Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1895-10-21
COMMUNICATED.
marching Through Georgia"


the White House, Washington paper
says in its report
"Mr. Cleveland was asked if he had
any objection to the party singing him
one of their favorite songs. He replied
that he should be charmed to hear it,
and without more ado the chorus lifted
up their voices in the ringing strains Of
Marching Through Georgia. At the
end the President laughed heartily and
said he appreciated the song and the
sentiment that prompted it. He was
going in short time to make a trip
through the South, he said, and he was
glad to have heard the song before he
started, as it would remain in his men,
ory throughout the journey as on in
spiration from the brave hearts and
| hands that had joined in preserving the
integrity of the greatest single empire
of the world"
This country, thank God, is not an
empire" but constitutional republic,
though it is easy to see how in the
breast of vulgar despot the wish to
have it an empire would be father to
the thought and thus cause slip of the
tongue.
Why should Mr.. Cleveland need to
hear war song chanted in order to re-
call the sad memories OF 1S64-5? He
was born in March 1887 and was, there
fore, over twenty-four years of age
when the shock of battle came
in 1861. He was just in the
snripp time of life when MANY thou
sands of young men in both
sections were rushing to the front
to peril their lives for their
convictions, or to crafty their ar
der for martial fame. Mr.. Cleveland
seems not to have felt this generous
flame. If he felt it in any degree he re-
pressed it sternly. No idea of duty,
sacrifice, civil service reform or self
conservation sufficed to bring him with
in the range of the bullets. He did
not even join the home guards or help
to guard nalf-starved Confederate pris-
oners. But do not desire to do this
once young and lusty man any injus-
tice. There is tradition that he was
drafted and that he promptly put in a
substitute. If it could be established
that this substitute was killed it might
then be assumed logically that Mr..
| Cleveland had died for his section by
proxy. Qnod tacit per alum facit per
Sc. History may be silent touching
Mr.. Cleveland's martial achievements,
but its page is vivid with the "March
through Georgia" A brave people
contesting for their liberties and con-
stitutional rights, for their homes and
fresides, had through four long years
of bloody war maintained themselves
against odds of four TO one in
numbers, and even ten to one in ma
terial of war, and had repulsed and de-
feated armies recruited with Hessians
from two hemispheres. But while
winning imperishable glory they had
not won the fight for independ-
ence. Constant marching and fight
ing, disease and privations had
wasted their ranks. Additional rein
forcements could not be had. Fresh
levies were impossible. What Grant
said of the Confederate government,
namely, that they had robbed the era
die and the grave" ftly expresses the
generous and almost unanimous devo-
ton of the southern people to sacred
cause and the terrible exhaustion of
their resources. Sherman's official re-
port tells the story how his great army
of about one hundred thousand men was
kept up by steady, continuous rein
forcements to that number, and all of
us know that Johnston's losses in bat.
tie could not be made good. And thus
it happened that after many battles
which Mr.. Cleveland did not have the
opportunity to witness, Sherman
reached Atlanta and next marched to
the sea.
But this was much more than mere
march to the sea. 1t was march with
out pity or restraints. There was the
lighting up of the sky each night with
the flames of burning towns and vii
lagos; the devastation of the country as
far as brutality and power could reach;
the ruin and pillage of once happy
and joyous homes; the robbing of non
combatants; the insults to unprotected
women and the aged; the repetition of
the savagery of the Free Companions
or the vandals of formerage. There
was the deliberate burning by military
order of the entire city of Atlanta, with
forty thousand people and full of i'm
poverished, helpless refugees, and the
public denunciation by Sherman of the
ladies of Atlanta asl "she devils. :"
This and far more is what marching
through Georgia meant. 1t meant q
hell for the conquered. 1t is
not a page of American history
over which any honorable mind
should gloat and chuckle at this day.
1t were better, if possible, to draw a
| veil over these deeds of shame. Ar
American President would be far better
employed in studying the methods of
building up and restoring conquered
section than in reviving the memories
of period of agony, humiliation, con-
quest and crime.
Mr.. Cleveland goes to Atlanta by the
invitation of a generous, hospitable and
forgiving people. Long, long ago at a
time when he was utterly unknown
outside Of his own city the people of
the South accepted with frsnkness all
the losses of the war and addressed