Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-06-01

! nave gained
FOR LIVING SOLDIERS.
| Before put the two garlands am twist
/ ing upon the northern and southern tombs,
| detain the garlands little while that |
may put them upon the brow of the living
soldiers aud sailors of the north and south,
who, though at variance for "A long while,
are now ut peace and in hearty loyalty to
the United States government, and ready
il need be, to march shoulder to shoulder
against any foreign foe The twenty-siX
winters that have passed since the war, !
think have sufficiently cooled the hatreds
that once burned northward and south
ward to allow the remark that they who
fought in that conflict were honest on both
sides. The chaplans on both armies were
honest in their prayers. The faces that
went into battle, whether they marched
toward the Gulf of Mexico or marched tow
ard the north star, were honest faces.
1t is too much to ask either side TO be-
lieve that those who came out from their
homes, forsaking father and mother and
wife and child, many of them never to re
turn, were not in earnest when they put
their life into awful exigency. Witness
the last scene at family prayers up among
the Green mountains or down by the fields
of cotton and sugar cane Men do not sac
riice their all for fun. Men do not eat
moldy bread or go without bread at all for
fun. Men do not sleep unsheltered in equi
noctial storms for fan, There were some,
no doubt, on both sides who enlisted for
soldiers pay or expecting opportunity for
violence and pilage, or burning with re.
venge and thirst for human blood but
such cases were so rare many of you who
were in the war four years never confront
ed such an instance of depravity.
As chaplain of Pennsylvania regiment,
and as representative of the United States
Christian commission, was for while at
the front, and in those hospitals at Hagers
town and Williamsburg and up and down
the Potomac, where all the churches and
farmhouses were filled with wounded and
dying Federals and Confederates, forgot
amid the horrors to ask on which side they
fought, when with what little aid i could
take them for their suffering bodies, and
the mightier aid | could pray for their
souls, passed the days and months amid
scenes that in my memory seem like
CHASTITY dream rather than Il possible real
ity
When New Orleans boy, unable to an
gwer my question us to where he was hurt,
took out from the folds of the only gar
ment that had not been torn off him in the
battle New Testament, marked with his
own life blood, and saw the leaf turned
down at the passage my peace give unit
you, not us the world giveth give unto
YOU" it read Just rs though it had been
northern New Testament. And when
sat down and took from Il South Carolin
ian dying in barn at Bonneville his last
message to his wife and mother and child,
it sounded just like a message that Il
northern man dying far from home would
send to his wife and mother and child
And when | picked up from the battle
field of Antetam the fragment of letter
which have somewhere yet for the name
and the address were torn off, saw it was
the words of a wife to her husband telling
him how the little child prayed for their
father every night that he might not get
hurt in the battle and might come home
sound and come home well, but that if
anything happened to them they might
all meet again in the world where there
are no parting5, it read just us a northern
wife would write to a husband away from
home and in peril conveying the mes
sagos of little children. Oh, yes, they
were honest on both sides And those who
Just as honest, and ought they not for the
suffering they endured have coronal of
some kind?
COURAGE on BOTH SIDES.
Yea, there was courage on both sides
They who were at the front know that
When the war opened the south called
the northern men "mudsills," and the
north called the southern men "braggarts'
and "pompous ROthings, but after few
battles nothing more was said about
northern "mudslls' and southern "brag
CARTS" 1t was an army of lions against an
army of lions. 1t was IA flock of eagles
mid sky with iron beak against another
flock of eagles iron beaked 1t was thun
derbolt against thunderbOlt 1t was arch
angel OF wrath against archangel of wrath
1t was Hancock against Longstrect 1t |
was Fitzpatrick against Wade Hampton. |
1t was Slocum against Hill 1t was o. o |
Howard against Hood. 1t was Sherman
against Stoncwall Jackson 1t was Grant |
against Lee, and the men who were under |
them were just as gallant, and some of |
them are here and detnin the two garlands |
that | have twisted for the departed, and |
in recognition of honesty and proves put |
the coronals upon these living Federals and |
Confederatcs
North and south, we will make a great |
fuss about them when they are dead. There |
will not be room on their tombstones to
tell how much we appreciate them. We |
shall call out the military and explode |
three yollcys over their graves, making all |
The cemetery ring under our command of |
"FireN We will have long obituaries in
newspapers telling in what battles they
fought, what sacrifices they endured, what |
flags they captured, in what prisons they
suffered, but all chat will come too late
One word in the living ear of praise for
their honesty and courage will be worth to
them more than u military funeral two
miles long, ora pile of flowers half a mile
high, and ten bantis of music playing over
the grave star SpangIed Banner" or
"'Way Down South in Dixie"
Now, while they are in their declining
years, and their right knee refuses to work
because of the rheumatism they got sleep
ing on the wet ground on the banks of the
Chickamauga, or their digestive organs are
of on furlough because of the six months
Of prison life in which their rations We're
h!% slices If nothing, and their ears have
never been alert since the cannonade in
which they heard SO much they have been
able to hear but little since-in these cases
| call upon the people OF north and south
to substitute n little ante norton praise
for the good deal of post.mortcm eulogium.
These two garauds tnat twisted for north
which over the southern grave. Does any
one say what is the use? None of them
will know it. Your Decoration DAYS both
sides Mason and DiXon's line are great
waste of flowers" All! | see you have
carried too far my idea that praise for the
living is better than praise for the de