Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1903-08-25


Benjamin Asbury, Joseph Berkeysen
Charles w. Derby. VIM. Fent, Isaac
Hornbaker Silas Reynolds and Fred
erick Schroyer. While these old boys
were not intended for active field du-
ty they were quite as valuable to the
service as the younger and more ac-
tive regiments in guarding prisoners
and doing post and garrison work.
OF the above, Theophilus Blake, ST.,
returned home on sick furlough in
1864 and died shortly afterward. All
these are now dead except G. w. Der
by now in his eighty-eighth year and
and who lives with his son Nelson near
Blakesburg.
Thus I have briefly gone over the
part taken by Blakesburg people in
the great shareholders rebellion. The
subject is worthy of better treatment
than have given it. think l am cor
rect as far as have gone, but / fear
there are some omissions. II there are
l hope those affected by them will not
charge it to Indifference. but to want
of time.
In conclusion 1 will call your atten-
ton to the fact that in no campaign
west of the Alleghenies but in some
part a Blakesburg soldier could be
found. BlalSesburg soldiers were at
Belmont, Donelson, Shiloh. Corinth,
Iuka, Pea Ridge, Moors Mills, Hart
vile, Helena. Vicksburg. Jenkins Fer
ry, Monks Mills, Little Rock, Mission
airy Ridge, Lookout Mountain, Sher-
mans campaigns of a dozen battles
before Atlanta. Some were fighting
Indians and guarding emigrant
trains. Some of them were with
Sherman's dashing Yankee boys that
went marching through Georgia. They
were in the great cavalry raid in
| 1864 that annihilated Prices army in
the states of Arkansas, Missouri and
Kansas; some of them were in that
greatest cavalry movement ever
made, that left Gravelly Springs,
Miss, in February, 1865, and in three
columns rode over Mississippi, Ala
bama and Georgia and fought in the
last battle of the war at Columbus,
Ca, April 1S, 1865. Some of them
were in the chase to catch Jefferson
Davis and his cabinet, but a Michi-
gan cavalry regiment had the good
luck to make the capture. Blakesburg
boys were all right in the civil war
and made great record. None were
better.
May this and all the coming gen.
erations be spared the severe and
exacting experience that fell to the
lot of the men and women of the civil
war period.
Address of Congressman j. F. Lacey.
The afternoon was oppressively hot
and the large audience which filled
the tent had been restless and hard to
hold The experience gained in politi-
cal campaigns and in long years of SER
vice in the halls of congress showed it.
self in the manner with which the
speaker held the attention and won the
applause of his audience in the face
of the most trying difficulties.
The speech was addressed chiefly
| to the old soldiers and was full of stor-
les and anecdotes of war times. Much
of the charm and force of the address
lay in the personality and the manner
of the speaker Many of the references
and best portions of the address were
| of a directly personal nature to those
upon the platform and in the audience
and their effectiveness could not be re
produced in printed report. 1t was
a mastery address and could only have
been delivered by one who knew his
people, and the lives they had lived
for years.
Mr.. Lacey's address was in part as
follows.
SIN the halls of the house of repre-
| sentatives when man is speaking
whom the members do not care to
hear, all talk at once and drown him
out. In the senate they are more con.
siderate. If they do not want to hear
all get up and go out. Now if you do
not want to hear this afternoon you
had better do as they do in the sen.
ate. If you prefer to get out under the
trees and visit in preference to sit.
ting in this hot tent you will not hurt
any ones feelings by doing so. We are
all here for a good time and l know
| from the looks of your faces that you
are all happy and enjoying yourselves
All Boys Again.
ct has become customary in talk.
ing to the old soldiers to remind them
of the hereafter, to point him to the
time when he has answered the last
call and will no longer be with us to
receive our greeting. l am here to
speak to the old soldier but prefer to
talk to him about the past. We are all
| boys mere again today. A man is new.
er older than he feels just as they say
a woman is never older than she
| looks.
"Take Him Out"
"On occasions like this 1 always like
to repeat the lines of Oliver Wendell
Holmes, written upon the occasion of
the assembling OF the old Harvard
class. Has there any fellow got mix.
ed with the boys. If there has, take
him out without making noise Do you
recall that in this same poem Holmes
speaks of a fellow whom fate tried to
conceal by naming him Smith, but the
name was no handicap and in spite OF
it he wrote that great song America? 2
Wen, a son of that same Smith is liv.
ing IN Burlington. l tell you this to
illustrate the point that whatever is
worth having that Iowa has not pro.
duced she has imported.
loWa's Productions.
And now for a still better illustra
ton. Our friend, here Jerry Sullivan
| will call him governor, so that he may
Iget used to the title in case he be
comes governor, and SO that he may
KNOW how it would have sounded in