Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1891-06-11

dren without fatherly help and protectioni
Under all the advantages which we had OF
fatherly guidance, what a struggle life
has been 70 the most Of usl But what OF
the children, two and Eve and ten years
OF age, who stood at their mothers lap
with great, round, wondering eyes, hear
ing her read of those who perished in the
Battleof the Wilderness, their fathers gone
down among the dead hosti Come, young
men and women, who by such disaster
have had to make your own way in life,
and ] VIII put the garland on your young
and unwrinkled brow. Yes; yop have
had your own Malvern Hill. and yourNown
South Mountain. and your own Gettys-
burg all along these twenty years Comel
And, II | cannot spare a 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 car
mage, and the white for the victory you
have gained.
FOR LIVING SOLDIERS.
Before put the two garlands am twist
ing upon the northern and southern tombs,
detain the garlands a little while that
may put them upon the brow of the living
soldiers and sailors of the north and south,
who, though at variance for long while,
are now at 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 chaplains 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
rifice 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 fun. There were some,
no 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 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 | 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
ghastly dream rather than possible real
ity.
When New Orleans boy, unable to an
swer my question as 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
O"h lLO bAOONAJ anu DO" OhO ACdA bulhOu
down at the passage, "My peace give unto
you, not as the world giveth give unto
you," it read just as though it had been
northern New Testament. And when !
sat down and took from a South Carolin-
ian dying in barn at Boonesville his last
message to his wife and mother and child,
It sounded just like a message that a
northern man dying far from home would
send to his wife and mother and child.
And when | picked up from the battle
field of Antietam 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 we'll, but that if
anything happened to them they might
all meet again in the world where there
are no partings, it read just as a northern
wife would write to husband away from
home and In peril conveying the mes
sages of little children. Oh, yes; they
were honest on both sides. And those who
lived to get home and are living yet were
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 nothings," but after few
battles nothing more was said about
northern "mudsills" and southern "brag
CARTS" 1t was an army of lions against an
army of lions It was 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 I4ongstreet. 1t
was Fitzpatrick against Wade Hampton.
1t was Slocum against Hill. 1t was o. o.
Howard against Hood. 1t was Sherman
against Stonewall Jackson. 1t was Grant
against Lee, and the men who were under
them were just as gallant, and some of
them are here, and / detain the two garlands
that | have twisted for the departed, and
in recognition of honesty and prowess put
the coronals upon these living Federals and
Confederates,
North and south, we will make 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 obituaries in
newspapers telling in what battles they
fought, what sacrifices they endured, what