St. Paul daily globe., 1895-09-22
THE MEANING OF CHICKAMAUGA.

L lie udllOudl park dC OnlchdlnauSa
has been dedicated. The ceremonies
are ended. The monuments erected
by the states have been formally
turned over to the custody of the
nation. The speeches have been
made. The veterans of both armies
have met and fraternized and re-
counted the incidents of the great
battle, and gone home. One can
imagine the spirits Of those who died
on the field. now sharing a common
Immortality, lowering unseen over
the participants yet in the flesh,
and rejoicing that at last all enmities,
all rancor, all dissension are buried
in common patriotism. For this
is the real significance of the re-
markable event. 1t marks, in lines
so plain that even the passion
blinded may see them, the entire
subsistence of that feeling of sec
tional distrust and hatred which was
the inevitable heritage of four years
of conflict
Only those whose memory covers
the years that have intervened since
AppomattOX can appreciate the value
of the event and the significance Of
its meaning. The intensity of feel
ing, of bitterness, of hatred, was not
with those who had done the fight
ing. Every soldiers memory is
stored with incidents Of friendly in
tercourse. with the "Johnnies," while
hostilities were in progress. The
meetings on the picket lines, where
the coffee in the haversack of the
boys who wore the blue was ex-
changed for the tobacco of the bows
in gray, bore eloquent testimony to
the mutual respect that had come
from meeting in conflicts which DEM
onstrated their mutual courage Be-
sides this, those who bore the brunt
of the fighting came to understand
that each side was acting from ear
nest conviction. Could the settle
ment Of the war have been left
where Sherman began it; could the
soldiers who fought the war have
dictated the terms of reconstruction,
the country would have been spared
that long interval of misery, in
famed passions, distrust and out
rage.
But, while this was the feeling of
the combatants, there was among
the non-combatants on either side a.
bitterness that was all the more in
tense because it had been exempt
from actual contact with those for
whom it was felt. North and South,
these were the ones who contributed
to the maintenance of conditions
which made restoration of amity so
difficult. Politicians on both sides
cultivated it. Regulations for dash
and brilliancy and bravery were won
in secure assaults on rebel briga-
diers," by men who avoided them
when the meeting might have been
useful. Then, too. North and South.
there was hardly home in which
war had not left some scars on the
hearts, and it was not to be expected
that these would heal easily or quick
iy. And so it came that for years.
with diminishing fierceness, the fires
OF the war ragged in both sections
and it is the significance of this ded-
1catlon of the great battlefield that
1t marks the complete obliteration OF
all that feeling, and the restoration
OF a Union not in name only, but in
fact. 1t began when Henry Waiter.
son went before the Grand Army
last year at Pittsburg, and eloquent.
ly pleaded with them that their next
meeting might be among the peo
pie who were their opponents in the
long contest. 1t was emphasized
as his eloquence drew tears from the
eyes. of the SCARED veterans whr
gathered last week at Louisville. /
received its crown of completion
when; at Chickamauga, blue ant
gray met and mingled in the com
mon cause of setting apart for al
time the grounds they had Tough
over thirty-two years ago. The elo
quence of Herbert and Gordon. ant
Manderson told the story of a. re-
stored Union. common loyalty to it
shared by Southron and Northern
er alike q common country, will
every man its ready defender.
This is the meaning of Chicka