Milford chronicle., 1902-06-06

Dr. five children at her back! Today we
honor the dead soldiers who wore the
blue and the gray. We ought also
to honor the wives and mothers, the
sweethearts and the sisters, who were
willing to give those soldiers as sac
rifce, as well as the heroes who were
willing to die.
To show what the women at home
had to suffer l want to read what is
the saddest letter ever penned
by mortal hand. 1t was written by
Abraham Lincoln to a humble woman
who lived in Massachusetts. Many
such letters could have been written
to other women. north and south, who
were called upon to suffer in the same
way and perhaps to make equally great
sacrifices:
Dear Madam have been shown IN the
files of the war department a statement
of the adjutant general OF Massachusetts
that you are the mother of five sons who
have died gloriously upon the field Of bat
tie. I feel how weak and fruitless must
be any words of mine which should at
tempt to beguile you from loss so over
whelming but / cannot refrain from ten
uGtllb ~ you lllt tblSOldllOAl AlldA may DC
found in the thanks Of the republic they
died to save. l pray that our Heavenly
Father may assuage the anguish of your
bereavement and leave you only the cher
ished memory Of the loved and the lost,
the solemn pride that must be yours to
have laid so costly c sacrifice upon the
altar of freedom. Yours very sincerely
and respectfully,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
But, though the noble women Of the
north and south may have suffered
greatly, yet by their very sufferings
God was able to heal the wounds, the
bleeding wounds, Of this nation. The
breaking hearts of the north reached
out toward the breaking hearts Of the
south, and they found that in their
troubles they were sisters. Some Of
the bereft mothers had sons fighting in
both armies. As such a mother sat in
her family plot between the two graves
between the grave Of her boy in blue
and that of her boy in gray-she prayed
that the past civil strife might be for
ever buried. She pleaded with earnest
prayer because her boys who died had
come from the same cradle and had
looked up into the eyes Of the same
mother
When Bunker monument was being
dedicated, the crowd was so great that
by the pressing and pushing a panic
was threatened. The presiding officer
tried in vain to still the tumult. Then
the orator of the day arose, and Daniel
Webster's deep voice called out, "Stand
back" Some Of the people cried, at is
impossible to stand backw Then Web
ster's flashing eye swept over the null
titude as he answered: Don't use that
word impossible in a place like this
Nothing is impossible at Bunker hill
Some pessimists said that the bitter
ness of the civil war would never end
But, as Daniel Webster said in ref
erence to Bunker hill, so nothing was
impossible in the suffering presence OF
broken hearted American womanhOod
Their common griefs and sorrows for
ever forbade men to revive the horrors
Of our civil strife.
Our COnsecrated Homes.
The dead Of our American battle
fields are intensely alive today because
they have proved that the strength o.
this country is to be found in the multi
tudes of its cOnsecrated homes and NO
in the size of its standing armies. Whel
the civil war broke out, there were no
enrolled upon the muster of the wa
department more than $4,000 men. TIT
traveller could go up and down tn
length and breadth of the land withou
seeing an American soldier in uniform
except in a few forts built for prOtec
ton against the Indians and in place.
like Governors island and Fort Sum
ter. All Europe was shaking under tn
tramp Of the martial hosts which wer
marshaIed upon every frontier: yet II
| America there were not enough soldier
to make respectable looking nationa
awkward squad. But no sooner CT
the bugle blast of war sound than tn
volunteers came from everywhere
They came from the pine woods o
Maine and the Louisiana plantations
from among the California flowers an
the Alabama cOttonfelds. from the Da
kota prairies and the Mississippi fiat
boats, from the Pennsylvania mine
and the South Carolina tobacco faC
tories. They came by the tens of thor
sands. They came by the hundreds @
thousands. They came by the million
They came to prove for all time tina
for this country, at least, there is Il
need of a great standing army.
When war breaks out, a nation has 1
use the ships which it has constructe
in times of peace. 1t takes years I
build floating fighting machine Bl
what have said is true in reference
standing army. This country, whic
n few months could produce we
disciplined armies, as the army of til
south and the army of the north, doe
not need. save in times Of war, to ca
the keenest brains, the strongest arm
, and the brawniest bodies from the av,
cations of peace and have the natio
, grOaning under the weight of usele.
, taxation. 1t does not need to have few
er merchants, fewer schOOlteacher
, fewer lawyers and ministers and m
chanics and farmers in order to hay
, more privates and lieutenants and ca
tains and majors and colonies and ge
i, erals. If we have the right kind
o homes, there will be officers and pl
. Yates ready to protect the country fro
p a foreign foe whenever they are needle
1 And what kind of fighting men d
n these volunteers make? The very be
+ the world has ever seen! When t
q American civil war opened, the Eur
a pean mOnarchies looked upon it as
f war of mobs. These foreign natio
supposed it to be a disorganized ma.
q, But when the civil war was over Al
~ Count Won Moltke, the great Germ
=, strategist, the general who brought
a successful issue the AustrO- Prussi
:. war in 1866 and the Franco-Germ
: war of 1871. studied the campaign
y the south he said: THE American W
= was not collection of struggling py
mics. 1t was a war Of giants"
+. Deeds of HeroIsm.
IL An American never fights as well
n when he is a civilian, taken out of I
o. ordinary walks of life, to fight for I
defense of his own home and nat
land. Where in all the pages of /
q. tory can you find greater deeds Of b
10 Oism than those exhibited in the sou
ps ern army? The reason 1 use this
70 an illustration is because the south,
,e army, being the defeated army, had
nj suffer more. That army fought III
m it could fight no more. The Conf
Of crate soldiers fought until they had
m shoes upon their feet; they fought WI
N. they had no food in their stomaC
ts they fought until their clothes were
he tatters, and the southern ladies had
Mt tear up their dresses to bandage