Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-01
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Before put The TWO gdrlanuS | am twist
ing upon the Northern ard Southern tombs,
| detain the garlands little while that
may put them upon the brow of the living
soldiers and sailors OF the North and South,
who though in variance for long while,
are now al peace and in hearty loyalty to
the United States government, and ready if
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
thai once burned NorthwaId and Southwark
to allow the remark that they who fought
in that conflict were honest on both sides.
The chaplains of both armies We're honest
IN their prayers. The faces that went into
battle whether they marched toward the
gulf of Mexico or marched toward the
north star. were honest faces II is too
much TO ask either side TO believe that those
who came out from their homes, forsaking
father and mother aud wife and child, many
Of them never TO return, 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 sacrifice their all for fun. Men do
not eat mouldy bread or go without bread
al all for fun. hlen,do not sleep upsheltered
in equinoctlal storms for fun. There were
some 10 doubt on both sides who enlisted
for soldiers pay or expecting opportunity
for violence and pillage 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 con-
fronted such
AN INSTANCE OF DEPRAyITy.
As chaplain of Pennsylvania regiment
and as representative Of the United States
Christian commission, was for while at
the front and in those hospitals al Hagers-
town and williamsburg and up and down
the Potomac. where all the churches and
farm houses were filled with wounded and
dying Federals ana Confederates, | forgot
amid the horrors 20 ask on which side they
fought. when with what little aid could
take them for their suffering bodies and
the mightier aid I could pray for their
souls, | passed the days and months
amid scenes that in my memory seem
ike 4 CHASTITY dream rather than pos
sible reality When New Orleans boy,
unable to answer my question as to
where he WAS hurt, took him
from the folds of the only garment that had
not been torn of him in the battle New
Testament marked with his own lifc-blood
and saw the leaf turned down at the pas
sage My peace l give unto you, not as tine
wOrir! giveth give | unto YOU il read Just
as though it had been Northern New Test
ament And when / sat down and took
from a South Carolinian dying in barn al
Bonneville, his last message 10 his wife
and mother and child. il sounded Just like
Il message that a Northern man dying Tar
from home would send 10 his wife and
mother and child. And when / picked up
from the battlefield of Antietam the frag
ment of letter which l have somewhere
Yet, for the name and the address We're
torn OF. ! saw it was
TIRE 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 aud
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 partings, it read just as
4 Northern wife would write to husband
away from home and in peril conveying the
messages OF little children. Oh, yes; they
were honest on both sides. And those who
lived to getthome andare living yet were just
as honest ana ought they not for the sui
fering they endure nave roronaL of some
kind!
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 ''mudslllSn and the
North called the Southern men ''br3g-
CARTS and 'pompous nothings," but after
few battles nothing more was said about
Northern Inudsills'' and southern ''brag
carts" II was an army of lions against
an army of liens. Il was flock OF eagles
mid-sky with iron beak against another
flock OF eagles iron-beaked. 1t was thun-
dGrbOlt against thundcrbolt 1t was arch
angel Of wrath against archangel of wrath.
1t was Hancock against Longstreet. II
was Fitzpatrick against Wade Hampton. II
was Slocum against Hill, Ii was Q. Q.
Howard against Hood. II was sherman
against Stoncwan jackson.
1T WAS GRANT AGAINST LEE.
And the men who We're under them We're
Just as gallant, and some OF them are here
and detan the two garlanGS that | have
twisted for the departed and in recognition
OF honesty and prowess put the corona!s
upon these living Federals and Confeder
atcs North and South, We will make 4
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
Volleys over their graves, making all the
cemetery ring under our command of
Fire. We will have long obituary in
ne VS. papers telling in what battles they
fought, what sacrifices they endured, what
flags they captured, in what prison they
but all that Will come too late.
One word in the living ear Of praise for their
honesty and courage will be worth TO them
more than a military funeral two miles long
or pile of flowers halt u mile high and ten
bands of music playing over the grave
''Star Spangled 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 rheu-
matism they got sleeping on the wet
around on the banks of the Chickamauga.
or their digestive organs are of on FUR
Tough because of the six months of prison
life in which their rations were big slices
of nothing, and their ears have never been
alert since the 'cannonade in which they
heard so mucn they have been able TO hear
but little since, in these cases | call upon
the people of North and South to substi- |
tute 4 little ante-mortem praise for the
good deal of post-mortem eulogium. |
These two earlands that twisted for
NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN GRAVES
shall not be put upon the grass Of the tomb |
until they have first encircled the foreheads |
Of the living | will let the front of the |
wreath come down over the scar of a scalp |
wound made b. the sword OF 4 cavairyman |
at Atlanta and droop little over the eye |
that lost its Iustre in the mine explosion at |
Peters burg HuZZa for the living. Gala |
lilies. cameliaS and amaranthS and palm |
branches for the living.
But we must not Getain the two garlands |
any longer from the pillows of those who |
for quarter of century have been pros !
rate in dream!ess s!umber, never oppressed |
BY summer heats or chilled by winters !
cold Both garlandS are fragrant. Both |
have in them the sunshine and the shower |
IF this springtime. The colorS of both are |
mixed by Him who mixed the blue of the |
sky and the gold of the sunset and the green |
IF the grass and the Wilderness of the snow |
crystal. And do not care which You put |