Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1889-09-26
INeERsoLL AND THE SOLDIERS.
His Sentiment is Cheers for the Living and
Tears for the Dead

| Iears Tor the Dead.
It is well to occasionally recall the
stirring days of the war of the rebellion.
To the old soldiers, Ingersoll's great
speech Will be read with no more inter
est than will be given it by the Sons OF
Veterans. and the thousands of young
men that have become voters since the
war Read it in the home circle, and if
| the boys want a defamation for the
school room. nothing is more appropri-
ate. 1t is an extract from a speech deliv-
cred at soldiers reunion at Indianapo-
lis in 1876. Here it Is:
The past, as it were, rises before me like
dream. Again we are in the struggle for
National life. We hear the sound of prepar-
alton, the music of the boisterous drums
the silver voices of heroic bugles We see
thousands of assemblages and hear the ap-
peals of orators; We see the pale cheeks of
women and the flushed faces of men; and
in those asSemblages we see all the dead
whose dust we have covered with flowers
| We lose sight of them no more. We are
with them when they enlist in the great
army of freedom We see them part with
those they love. Some are walking for the
| AdSS III NulcG WOOuN pldCOS Win LIE
maidens they adore. We hear the whisper
ings and sweet vows of eternel love as they
| ingeringly part forever. Others are bend
ing over cradles kissing babes that are
asleep. Some are receiving the blessings
Of old men. Some are parting with mothers
who hold them and press them to their
hearts again and again, and say nothing;
and some are talking with wives, and
on6aa vOrinU with hrau yuOrds Srlol-ar, in
the old tones to drive away the awful fear
We see them part. We see the wife stand
ing in the door with the babe in her arms
standing in the sunlight, sobbing; at the
turn of the road hand waves; she answers
by holding high in her loving hands the
child He is gone and forever
We see them as they march proudly away
under the Haunting flags, keeping time to
the wild, grand music of war-marching
down the streets of the great cities-through
the towns and across the prairies-down to
the fields of glory, to do and to die for the
eternal right.
We go with them one and all We are by
their side on all the glory fields, in all the
hospitals of pain, on all the weary marches.
We stand guard with them in the wild
storm and under the quiet stars. We are
with them in ravines running with blood
in the burrows of old fields. We are with
them between contending hosts, unable to
move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing
slowly away among the withered leaves
We see them pierced by balls and torn with
shells in the trenches of forts, an in the
whirlwind of the charge, where men be-
come iron with nerves of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of hatred
and famine, but human speech can never
tell what they endured
We are at home when the news comes
that they are dead We see the maiden in
the shadow Of her sorrow. We see the sill
vered head of the old man bowed with the
last grief
The past rises before us, and we see 4,O00,-
600 human beings governed by the lash
we see them bound hand and foot-we
hear the strokes of the cruel whip-we see
the hounds tracking women through tangled
swamps. We see babes sold from the breast
of mothers. Cruelty unspeakablel Outrage
infinitel Four million bodies in chains
1000, 900 souls in fettersl All the sacred re-
lations Of wife, mother, father an1 children
trampled beneath the brutal feet of might.
And all this was done under our own beauti-
full banner of the free.
The past rises before u.s. We hear the
roar and shrek of the bursting she'll The
broken fetters fall. These heroes died We
look. Instead of slaves we see men, and
women, and children The wand of progress
touches the auction block, the slave pen
and the whipping-post, and we see homes
and firesideS, and school houses and books,
and where all was want, aud crime, and
cruelty, and fear, We see the faces of the
free.
These heroes are dead They died for
liberty-they died for u.s. They are at rest
They sleep in the land they made free, un-
der the flag they rendered stainless, under
the solemn pines, the sad hemlock, the tear
full willows. the embracing vines. They
sleep beneath the shadows of the clouds,
careless alike of sunshine or storm, each in
the windowless palace of rest. Earth may
run red with other warS-they are at peace.
In the midst of battle, in the roar of con-
fiict, they found the serenity of death 1
have one sentiment for the soldiers, living
and dead-cheers for the living and tears
for the dead