The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1893-05-28
MEMORIAL SUNDAY SUGGESTIONS.

The Sunday before Memorial day,
when the services in many churches are
commemorative of the great struggle of
thirty years ago and to the duties which
it imposes, is fitting occasion to recall
and emphasize few facts which some
people, and particularly some self-pro-
claimed teachers of the American PEG.
pie, seem to be determined that we shall
to-day forget. They have assumed an
attitude toward the survivors of the
war which Is calculated to cause those
to whom the war and it's struggles are
simply history to depreciate the charac-
ter and the value of the service which
they rendered during the four momen-
tous years Of 1S61-85. 1t is necessary
because of these deprecatory. and even
defamatory, illusions to now and then
reiterate and emphasize the fact that all
that the United States is to-day. and all
that it can be in the future as great
Nation and free government, is due
primarily to the hundreds of thousands
of men who filled the ranks of the
Union armies, and who, without
hope of reward or the incentive
of promotion, gave up personal liberty.
subjected themselves to the harsh dis
cipline of the military service, with
stood the hardships of the field and
faced death. After the first months of
the war men entered the service by
thousands, knowing all its hardships
and dangers. Does any sane man be-
lieve that the S13 month and bounty
that at the best rarely exceeded $500 OF
$500 was the incentive7 And yet, more
than all other agencies and influences.
the men who carried the muskets for
s13 a month rescued the Union and
gave to succeeding generations the Re-
public as It is to-day. Whatever this
country is worth to-day to its $4,000, 600
people is due to the rank and file who,
time and again. answered President
Llncoln's appeals. Never could any
class of citizens SO truthfully say of a
government and It's territory, ut is
ours" as could the mon whose valor.
fortirude and patriotism eaved the
Union. Living or dead. the Republic.
in all that it is and in oil that it may
become, is their gift. Had the heresy
of secession prevailed there would have
been no continental Republic of the
United States to-day, leader in the gal
axy of nations. but instead half-d dozen
warning governments dictated by Eu-
ropean powers. The virus of secession
would have destroyed the possibility of
nationality.
And yet. just now, there seems to be q
conspiracy of newspapers and periOdi-
calls in certain parts of the country to
diseredit the mass of the survivors of
the Union armies. They talk of Camp
followers, bummers, deserters and coffee
coolers as if all the men who came home
from the battlefield and did not die
prior to 1890 were of that class. There
were bummers, but there were enough
who were not to save the Union. There
were 121. 600 deserters, but there were
1908, 900 individuals in the service who
were not, of whom 364 .OC0 died of the
casualties of war or OF disease incident
thereto, and when mustered out 5s5, 600
men went to their homes with lives
shortened twelve years because they
had been in the Union armies. The
thousands of men who marched with
Sherman to the sea and then to Wash
ington to join in the grand review were
just as worthy soldiers as those who fell
in battle about Atlanta. The eighty
thousand men who stood upon the circle
of hills about Appomattox and looked
down into the arena upon the valiant
but vanquished remnant of Lees army
and then marched home were as good
soldiers and patriots as those who fell
in all the battles which. through four
years of alternate defeat nnd victory. led
to the death of secession and treason
that April Sunday morning in 1865.
The foregoing observations have been
repeated time and again for twenty
years; but the fact that these survivors
of the war for the Union and human
liberty and progress are now bitterly
assaulted makes it duty to call atten-
ton to their achievements and to repeat
the declaration Of Abraham Lincoln. in
his last official utterance, Ito care for
him who shall have borne the battle"
If it is to be made a matter of book
keeping, the rank and file of the Union
armies who gave a restored Union to
tho world can never stand in the atti-
tude of dehtors or bepgarS