The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1892-05-12

| flying as a high-church wedding service to a
midd1ings purifier heiress; here also the indie
spenssble coffee, and sugar wherewithal i
shall be cenfected, twin relics Of the homeland,
sole reminder Of the hearthstone ante bellum.
Here is rice. noarishing to Buddha and Con-
fuchs, redolent of joss-house and bungalow,
chief of staff of the life of languid anthropo-
phagi.
Here are desiccated vegetables, elimination
of humiliation to nostril and stomach, cross
between counter-irritant and disnfectant
likewise concentrated milk, Queen Anne style,
| as unintelligible as the gospel of photography,
| etymolOgy, syntax and prOsody, to a coiored
youth gorged with clandestine watermelon,
All these, with frugal condiments and season.
ings, made lawful by tho articles Of war and
| the acts thereto amendatory. the shaky nnas-
Stunning crackerboX, chief of the snuggery S
| appointments, prime factor in furnishing forth
| the shelter tent, doth garner and conceal with
more than sealingwax fidelity. Upon it rest
the empty haversack, the dry canteen, waist
belt, hayonet-scabbard, gun sling and like
miscellany of unused accoutrement, sharing
! their owners earned and relshed respite
These constitute his tabulated assets, includ-
ing capital. surplus. and undivided profits.
The shelter tent was not immortal, at least
in the concrete. Immortality is to be achieved
for 1T, the pen of history or the still, small
voice of tradition must be detailed for that
duty. Its texture was not indestructible. Worn
TO windowed raggedness was its final aspect,
slashed, punched, shot-holed, and abradod, but
faithful and useful to the end. Scorched also. it
may be. begrimed and soiled, march stained
and battled-singed, linked to its primal white
ness only as the vestal virgin of the Cnthead
Sioux tepee is to her star-eyed Athenian pro-
totype.
No matter. The statesman with pickere
brow and muskalonge integument, who now
cries Havoc! and lets slip his hexile tongue
against pension bills because they interfere
with tariff reform, would elevate his nostrils
in echelon at the thought of occupying such
quarters. and vent his disgust in a low, hoarse
smile, quoted from some imitation Englishman
at Boston. The ecclesiastical migronette and
the Journalistic geranium, who join in pro-
claiming 1t q threatening peril to the Republic
that she tardily remembers her pledges to the
remaining veterans who interposed between
their coward forms and danger 30 years ago,
may jest at scars. They never felt wound.
Nothing but hypodermic injection of bayo-
net from rearward would ever inspire them to
confront foe more tangible than Baconian
cryptogram.
But the men who faced the bounding hate
of the slave sellers, and survived the grape
and shrapnel of embattled treason can respond
to these feeble viscidities with the silence of
profound contempt. Let those who seek to
OF mankind and the damnaton of history If
they can. The surviving veterans neither
tender apologies demand forgetfulness.
They cherish with pride the recoliections of
the war.
Among these recolIections is that o. the con-
tracted habitation. graGder in its humility
than the palace imperial which domiciled
patriotism that was stainless and heroism
that was sublime. Unconsidered trfle Of the
epoch, neglected proletariat of tabernaces bell
ligerent, feered and fionted shelter tent, its
functions in the splendid totalty of achieve
ment were by no means unimportant, if wholly
unacknowledged. A war-scarred relic of it
now would be more precious to the eye of
patriotism than shining granite shaft raised
10 monuinentalize forgiven but unrepented
treason.
Tattered and blackened, but serviceable still,
symbol of much else wherein we might per-
haps with gain philosophize. the humble but
priceless shelter tent was borne to the rem
devious by the glad warrior returning in
triumph, and legally mustered out. Its work
was done. No further seek its usufruct to
discern. The receipt Of the depot Quarter
master was its sole aud all-spfficient obituary.
Vanished from the recedng perspective of
our experience is the shelter tent-vanished
from sight, but precious in memory forever.
With 1t went the golden age of the Republic;
with it went our comradeship of trial and
danger. After it came the new heaven and
the new earth to our redeemed and regenerated
country. 1t has gone Aud already. for more
than half the soliiery of the grand army of
the Union, it has been replaced by that low,
green canopy whose curtain never outward
swings.