St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1898-08-03
PASSING OF THE G. A, R.
copyright. 1898, by American Press Assc
olotian


the first week in September would need
to discard many of the cherished fea-
lures of their time honored order before
admitting to membership the veterans
of the Spanish war. The watchwords
adopted in 1866 were fraternity, char
ity, loyalty. They stand for virtues APP
pealing especially to old soldiers then
and still appealing strongly to their rev.
erence. Constitutional restrictions might
be swept away, but traditions are not
easily blotted out.
There is not now, there never has
been in the history of nations and of
war, another such body as the Grand
Army of the Republic. A peculiar, a
thrilling, vital, domestic crisis called
it into being. How can its mantle fall
upon men whose souls never have been
stirred by like impulses and emotions
with those who conceived and founded
an institution wholly unique in the an
nails of time?
Besides, the Grand Army of the Re-
public is as exclusive in its way as the
Society Of the Cincinnati, the Loyal
legion or the Sons of the Revolution.
True, it stands ON broader basis in
some important respects, but there is
limit to eligibility fixed by its very ma
ture. Its membership is restricted to
honorably discharged soldiers and sail
ors who were mustered into the United
States forces between April, 1861, and
April, 1865 There are numerous rea-
sons why the idea which inspired the
veteran to form this order in 1866 can
not extend to veterans who have grown
up since the war. There was need for
fraternal unity and action in the years
Immediately following the war, when
the character of the G. A. r. as it now
exists was developed. There was need,
and great need, Of answering fidelity to
the national idea, then something al
most new. There was dire need of
great work of charity among the dis
tressed survivors of the nations de-
tenders, their dependents and orphans
The veterans of the G. A. r. inculcated
through years of toll the high ideal of
patriotic duty which has borne fruit in
the army of today. Those planted and
watered, these enjoy the harvest. There
is kinship, but not an affinity. The
Grand Army stands alone has always
stood alone, and alone it must stand I'M
til it passes out by crossing to the eter-
nal camping grounds, where all who
have fought under the flag of the repub-
lie shall be one in the sight of the great
Commander.
The argument which defeated the
purpose of uniting the sons of veterans
into full membership with the G. A. R.
was that it would be wrong to share the
glory attaching to the veterans of 1S6l5
with those who had no part whatever
in winning that glory. 1t is like scat
tering patrimony outside the circle of
kin morally entitled to share its bene-
fits. The mantle of the army of the re-
public descended to the surviving veter-
ans May it pass to other shoulders?
Tie age of wonders has not ceased.
America may yet put into the field an
army destined to be greater in achieve
ment, in nobility, in moral grandeur,
than the host of 1861, but it can never
muster its counterpart, born in like
crisis, tried in like emergencies, temp
cred in the same terrible fire.
Again, while it is too early to CLASH.
fly the fighting of this war it must be
stated that it will have to exceed in
severity that of all other wars in the
nineteenth century in order that the
boys of today shall come out with bat
tie records worthy to be inscribed beside
those of the graybeards now looking on.
1t proved herculean task these vet
Grams went about in the days when
their hearts were light with the flow of
fresh young blood-campaigns the
severest known to modern warfare, bat
ties the bloodiest and most desperate of
the century, hardships which all the
gold that was ever mined couldn t tempt
men to endure, not even in this age of
boosted physical hardihood
Take the era beginning with Napo-
Icons renowned exploits and ending
with the Franco russian war. There
were IA notable battles in this period
where the loss exceeded 10 per cent of
the total number present on the field:
l. Eylau, 1907, Russians and French,
loss 26 per cent
2. Stone River (Murfreesboro), 1852,
loss 23 x per cent.
3. Msrengo, 1900, Austrians and
French, loss 23 per cent.
4. Chickamauga, 1868, loss 81 per
cent.
5. Antietam, 1862, loss 81 per cent.
6. Leipsic, 1918, allies and French,
loss q per cent.
7. Gettysburg, 1868, loss 90 per cent.
s. Shiloh, 1862, loss 90 per cent.
8. Lundy's Lane, 1914, loss 10 per
cent
10. Mars.la-Tour, 1870, loss 10 per
cent.
IL, Waterloo, 1915, loss IA per cent
IL Woerth, 1870, loss IA per cent.
IL. Solferino, 1859, French and Aus
TRANS, loss ~ per cent.
IA. Sadowa, 1866, Prussians and
Austrians, loss IL per cent.
OF these battles Eylau, Marengo,
Leipsic, Lundy's Lane and Waterloo
were fought with smoothbore, flint
lock muskets; Stone River, Chicka
manga, Antietam, Gettysburg, Shiloh
and Solferino with rifed barrels ant