The National tribune., 1899-06-01
) The young man who attends our regi-

mental Reunions Of these later days is
liable 10 think that his father was a war
rior from birth; that the enlisted man, as
well as the commissioned officer, sprang
at once full-armed and disciplined into
the contest. Even the careful student of
history sometimes fails to understand sin
what a forge and what heat" was shaped
and tempered and refined and purified
the Americanism as well as the soldierly
qualities of the enlisted man.
To understand the evolution of the en-
listed man you must realize how, in ad-
dition TO the influences that presided over
his birth, the training OF the years just
prior to the war,
DEVELOPED HIM IN HEART AND LIFE
You must have known him in the East,
in the homes where every freside was
redolent with memories of the Revolution
and the later glOries of 1872; where the
grudging soil, the requirements of the
shop, and the discipline of the school, all
taught him the value and dignity of
labor, and the spirit and habit of appli-
cation; where the discussions OF the town
meeting, 81 the newspaper, and even the
congregational system of the village
church wrought into his soul the con-
viction that every man is equal to every
other man in his right to life. liberty, and
the pursuit Of happiness, and con-
science unfettered.
And you must have known him, after
IL
that new America, where, in the piney
woods or lumber camps of the great North
and Northwest, or on the prairies OF along
the rivers of the great West, building the
village or embryo city, turning the prairie
sod or telling the forests, he was break
ing roads for the march of empire; and
you must have gone with him into the
ventures and experiences of that frontier
and pioneer life.
You must have known him as he at
tended
THE DISTRICT SCHOOL
in the Winter, varying the monot0ny Of
study with evenings Of spelling school or
debate, OF corn huskings or coon hunts.
You must have seen him at wrestling
matches or foot races OF town" ball
games baseball, football, and tennis
were not then known, and bicycles had
not been dreamed Of, or occasional cleo
tion-day "shindyS," as he measured
strength with his neighbor and laid up
for himself a store of muscle and en-
durance that should stand him in gcOi
stead on many long march and in many
a hot encounter; and you must have seen
and noted the effect upon him of the
coming i'll OF that new citizenship from
other lands that brought him the ele-
ments that made up this composite en-
listed man.
FROM GERMANY,
Efle revolution Of 4S sent the men who
Fad learned to love liberty along with
Schurz and Sigel and Asboth and Hecker
and Osterhaus; from Ireland there came
those who had learned their definition of
liberty from Burke and O'Connell and
Emmett, and into whose faith had been
enwrought the love Of American freedom
by Hughes and Ireland and Gibbons and
Sheridan and kearny and Mulligan. The
land Of Mcpherson and Macarthur sent its
rugged hatred of tyranny, while the ma
tient and mild-eyed Scandinavian
brought with him tales Of the hammer of
Thor and the fresh breath of the sea,
which was always the breath Of liberty
the weekly newspaper penetrated 10 his
home. The daily had not been heard oi
in his locality.
In these and other publications came
discussions OF the slavery question in its
various phases, commencing in 1850 with
the question of returning 10 their owners
fugitive or escaped slaves who had fled
10 the Northern States, increasing i'm in
tensity with the passage of the Kansas
Nebraska bill and the repeal of the Mis-
souri Compromise in 1854, and reaching
white heat in 1858, when Lincoln and
Seward startled the country by laying
down the doctrine of an ''irrepressible
conflict" between freedom and slavery
and declaring that this Government
could not permanently endure half slave
and half speaking i'll words thai
now read as much like prophcsy as the
visions Uf Daniel or Isaiah, but were then
denounced by many honest men as fire.
brands Of disunion.
Though keeping his ears wide open tG
these discussions, and often taking pari
in them, the boy of 1861 did not believe
they would lead 10 armed strife He heard
the threats that occasionally came uI
from the Southland, but he remembered