the swords of the dead and
scatter the leaves Of history as if
swept by the floods of Conemaugh;
do all this terrible work-not in
the day when swords clashed and
cannons burst,--but after the
last of his companions had grasp
ed the hand of his opponent, and
the fences of time have enclosed
every battlefield OF the North and
South with the ripe orchards of the
fruits of peace, around happy homes
Of contentment and harvests busy
with reapers.
Poor old Jubal Early has been
periodically bowling with pain and
modification ever since Sheridan
sent him whirling down the Shenan-
doah Valley, the maddest, most
broken up and ridiculous creature
who has figured conspicuously in
any war on this continent.
Sheridan-who was thought by
Grant to be the greatest and most
of living soldiers-is dead.
Old Jubal continues to illustrate |
the survival of the unfitness and
the living Ass. The lion being dead,
lhe Ass brays more loudly than ever,
On the very ground made sacred by
splendid Winchester vic
tory, that Was snatched out of the
jaws OF defeat.
Only Jubal Early has "the great
moral requirements, the front of
brass and the insensibility to the
universal judgment of intelligent
critics as to Sheridan's
military genius, to
stand up, at this late day, and try to
" lie down" the universally admitted |
historical facts as to his own absurd
figure in military history.
Being what he is, it is not strange
that he should wind up his ridiculous
self-glorification and his perversions
OF unreconstructed disloyalty as this:
AS l have SAID on a former occa.
sion, if | ever repudiate, disown or
apologize for the cause for which Lee
fought and Jackson died. may the
lightning of heaven blast me and
the scorn Of all good women and true
men be my portion.
The "lightning of Heaven" would
be too 6ignified an agency with
which to blast such a ridiculous old
windbag as the word-valiant Jnbal.
Every time he opens his month in
public he relieves his enemies from
all concern as to the certainty that
he will confirm the general verdict
that he is the most grotesquely alb.