Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1902-10-17
A VANISHING ARMY.
Columns of Our Brave Citizen Sol
diery Are Serried.
Thoughts Suggested by the Grand
Army Encnmpmcnt mt WASH
tnEton-wnr Songs Stlll
Move the Multitude.
Especial Washington Letter.I


" earth are the serried columns of
citizen soldiers whose cam
paigns and battles shook the world 40
years ago, and whose victories settled
for all mankind and for all time that
one man shall not eat his bread in the
sweat of another mans face.
Regiment after regiment has disap-
peared over the brow of the hill of time.
During these recent years they have
been going into the impenetrable be-
yond, brigade after brigade, every
year. Now they are going by divisions,
and soon whole army corps will annual
ly disappear until all of them are gone.
The feeble remnants of those power
full masses of men are here now in
their last reunion at the national cap
ital, and they are numerous enough to
establish headquarters for the Army
of the Potomac, the Army of the
James, the Army of the Middle Military
division, the Army of West Virginia,
the Army of Ohio, the Army of the
Cumberland the Army of the Tennes-
see, and the Army of the Gulf: but this
is the last time on earth that they can
do so, for in another decade, or half Of
that time, they will have gone forth
clothed with the benedictions of an
emancipated race and the benizons of
the land of the free whose perpetuity
they preserved.
Ten years ago they gathered here.
The average age of the veterans then
was so years. Still sturdy and strong
they presented a grand appearance,
did the Grand Army of the Republic,
when they paraded Pennsylvania ave-
nue., with ex-President Rutherford Il.
Hayes in the front rank. Gen. Benz.
Harrison was then president of the re-
public, but he was unable to mingle
review, because of the fatal illness of
his wife.
William Mckinley, the last union SOL
dier-president, and the last that ever
will be, was here with the Ohio troops,
wearing his grand army uniform and
mingling freely with "the boys" To-
day they are gathered here, but Hayes,
Harrison and Mckinley are not with
them. They have gone to the Land o
lht HtN are WIN Una ClOuh Ol
witnesses" that no man can see and no
man number. Their bodies rest be-
meath the canopy of the little green
tent which nature spreads for every
soldier.
The greatest living volunteer SOL
dier, the lieutenant general of the
army, is absent from this city and
from the country, on duty in the far
east. Gen. Miles has attended every
reunion of his comrades since the Or
ganization of the grand army, until
this year, when he is unavoidably de-
tanned from attendance upon the en-
campment. He enlisted as a private
soldier when only 20 years of age, just
before attaining his majority. When
the civil war closed he was a brigadier
general, having fought his way up. He
was supposed to be mortally wounded
at Charlottesville, May 3, 1868. There
fore he was unable TO be in the battle
OF Gettysburg, July 3, 1868. But he
was in every other battle fought by
the Army of the Potomac. There is no
soldier living with better record than
he made then, and in subsequent In
dian campaigns. HIS short campaign
of strategy in Porto Rico elected enco-