The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-02-14
ONE HUNDRED A DAY.

The veteran Union soldiers are dying at
the rate of one hundred a day. That is
what statistics of the Grand Army and of
the pension office show. Away back i'm the
days when the battles were being fought
the news that in any days engagement one
hundred men had given up their lives would
have pierced the hearts of waiting millions,
would have deepened the gloom that over
hung the land. In many battles thousands
rather than hundreds were the victims, but
days and weeks, even months. elapsed be-
fore the record of the dead was heightened.
1t was not every day in the fiercest bit
terest, bloodiest days of the war that
hundred men fell from the ranks, with
their pulses stilled forever. Those who did
die then were mourned, not alone by their
own mothers and sisters and sweethearts
sitting in their lonely homes. but by the
sympathetic heart Of the Nation. They
ranked heroes, martyrs, men
worthy Of all honor. They had given up
homes and the pursuits of peace for their
country's sake; they had lost their lives.
and in losing won everlasting fame. But of
the two millions of men enlisted vast
number escaped the bullets of the enemy,
the bursting Shells the starvation prison
camps and the scarcely less fatal hardships
of field life They came home and took up
individual life again. but not where they
had laid it down-oh no; the threads had
been broken that connected these returned
soldiers with their former existence. Col
lege boys. many of them. when they went,
they were out of the range of schools in the
maturity of experience If not of years.
when they returned. The war had made
them men by the forcing process. They
took up their old life as best they could
after the absence and the changes of years
and with the lack of the preparation and
training which the years at home would
have given them. They labored under GER
tain disadvantages at first on account of
this lack. but the soldierly qualities they
had gained as compensation carried them
through and they have made good citizens
in peace as was to be expected of men who
were equal to their duty in great emery
ency. They have served their country and
their fellow-creatures wei! in whatever ca
pacity they have been tried, but through
all the years since the war the soldier spirit
in them has been discernible. Whatever
may have happened in the third of "A CEN
fury since, those four years were the
greatest of their lives. They were young
then and impressible; those years were a
time of stress and struggle and great emo
ton, and the mark set on their souls was
indeible. The youngest of the men who
fought in the war are no longer young. but
still the war is vivid to them, while to the
eager. thoughtless. hurrying multitude
which looked OH then or has come up since
IL is but fading memory or a vague far
| off event whose Importance is little con-
sidered.
And these soldiers are dying. one hundred
day, They are coming 10 the fullness of
tirae. and the lives which they risked so
| freely in their youth are passing now in
natures gentle way. They were patriots
when they enlisted they were heroes when
! they went bravely into the tnck of battle:
| they were no less deserving of honor and
praise than these to whom death befell on
the field. Ii was the fortune of war, mere
chance. that caused one to be taken. the
other. fighting by his side. TO be saved.
They are going swiftly now, and the time
| in which to show them appreciation and
| honor Is but short. They are going, and
| as they go the war comes close TO them
the lifetime since fades away. and they
live over again those years that set seal
upon them AZ they pass on. one hundred