Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-06-16
AMERICAN SOLDIERS OF '65.
h No Being PictOrialiy LibeliedF
Shall He BE Paraded as PhSs-
ical Wreck? A Plea for the boys
who stood the Brunt of Hattie.

Shall He BE Paraded as n Phys-
ical Wreck? A Plea for the Boys
who stood the Brunt of Hattie
EprToRs HERALD-General w. L.
Sherman. in an article on Decoration
Day printed in Frank Leslie's Illustrated
Newspaper of June 1st, suggests that the
Grand Army parades be abolished.
He evidently does not believe in
the annual public exposure of phys
icsl wrecks by that worthy organization.
q G,neral Sherman, however, seems to
labor under the 6eiusion that all OF his
comrades are as old as he. He says
"I am fully aware that my old comrades
of the Grand Army Of the Republic still
cling to the belief that, spite of their
three score years and ten,' they can
march by company, platoon and by fours
as of old but as Mr.. Weller, Sr., said,
with years come width and wisdom,
and we had better use our wisdom than
our legs to impress upon the youth the
lessons of our experience"
1 deny that the Union or Confederate
veteran who fought in the great campaign
from 1861 to 1865 is the physical wreck
in 1889 which the illustrated papers
habitually depict him.
War, terrible as it is, has enough to
answer for without attributing to it all
the ravages which time and mans en-
vironment work upon him. The typical
Grand Army man on parade, it is
true, ehambles along with the aid
of a heavy walking stick. His shoulders
are convex. His chest is concave. His
beard is grizzled. His hairs are grey
Age end general debility have impaired
his vitality to such degree as to make
him an object OF respectful sympathy and
eommisseration. The men and women
of q younger generation, whose copclus-
ions are not more than surface deep,
point to this noble wreck, of what they
believe to have been once vigorous
combatant, as an example of Wars
havoc upon the ranks of those who in
their youth fought the battles of their
country.
There are men on the sidewalk at
every such parade, who never heard a
shot fred in any war, whose constitutions
have been impaired, whose shoulders are
stopped, whose hairs are grey, whose
limbe are tottering, whose features have
been wrinkled with care and privation,
and who, were they to march to the roll
ing of the drum, would excite in the
breasts of spectators sympathy for their
condition. The pictorial journals have
seized upon the figure Of a melancholy
looking, care worn, decrepit man wear
ing blouse and with gilt cord encircling
his slouch hat, as the typical war veteran
of q quarter of century ago.
l wae present at three of the great bat
ties and shove the field service of my
regiment at the front from 1862 to 1865,
excepting some eight months passed in
hospitals recovering from the effects OF a
severe gun-shot wound received in the
first of those battles. To the Judgment
of those of my comrades who served with
the troops operating in presence of the
enemy and who we're mustered out at the
close of the war because the Government
no longer had use for them, / submit
whether we ought not to resent the pic
torial libel upon their present physical
condition. In another decade or two the
artist will probably be at liberty to truth
fully linn all of US with his pencil as OBJ
jects of sympathy, but not today, sir.
The men who came home in the early
summer of 1866 from the big war, are to-
day in the very prime of vigorous and
staiwart physical manhood. / refer to
full live officers, who themselves rose
from the ranks as fast as death opened
to them the door of promotion. l refer
who marched home under the battle
torn flags carried from the Potomac to
the James and from the Ohio river to
the sea, and whose campaigns were
fought to victorious conclusion
in the fair valleys of the Cumberland,
the mountain passes of Georgia, the
bayous of the Mississippi, and the penin
sula of Virginia.
Who were these men? Were they in
any sense a shattered host? Were they
broken down by disease and wounds ?
We're they then of such an age or in
such condition that lapse of "a years
would change them into broken down
enfeebled, tottering manhood?
No. sir. Far from it. The average
age of these young men was about "a
years. A very large number were under
20. Their physical condition WAS per-
feet. 1t had been seasoned in the ordeal
of war itself. Remember that these 200,-
900 men who marched for three days
with an elastic swinging step in grand
review under the eye of President John
son in Washington, and the other l00,-
OO0 who passed in review before Major
General Thomas at Nashville, about
the same time, were the flower of the
wsr.days.
In physical texture these armies were
like highly tempered steel. The march
and the bivouac had made them SO
They had stood the crucial test OF hard
campaigning, and disease, which is more
deadly than the bullets of the enemy,
had touched them not. They
we're a living, breathing embodiment
of the law of the survival of the fittest.
Their less fortunate comrades had fallen
in the shock of battle. Their weaker
comrades had succumbed to the priva-
tions camp!life-a prey to disease or pesti-
lence. Endowed with vigorous constitu-
tions, they did not lose, but
z ined rength in the camp
and in the field. Those who had
been stricken by shot or she'll and had
returned to duty convalescent, gave proof
of their physical strength by that fact
alone. These showed themselves supe-
rior to both camp disease and battle
wounds. Bronzed in the trenches, eyes
bright with the vivid glow of health,
pulses throbbing with the exulta-
tion of victory gloriously achieved,
hearts beating with Joy at
the prospect of again being reunited to
the loved ones at home, the world never
before had looked upon so alert, 30
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