Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-06-04
life which has almost amounted TO carnage,
aud the white for the
d OIL IL U q

| VICTORY YOU HAVE GAINED.
| 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 and sailors of the North and South,
, who though in variance for long while,
are now at 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, l
think, have sufficiently cooled the hatreds
that once burned Northward and Southwark
to allow the remark that they who fought
in that conflict were honest on both sides.
The chaplaiDS 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. It is too
much to ask either side 10 believe that those
who came out from their homes forSakIng
father and mother and 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
at all for fun. Men, do not sleep unsheltered
in equinoctIal storms for fun. There We're
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 con-
fronted such
AN INSTANCE OF DEPRAvITY.
AS chaplain OF q Pennsylvania regiment
and as a representative Of the United States
Christian commission. | was for a while at
the front and in those hospitals at Hagers-
town and Williamsburg and up and down
the Potomac. where all The churches and
farm houses were filed with wounded and
dying Federals ana Confederates, | forgot
amid the horrors TO ask on which side they
fought, when with what little add could
take them for their suffering bodies and
the mightier aid ! could pray for their
souls, | pas 5ed the days and months
amid scenes that in my memory seem
like a CHASTITY dream rather than pos
siDle reality. When New Orleans boy,
unable 20 answer my question as to
where he was hurt, took him
from the folds of the only garment that had
not been torn off him in the battle a New
Testament marked with his own life-blood
ard l saw the leaf turned down at the pas
sage My peace give unto you, not rs the
world giveth give | unto you, it read just
as though ii had been Northern New Test
ament. And when / sat down ard took
from South Carolinian dying in barn at
Bonneville. his last message to his wife
and mother and child, it sounded just like
Il message that a Northern man dying far
from home would send 10 his wife and
mother and child. And when | picked up
frOUi the battlefield of Antietam the frag
nient of a letter which | have somewhere
yet, for the name and the address We're
torn off | saw il was
THE WORDS OF 4 WIFE
n hpI, husband tfIliup him how the little
child PRAYED for raeir father every night
that he might not get hurt in the battle and
might come rome sound and come home
we'll sbut that if anything happened to them
they might all meet AGAIN in the world
where there are no partingS, 1t read just as
d Northern wife would write to Il 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 get home andare living yet were just
as honest. and ought they not for the sui
fering they endure have coronal OF some
kind.
Yea, there was courage on both sides.
They who We're at the front know that.
When the war opened, the South called
the Northern men 'mudsillsn and the
North called the Southern men ''brag-
garts'' and ''pompous nothings.' but after
Il few battles nothing more was said about
Northern ''mudSills'' and Southern ''brag-
CARTS 1t was an army of lions against
an army of lions. 1t was I; flock of eagles
md-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 Longstreet. 1t
was Fitzpatrick against Wade Hampton. 1t
was Slocum against Hill. 1t was .. 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 l detain the two garlands that | have
twisted for the departed and in recognition
Of honesty AID proves put the coronalS
upon these living Eederals and COnfeder-
atcs. North and South, we wiz 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
volleys over their graves, miL.i.ng all the
cemetery ring under our command of
"f'ire-' We will have long obituary in
newspapers telling in what battles they
fought, what sacrifices they endured, what
flags they cap, Qred. in what prison they
suffered. but all that will come TOO late.
One word in the living ear of praise for their
honesty and courage will be worth 10 them
more than military funeral two miles long
or u pile of flowers halt Il mile high and ten
DanuS 81 music praying over lnS grave |
star Spangled Banner or Way Down
South in Dixie" Now, while they are in
their declining years and their right knee
refuses 10 work because of the rheu-
matism they got sleeping on the wet |
ground on the banks of the Chickamauga, |
or their digestive organs are off 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 much they have been able to hear |
but little since, in these cases | call upon |
the people of North and South TO SubSti- |
tute little ante-mortem praise for the |
good deal of post-mortem eulogium. |
These two garlands that twisted for
NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN GRAVES
shall not be put upon the grass of the tomb |
until they have first encirclcH the foreheads |,
of the living | will let the front of the |
wreath core down over the scar of a scalp |
wound made by the sword of a cavalryman !,
at Atlanta and droop little over the eye |
thaJ lost its lustre in the mine explosion at |
Petersburg. Huzza for the living. Gala
lilies, camelias and aInaranths and palm |
branches for the living!
But we must not detain the two garlands |
any longer from the pillows Of those who
for quarter of 4 century have been pros
trate in dreamless Slumber, never oppressed
BY summer heats or chilled by winters
cold. Both garlands are fragrant. Beth
have in them the sunshine and the shower