Great Falls weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1894-1???, 1895-05-31

The president OF the United States
found this sweet message one day he
entered it: 1.-THE Lord is my shep'
herd; l shall not want" But it is
hard to take a lesson from one
who struck 80 hard as jackson and
Howard did. There are here, they
tell me soldiers who represent every
state in the union, north and euutp,
You are gathered here on this sweet day
Of rest within this house dedicated u
the proclamation of the gospel of peace,
Let us, therefore, seek a point for an
illustration in which no feelings are
hurt. Looking through the smoke of
the war | see one dear spot. 1t is at
Durham Station in North Carolina. |
see two leading generals of the war
one wear gray, the other wears blue;
one ia William r. Sherman, the other is
Joseph Johnston. ! hear General Sher
man utter a name and | see a tear in
General Joe Johnston's eye. The man,
the mention Of whose name can bring
tears to the eyes of two such warriors, is
the man for my purpose. He is the man
whom we shall all esteem more and more
as this generation passes.
There are two scenes, however, OF his
life, and only two of which we shall
speak tonight. The first is the nigh,
after the battle of Characteristic
| William o. Stoddard, who was his pri-
vate secretary, tells US of it in the New
York Independent. The secretary in
forms US of the enormous mass of letters
and mail matter that poured in upon
him; 1900 union soldiers had been left
dead, they said, upon the field
of battle. Poor Lincoln was distracted
The night wore on: five o'clock struck,
he was pacing the floor of his room.
Eleven struck; still the secretary heard
the regular foot-fall up and down toe
room. The midnight hour came, still
the football was heard. Then one struck,
but there was no change in that meas
ured step Two o'clock ~struck-thc
secretary went away to secure IA
few hours sleep. At about sin the
morning he returned-and still the foot
fall WAS heard. Six O'Clock struck, stlll
he walked the floor. Presently the days
work begins-his doors open upon HIM
who kept sad vigil tlat night.
They say that en- that night the fate
of the Union hang on those footballs,
Had the feet stopped in their motion,
had they turned aside, had the scratch
of a pen been made in that room, mad
the sentence, which, they say, was pass
ing through the mind of Lincoln, been
put on paper, then Lincoln would have
been the asst president of tAe united
nation. They say that the entire power
of the nation lay in his hands then,
Such was the night after Chancellor
Vile. Then came the tidal wave from
the southern sea. On, on, through
| Maryland it came. On, on, over the
Mason and Dixon line. On, on, into the
heart of the Keystone state of the union.
Tide after tide, surge upon surge rolled
on against the slopes of the Blue Ridge
as though the rocks of old Pennsylvania
would yield at length. Thence far that
then 1eceded, Many maintain that the
battle of Gettysburg, fought then and
there, settled the war.
Now for the second scene. 1t is again
in Washington. Gen. SIckles is lying
upon the bed, his leg WAS lost in the
second day of that fierce fight at Gettye
burg. And now it Is the 9Th of July.
the day after the victory. President
Lincoln has called upon him. Lin
coln," asks Sickles, were you not rather
anxious about Gettysburg:" NO." an,
swered Lincoln, land | will tell
you why. When you were SO
hard driven ! went into my
room n day and locked the
door and got down on my knees and
prayed nightly for victoly at Gcttys-
burg. | told God that this was His war
and our cause His cause. but that we
couldn't stand another Fredericksburg
or Charlottesville. And | then and
there made IA solemn vow to Almighty
God that if He would stand by our BOYS
at Gettysburg | would stand by Him.
And he did, and | will. And after that
q don't know how it was. can't eX-
plain it,. | felt a sweet comfort that all
would be well. So l had no fears about
YOU
| have taken these two illustrations
from Lincoln: because he more than any
one else believed in law and in liberty.
He believed that ''this government of
the people, by the people and for the
people should not perish from the carth.''
Thirty years ago, the generation then
living saw that this was a land of liberty
as they saw the freedman following you.
The generation here present see that
it is a land OF law. For here you are
seated, not boasting Of your several
states. Not saying: II am a Pennsyl,
vanian," 81 am a Virginian." Bat in oul
Montana homes we claim one common
government, n common law, one com
mon country, one common kin. The
name sweetest of all, the name Of
America.
In a few days you will wend your way
to the city of the Dead and there ye
sons Of Carolina will lay flowers on the
graves of the sons of Ohio; and ye boys
in blue will leave garlands upon the soc
that covers the boys in gray.
The generation living at the close o.
the civil wal saw that this was a land Of
liberty. We see that it is a land of law
But the generation coming as the,
strew flowers on the common green tina
covers both blue and gray will call it {
land of law and of liberty and o.
brotherly love.
Soldiers, there is another war. Better
soldiers than they who wore the blue O,
the gray fight in that warfare. A better
general than Lee or Grant leads tina
host. A more glorious banner than tn,
stars and stripes are seen in that van
guard. And the progress of that arm,