The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1896-06-25
A JULY 4TH SPEECH.

armies of the Tennessee and the Cum
berland had just passed through the
campaign that followed the occupancy
of Nashville by the union forces;
Buell's army it was that made forced
march of ten days from Nashville TO
Pittsburgh Landing, the last 81 hours
of which had been "double-quick" a
great portion of the time, much of it
through rain and mud, and the last
IL hours in the night, with the mud
and rain accompaniment. to the field
Of Shiloh, there to relieve Grants
stricken troops and to retrieve the first
days disaster.
Through that bloody field and the
evils that followed it-mud, cold, hun
ger-the most terrible deprivations
and discomforts, indeed, known to
soldier-life in times of war, came the
siege and capture of Corinth, the bat
tie of Iuka Springs, the march to De-
catur and Tuscumbia, and then
on toward Huntsville. 1t was within
few miles of the last named place
that the army lay encamped, in the
early days of July, and in level val
ley, where there were wide stretches
of plain and here and there forests of
towering live-oak.
Here the Fourth of July was cele-
brated in almost a homelike way.
A stand was erected beneath the
trees, and seats were improvised of
logs and of poles laid across wooden
forks driven into the ground. The
stand was arbored with boughs of
green, and "Old Glory" was tastefully
woven among them.
The orator of the day was a young
brigadier named Garfield, and his
voice with patriotic eloquence, rang
out over the vast audience of bronzed
soldiers like silver bell. He said
such things that brought only such
cheering as one hears in any army.
1t was sincere, wholesome and enthu-
siastic.
There is well-known old story of
those times, in those armies, that a
visiting governor of state while rid
ing along with a general of division,
hearing wild and prolonged cheer in
the distance, asked what it meant.
"Only Rousseau or a rabbit" was
the laconic reply.
Such was the popularity of Gen.
Rousseau, of Kentucky, in that army,
and SO gallant and chivalrous his sp-
pearance, that wherever he rode
among troops that we're not constantly
with him long and succeeding cheers
followed him down the lines.
When upon going into camp at any
time rabbit, or ever so many rabbits,
we're started from their hiding places,
the soldiers, cheering as if they were
making charge, would chase Mr..
Rabbit by battalions, until often that
proverbial sage and strategist of the
animals would stop, overwhelmed by
fright, and allow himself to be picked
up, just as "Brer Fox" took him from
the sticky embrace of the "Tar Baby"
This explains the division generals
reply to the governor as to Rousseau
or a rabbit"
The applause during Garfeld's
Fourth of July Grafton was such cheers
as those for Rousseau and the rabbit,
blended, with an extra volume thrown
in, and those cheers seemed to follow
him, as they did Rousseau and the
rabbit, wherever he appeared during
the remainder of his stay in the army.
Private Brock of the Kentucky ia
fantry, had been generally considered
a difident man by his comrades; one
who would rather face a battery of
artillery that was throwing chain-shot
and sharpnel from short range than
to approach woman or a great man.
But Gen. Garield's Fourth of July
speech enthused Brock to such a de-
gree that he threw off all trammels of
restraint, and, watching his opportun-
ity, approached the orator-general at
his first opportunity, when the latter
had descended from the stand, to offer
his congratulations in his own Private
Brock way.
The young brigadier was about to
mount, his spirited charger to ride to
his own camp, when the FESTIVE animal
gave a leap, startled by the
sudden bursting forth of the blasts