The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-05-15

| And thou SefeneSt moon UhaV WIN sucH
holy face
| Looks down upon the earth asleep i'll
nights embrace.
! Dost thou not know some spot some |
refuge for the blest
| Where free from toll and pain the weary |
soul may rest
Behind cloud she hid her face in woe
And in a sad sweet voice she whispered
no. "
| One great philosopher declared thatl
war was the state Of nature. Another
| said that peace was only a breathing
| time that gives men leisure to contrlve
an ability to execute military plans. SIR
Edmund Burke denies this. and so do !.
! The great majority of mankind l0VeI
| peace and naturally prefer it to war.
Burke said that politics was the cause of
war and somebody else said that war
| is hell, and we see already that the two
great parties are Quarreling about this
war and each is claiming the glory OF
! Dewey's victory as party triumph.
! but if the voices of the peOple-the men
and the wOmen-cOuld have been heard,
| there would have been no war. The splr-
! it Of the age in which we live is against
war. Even duelng and single combat
| has passed. away under the influence of
! higher Christian civilization. Boys
| do not fight at school like they used
! to. They have never heard of the bully
! boys who thought it smart to put chip
| on the hat and dare anybody
| to knock it off. In every
| school there were these buldOzing.
domineering boys and they got licked
sooner or later. The country people dol
not care to fight nowadays. They are
more peaceable and less aggressive. /
remember when on muster days there
were dozen fights in one day right
| around the public square. When Ais
! Bowls and Nick Rawlins and Jim Rob
inson would be stripped to the waist
and walking around and strutting and
| growing and Dragging, I'm the best man
| in Pinkneyville deestrikt' and BOWleS
would emphasize il with q jump and II
| crow But that has passed away. WEI
! see no manned eyes or ears or noses
now. And yet Nick Rawlins and Bowles
were really good men at heart and would
have died in defense of friend. They
| fought because it was the fashion in
those days, but their victories brought NO
rewards and no premiums. and their
| children knew il. They are better
| class of citizens. / met one Of Nick's
| sons in Rome not long agO-a moral,
| peaceabie. Christian man whom the peo-
pie all respect Well, now. the argument
/ is that if the sons are better morally
than their fathers were. then the nation
is better and less aggressive than it was
fifty years ago Andrew Jackson was q
type of that age. and he rode into the
| Presidency on his war record. but he
couldn't do it now. He bulldozed Spain
out Of Florida. and would have bull
dOzed England out of Canada If he had
lived IN that way.
But | was looking heavenward last
night and bordering on that beautiful
moon that is shining SO peacefully upon
us in this favored region, and / was
grateful that the war nor any of It's
signs had reached us We read of itI
in the great papers and cant help but
rejoice in our naval victories The great
dailies are crowded now with thrilling
! exciting news and we read so eagerly
1 that even Old Aunt Lydia Pinkham
medicine is taken for a war dispatch and
is half read before we know it, | reckon
it is good for feyer-war fever-Or It
wouldn't be dovetailed so close into the
war news. But nobody around here
seems to be laundering after Il fight, and
a good old veterans widow told me that
the reason was because we were right
in the heart of Sherman's belt and the
| population hasn't changed any to speak
| Of we can't forget the horrors Of
war" she said. Il was living in Cass-
| vile when it was burned and ] don't
want TO see any more war and l want
my children to keep out of it. A bad
peace is better than good war if there
ever was such thing. War is like
! Texas mud on women. 1t is awful Men
get the glory and women and children
are the greatest sufferers When they
| burnt Cassville our husbands and sons
were most all in the army, and those
| who were ut home were taken prisoners
and sent away. So there was nobody
/ left but women and children and no
houses 10 live in. We punched uD i'm
some little shanties, but they took our
| COWS and drove them all to Gainesville
and we didn't have hardly anything to \
! live on. Five of us went to Gainesville
next day to beg for our cows and we did
| get them back by signing some loyalty
papers which was a lie One widow wo-
man whose husband was killed wouldnt |
sign. She had four little children and
! she took them to the graveyard that
! night and they slept on the ground by her
! husbands grave. In day or two we
| got little corn and | rode an old sore
leg mare twenty miles to the nearest
mil, for they burnt all the mills inside
the belt. In few days we got little
more corn and three of us women rugged
up an old broken wheel wagon and got
| a lame mule and an old mare and took !
our corn to mill. 1t took us nearly three |
. days to make the trip for the wagon
/ broke down right in the creek and we
| had to wade in and get our sacks ou'
of the water and pull the wagon out by |
hand We patched it up again and went
on till we got to pretty steep hill and |
| the team stalled and wouldn't pull at all. |
| You ought to have heard us clucking and
hollerin at them. but it was no 60 We
shouldered our little sacks, for they were
mighty little. thank the Lord and about |
that time an old man came along and he |
helped us all he could and we got to the
/ mill at last and dried our corn and got
| back home as thankful as possible. You
would have died laughing at us if you
had seen us getting our corn out of that
| creek"
I