The Pickens sentinel. [volume] (Pickens, S.C.) 1871-1903, 1891-06-11

| Oh Gle SOuCl q mulGlLuQ6 mat no m IN
can number, children without fatherly
help and protection? Under all the ad-
vantages which we had of fatherly guild
dance, what a struggle life has been to
the most Of us! But what of the chill
dren, two and five and ten years of age,
who stood at their mothers lap with
great, round, wondering eyes, hearing
her read of those who perished in the |
Battle of the Wilderness, their fathers
gone down among the dead host? Come,
young men and women, who by such |
disaster have had to make your own
way in life, and 1 will put the garland |
on your young and unwrinkled brow.
Yes; you have had your own Malvern
Hill. and your own South Noun tain, and
your own Gettysburg all along these
twenty years. Come! And, If l can
not spare whole garland for your brow,
| will twist in your locks at least two
flowers, one crimson and one white. the
crimson for the struggle of your life,
which has almost amounted to carnage,
and the white for the victory you have
gained.
FOR LIVING SOLDIERS.
Before 1 put the two garlands | am
twisting upon the northern and south
L
while that l may put them upon the
brow of the living soldiers and sailors
of the north and south, who, though at
variance for a long while, are now at
peace and in hearty loyalty to the United
States government, and ready, # 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 chaplains on both
armies were honest in their prayers.
t The fnces THAI went into battle, whe thcr
t they marched toward the Gulf Of Mexico
or marched toward the north star, were
+ honest faces.
1t Is too much to ask either side to be-
h licvc that those who came out from their
I homes, torsaki"g father and mother and
4 wife and child, many Of them never to
t return, were not in earnest when they
c put their life into awful eNlgency. Wit
ness the last scene at family prayers up
among the Green mountains or down by
the fields OF cotton and sugar cane. Men
DO not sacrifice their all for fun. Men
40 not eat moldy bread or 90 without
bread at all for fun. Men do not sleep
llnBhcltered III eQuinOCtial storms for
lun. There were some, no doubt. on
both sides who enlisted for soldiers pay,
or expecting opportunity for violence
and pillage, or burning with revenge and
: thirst t)r human blood, but such cases
were so rare many of you who were in
the war four years never confronted such
an instance of depravity.
AS chaplain of Pennsylvania rcgi-
ment, and as Il representative of the
United States Christian commission. |
was for n while at the frCnt, and in
those hospitals at Ha., rstown and Will.
llamsburg and up and down the POto-
mac, where all the churches and farm
houses were filled with wounded and
dying Fcderals and Confedcrates, for
got amid the horrors to ask on which
) side they fought, when with what little
aid could take them for their suffering
bodies, and the mighticr aid could pray
, Tor their souls, l passed the days and
l. months amid scenes that in my memory
D seem like ghastly dream rather than
I possible reality.
When New Orleans boy, unable 10
y answer my question rs to where he was
t hurt, took out from the folds of the only
So'hihSLiI lltll HOJ DCCI IOFI OH nm
IN the battle New Testament, marked
with his own life blood, and saw the
Leaf turned down at the passage, 'My
peace give unto you, not as the world
glVeth give l unto you,' it read Just as
though it had been northern New Tes-
lament. And when I sat down and
took from a South Carolnian dying in
barn at Bonneville his last message to
his wife and mother and child, it sound
cd just like a message that northern
man dying far from home would send TO
his wife and mother and child.
And when Ipicked up from the battle
field OF Antietam the fragment OF letter
which L have somewhere yet, for the
name and the address were torn Off.
saw 1t was the words of 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 |
we'll, but that if anything happened to |
them they might all meet again IN the |
world where there are no partings, it |
lead Just as q northern wife would write |
10 Il husband away from home and in |
pcrl! conveying the messages OF little |
children. Oh, yes; they were honest |
on Doth sides. And those who lived to
get home and are living yet were just as
honest, and ought they not for the suf-
fering they endured have a coronal of
some kind?
| COURAGE ON BOTH SIDES.
w ea, 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 tho
north called the southern men "brao.
CARTS" and ''pompous nothings," but
alter a tew battles nothing more was
said about northern ''mudsillsn and
southern "braggarts." 1t was an army
OF hons against an army of lions. TWAS
flock of eagles mld-sky with iron beak
against another flock ofeagles il on bcak-
ed. 1t was thunderbolt against thrn-
derbolt. 1t was archangel of wrath
against archangel of wrath. 1t was Ham
cock against LonYstreet. 1t was Kill
i i,ot 10