The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-31

oraDle part Upon their banners are in
Garrick's Ford to Five Forks. Antietam,
Fredericksburg, Gettysburg Pittsourg
Landing, Stone River, Chiekamauga, Mis-
blood of Indiana soldiers They were with
sheridan when he wrenehed victory from
defeat on the wondrous field of Winchester;
Iney were with Meade when he rolled back
the Southern tide at Gettysburg; they
fought with Hooker the battle among the
clouds; they marched with Sherman to the
sea; they hewed their way with Grant
through that awful Wilderness. Wherever
the battle ragged most fierce, in the CLEAN
OF bayonetS, the flash of musketry the
bursting of shells. the roar of artillery. the
soldiers of Indiana were amongst the fore
most and the bravest.
we can hardly estimate what the Nation
gained by it's success in that war. Travel
from Maine to Texas, from New York to
California; vast region of boundless re-
ribbed with lofty mountains and ploughed
by mighty rivers-and you travel. not
through a succession of Insignificant and
hostile States, but through one country, I'M
der one government and one flag. And in
all this land all men are free. No slaves
ere here; no kings nor mobiles; no tyranny
of lawless rulers; no royal roads to fame
and fortune; a land where the road is open
and where every American of however hum
bic birth may travel upon it.
THE PRESENT WAR.
ut would be inappropriate upon this oc-
casion either to omit entirely all mention
of the present war, or to enter into any
extended discussion of it. The great body
of the American people have said that we
had just cause for beginning it, and we need
have no fear that this or future generations
of Americans will ever reverse that verdict.
We have passed the time for arbitration,
If there ever was time when it was proper
to arbitrate murder, and we are now in the
midst of a war, all the results of which no
man can foresee. That it will cost much
money no one doubts, but a nation cannot,
any more than an individual, weigh honor
and justice in the scales against money.
1t may cost many lives; so do all wars, but
a man can offer his life in 70 better { iuse
than in the just defense of his country Ing
land never stopped to count the cost in
money or in life when she sent her armies
into the heart of Abyssina to rescue a few
Englishmen who were in prison there
A war such as we are now prosecuting
develops patriotism, and loyalty, and hero
ism, and courage, and fortitude-the highest
of manly qualities. and this is worth a great
deal to nation The nations whose people
have these qualities in the highest degree
are the ones which have done the most for
civilization. 1t will be worth something to
us as a nation to demonstrate to other ma
tions that our ships cannot be blown up in
their harbors with impunity. 1t will be
worth q great deal to us if, when this war
is over, we can feel assured that the Amer
lean flag. on whatever land or sea 1t floats,
y.
to send its armies and its fleets to the re-
hottest corners of the earth to protect its
citizens in their lives, their liberty and their
rights. Then, indeed, the words i am an
American will have a meaning such as the
words L am a Roman citizen had in the
days when Rome was at the height of her
glory and her power.
RESULTS so FAR.
1.-THE present war has already produced
some results, the Importance of which must
Ao ic he ms
victory of Admiral Dewey at Manila-mSre
wonderful even than the poetic fables of
the siege of Troy 1t proves to us and
proves to the world that we have not degen-
Grated into nation of mere money-getters,
and that we are still capable of producing
on American soil heroes worthy to rank
with the heroes of any age or any coun-
try. 1t is worth something not only to us,
but to the whole Anglo-Saxon race, to.
know that the blood of the men who fought
at Agincourt and Waterloo. and Balakava.
and Trafalgar, has not run out, but courses
yet in the veins of Americans.
Another result has already been accom-
plished by this war that is of inestimable
value. 1t has welded together the people OF
this Union as they have not been since the
days of the revolution. 1t has completed the
reconstruction of the North as we'll as the
South and wiped off the map forever Mason
and Dixon'S line. A new nation has sprung
up out of the old one, like some beautiful
flower out of an old and ,withered seed,
and / imagine that if the dead heroes on
both sides could rise up out of their graves.
they would unite with the living in saying:
Let us clasp hands across the bloody
chaSm: we are brothers now, and, let us
hope. henceforth and forever. In this war
we will fight, as our forefathers fought, for
a common country. AS for myself, / bear
a Confederate bullet. But long before this
war ! felt that / could grasp the hand
of the man who fired it and say: Come now
let us stand together. not for my Union
not for your Union but for our Union, the
Union of our fathers. We all feel that SEN
timent now. The sentiment of every man
in every State now is that this is my own,
my native land Therefore I rejoiced in my
heart that the last American consul general
in Cuba was Virginian, an ex-Confederate
soldier, and that he bore the historic name
of Lee rejoiced that the man who had
once fought against his country's flag was
now foremost in uphoding It, l rejoiced that
he was the chosen representative, not of
Virginia and few Southern States, not of
half but of the whole United States, of a
great nation extending from the. st. Law
Atlantic to the Pacific. / rejoiced again
when he was selected as one of the generals
to lead the armies of the United States.
MORE CAUSE FOR REJOICING.
81 rejoiced again when j heard that the
troops We're to rendezvous at Chickamauga
Park. It is not likely that any man, Union
or Confederate, who fought at Chickamauga
will ever forget that historic battlefield.
Even now l seem to hear again the awful
roar of musketry. Even now / see surging
about the place where some of the Indiana
troops are now camping the opposing lines
of battle. l see the columns of General
Longstreet waving the Confederate stars
and bars and charging the Union lines /
see men going down like leaves in autumn
until the ground is thickly strewn with
dead and dying. stand again on an historic
ments of the Twentieth and Twenty-first
Army Corps. Again and again the Confeder-
ateSg charge; again and again they are re-
pulsed. Our numbers are growing smaller:
we have no artillery: we are almost out of
ammunition; we are nearly surrounded; my
heart SINKS, for it seems as though all were
lost. But all is not lost. At the last mo-
ment Whittakers and MitchelIs brigades
wheel into line and stem the tide. All is not
quite lost, for General George H. Thomas,
the nero of heroes, Is left His columns
stand as the Spartans stood at the pass
of Thermopylae; as the old guard stood at
waterloo; stand like granite cliffs, against
which the Confederate pillows beat in vain
the Army of the Cumberland is defeated
put 1t Is saved from utter destruction More
than a third of century has passed and
yet the dreadful panorama that memory
calls up to-day is almost as vivid as il
the cannon were again laundering i'm our
ears ana the actors in the bloody conflict
were again before us in battle array.
Not Tar from the battlefield of Chicka-
see Lookout Noun tain and far up its steep
sides / see Fighting Joe Hooker and his
men, and the smoke of their guns minging
with the clouds above them.