The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1895-09-05
ON TO LOUISVILLE!

Falls
How much there will be in the next
few days to remind us of the heroic
past, when every railroad, every wagon
road, every bride path in Ohio,
Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, seemed
to lead at last to Louisville.
When every little settlement in those
States sent out its rill of young men,
which became creeks at the County
seats, rivers at the State Capitals, and a
mighty, on-sweeping, never-ebbing
Mississippi of Force and Patriotism at
Louisville.
When to Louisville swarmed the
hundreds of thousands who were to
fight at Mill Springs, Shiloh, Perry
vile, Stone River Chickamauga,
Mission Ridge, on the Atlanta Cam
paign, at Bentonville, Franklin, and
Nashville.
Louisville was the Lands End of
Home and Peace, from which fully 500
regiments Of 1000 stalwart youths each
sailed out on the tempestuous ocean of
War. 1t was the haven to which they
returned, bruised and battered, terthe
storm.
For four years an unending process
sion Of Ohioans, Indianians, Illinoisans,
and Michiganders, with thousands from
other States, passed through Louisville
to the battlefelds beyond, and another
equally endless procession of wounded
and broken passed from the battlefelds
and hospitals through Louisville to the
homes whence they had come.
Thousands of those who will 90 to the
National Encampment will start for
Louisville from precisely the same
places that as beardless boys in i'll
fitting blue uniforms they started from
for the same destination more than a
quarter of century ago. They Will
pass over the same country, through the
same towns, cross the same rivers, and
arrive again on the banks of the Beauti-
full River.
What memories viii throng their
minds as they are whirled onward
to what was once the fateful Dark
and Bloody Ground. When last they
passed that way every turn of the
engines wheels was bringing them nearer
Shiloh, or Stone River, or Chickamauga
OF the 1000 men Of their regiment who
thronged the train with them one-half
at least were never to recross the Ohio.
This one, the soul of merriment, and the
fun-maker of the regiment, was to fall,
with bullet through bis brain, amid the
cedars around Murfreesboro that one,
his mothers only hope and support, was
to wear out his life in the mad marches
along the blazing pixies in pursuit of
Bragg. Those others were to 60 down
in one bloody mass before an awful vol
ley at Chickamauga-
But sad and tender memories will not
wholly occupy the mind of the veteran.
He viii open his eyes wide at the
changes be will recognize. Louisville
and Jacksonville, which be will remem-
Der mainly as wildernesses of hospitals,
barracks, Quartermasters' depots, mules,
army wagons, artillery, with all the men
be met either pressing steadily forward
to "the Front" or limping brokenly
back from il, are now populous, beauti-
full, peaceful cities, with not cannon in
sight not a fort marring the horizon
anywhere with Its rough banks Every
where smiling Industry has replaced
Wars rude front, and, as he surveys
the changed scene, the veterans heart
lifts in proud satisfaction, for all this
happiness and prosperity is the crown
for which be fought and endured to the
end. His victory made all this possible.
The Baltimore d Ohio Railroad will
carry an immense number Of comrades
TO Louisville. 1t has unsurpassed faciIi-