The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-15
THE OLD MEN AND THEIR FLAGS.

southern portals OF the Statehouse a spec
tacle such as the world has never seen
and such as this country will never see
again. Thirty-seven years ago regiments
Of men by the score returned 10 Indiana
In the glory OF early manhood and in the
proved assurance OF victory. bringing back
TO the immortal Morton the standards,
battered and torn and hanging in rags"
with which he had sent them forth TO do
and If need be die for a nations life.
Thousands brought the flags back; this
morning small bands of old men will take
those old flags forth for the last time
through the streets to the soldiers and
sailors onume March. did you say?
No; few OF them can step the time of the
Knightstown band. The same ravager.
Time, which has eaten the life out of the
old flags which once waved defiance amidst
the smoke Of battle so that they must be
bound TO their staffs-the same ravager has
robbed the once proud and alert bearers Of
these remnant standards of vitality and
elasticity. But IL the generation of to-day
that will see the old men and their flags
could have seen them when some of them
helped to fill Pennsylvania avenue in the
Nations capital that May day of 1865 in
the grand review could they have looked
from the veranda Of the treasury building
east and beheld the long. confident stride
and the rhythmic swaying of bayonets right
and left, they would have seen the finest
marching the world ever saw. To-day
those men cannot march, but God pity
the soulless observer who can look upon
the old men and their flags and not be
touched with the memories they should
summon. 1t were a measureless calamity
to be an American and not be able to see
in that small body of old men and their
forever furled flags the grandest spectacle
that the country has ever seen. In the
light of history and in the glory Of achieve
ment all other parades. it matters not how
gorgeous. pale to insignifcance because it
is the notable remnant of an army Of 2OO.-
coo men, who, in the pame.of Indiana, went
forth to save a nation from destruction.
To-day Indiana is a splendid common
wealth, fit to be the population center Of
a mighty nation; remember, to-day and
every day, that but for those whom this
remnant with the old flags represent. In
diana would in /all probability be a dis
tracted border State in one of the small
republics made up of the remnants OF a
shattered Union.
In the mart money is said to talk; but in
the presence of the remnant Of the man.
hood which kept us a nation, cemented in
blood a great Union and made Indiana the
life-center of a vast people, mere wealth
and its representatives sink into insignifi-
canoe and valor is the priceless jewel.
Newspapers are filled with the projects of
multi-miIlionaires to develop the resources
of the country; but for the old men who
will pass along your streets this morning
with their rags of flags there would have
been no country to develop. Mere senti-
ment, did you say? Inflated the people
who cannot point to a record filled with
the deeds of heroic men in some great
struggle for a great cause. Mere pathos
that to-day the hearts of thousands who
view the old men and their flags will be
deeply moved and eyes will fill with tears?
Blessed and thrice blessed the land whose
people have such precious mementoes to
nourish national lifel
Let loose the imagination, n that nota-
BILE remnant which passes for the last
time becomes a vast host of 100000 men.
filing every street in the city from curb
to curb. Sound the reveille that there may
come forth from unknown raves the sons
of Indiana whose lives went out on every
bloody field fought for the Union-for not
one was fought on which they were not
present to contribute a full share of valor
and life. 1t would be unfair to name a
few regiments, and there were too many to
name all. There was no critical period in
which Indiana soldiers were not conspicu-
Gus; in the final charge, under Grants or
der of unconditional surrender, they were
conspicuous; at bloody Stones River their
losses were among the largest: at critical
Champion Hill the division of Hovey and
the brigades of McGinnis and Slack turned
the tide of battle with Hoosier regiments,
the Eleventh being the victim of it's valor;
the Seventy-ninth and the Eighty-sixth In
0AaAA oAa0A NAC 6oAAnhN ANhCACAg A0Q NhC
scramble DIP the steep sides of Missionary
Ridge; 1t was a handful OF men Of Hunters
! E~ighty-second that became the nucleus of
the few thousand that withstoed Long
streets charges on Snodgrass Hill at Chick
amauga, and saved the rear and right flank
of Thomas; 1t was its timely and gallant
attack at Gettysburg which caused General
In - Il -A-cc serrv- me- -
hats TO the Twenty-seventh Indiana!" Do
you look for instances of high personal
courage? There are enough of them; but
what filter figure to place in the GALAXY
OF the worlds heroes than Colonel John
Coons, enveloped in the counter-charge of
Spottsylvania's bloody ANGLE sitting I'M
moved on his horse, firing his revolver into
the faces of the foe swarming about him
until he fell dead, pierced by a dozen bull
let's?
May one not express the belief that all
those thousands of gallant souls whose
ashes rest on hundreds of battlefelds. who
died Of disease during the war-all those
who have since died. and the thousands Of
feeble survivors scattered in humble homes
all over the land but unable to be here to-
day-an invisible but potential host-win
march with the living remnant. thrilling its