The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1890-06-04

night they came unheraided, ana tney
had to extemporize hospital for them
The Christian women of the city took
care ofthe wounded.
A Christian woman passed through
the different wards of the hospital, with
her sleeves rolled up, her hair disheyel-
ed in the excitement Of the hour; her
face was plain, very plain, but, after the
wounds were washed and the new band
ages put around the splintered limbs,
and exhausted boy fell off into his iirst
sleep. She put her hand upon his brow
and he started and said in his dream
"Oh, thought an angel touched me-,
Mrs. Harris went into the hospital after
the seven days awful fight before Rich
mond, as she sat down by wounded
drummer boy she heard him soliloquize :
"A ball through my body, and my poor
mother will never see her boy again,
what pity it is !"
She leaned over him, and said shall
/ be your mother and comfort you? he
looked up and said eyes l will try to
think she is here"
He told her what to write TO his moth
er and then said "Hold my hands while
l die" Upon this subject we will not be
silent, for silence would in short time
bury the most sacrificing heroism into
utter oblivion. As we love peace and
hate war; as We love loyalty and bate
treason as we love the good, the noble,
and the true, andIhate the vile, deceptive,
and the villainous, and teach the same to
our children, so let us teach them of the
sadness those days. When the call came
from our martyred president Lincoln, to
the loyal sons Of the North and South,
the East and West, to defend their coun-
| try against internal foes, when that ST.
rocco of death was threatening the life of
the nation, let us tell them how thou
sands of men barred their breasts and
threw themselves into the track and died
that the nation might live, while their
comrades triumphed, for before them no
man was able to stand.
The thirtieth day of May has arrived
again, day which will be ever kept
sacred by our countrymen. It is not
gala day like the Fourth of July, but it
is day of sad recollections and likewise
day of silent rejoicing with gratitude to
God for the preservation of our nation
through the efforts of the now sleeping
comrades, and of those who still survive
Let the evergreens and boquet of flow
ers be placed on each comrades grave.
This should be done on account Of the
cause they had espoused. The righteous
ness of the cause for which they stroye
has made them great Men unacquaint-
ed with them in life, but men who en-
dangered their lives for the same cause
shall place the speechless mementoes
over their sleeping dust. Therefore, in
discriminate decoration between the blue
and the gray is contrary to the rules Of
common sense and reason, it is placing
patriotism and treason on the same level.
Treason should be made odious, and pa
triotism should receive honorable recog-
milton. We bear the southern soldier
no malice, and we are willing to forgive,
and be forever friendsin the future But
between the csuse for which they, fought
and the cause for which we, fought there
must forever remain this difference that
we were right and they were wrong.
May that day never come in which the
judgement of battles will be reversed
and the surrender at Appamatox Court
House go for naught.
About twenty-five years ago at the
close of the war about six hundred thou
sand men were discharged from the army
in the interval OF a few short months
'The army is returning home was the cry,
what will the boys engage in ?" was
the inquiry made by many men wh)
entertained dark forbodings.
The thought the soldiers would be
were judged from the same stand point
that the soldiers in foreign lands are
judged who enter the army not from pa
triotic motives, but by compulsion. 1t is
a fact that man who serves for term
of years in standing army in Europe,
will never be of much consequence after
wards as citizen. There is something
about the discipline in the standing arm
les of Europe that destroys the inde-
pendent manhood Of its soldiers so that
they ever afterwards lack pluck that
necessarily characterizes success in civil
life
The character of our soldiers must be
taken into consideration as they came
marching home, with bronzed faces and
stern countenances, and steady steps, as
they appeared in our midst. All these
things are evidence of discipline and
hard service.
The will power of these men betoken-
ed something better than to become a
crowd of unproductive parasites, who
are to live the remainder of their lives
at The expense of their fellows.
1t might be well to glance for mo-
ment at these men as they left their |
homes and went to war, who were they |
where did they hail from ?
We see among them business men who |
have hastily closed up their business at
sacrifice, others leaving their business
to the management of their partners in
an improvident manner.
The mechanic left his workshop the /
farmer his plough, emulating the spirit of
General Putnam of revolutionary fame.
There is however one more class of sol
diers | wish to mention, THAT is the boys
who enlisted from the age of seventeen
to twenty one.
Just in the forming time Of life, when
the boy was TO choose his calling, profess
sion or trade, he is called away into the
army, to spend three or four years there.
These were the most important years Of
his life, and they are necessarily spent
without any direct reference TO his future.
Vague ideas in day dreams often fitted
through the brain as TO what his future
occupation might be, but all the time he
was harrassed with the thought that he
might never reach home. The time ac-
tually came-the army arrived at home.
What will all these men do who have
L.. or ]