The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1903-06-04
A VISION OF WAR
Insersolrs Eloquent Tribute to the Mem.
DRY Of the Soldiers.


cred at soldiers reunion at Indian
apUlis in 1876, has been printed
oftener perhaps than any other of his
utteranoes. 1t is as follows:
The past, as it were. rises before
me like dream. Again we are in
the struggle for national life. We
hear the sound of preparalion--the
music of the boisterous drums, the
silver voices of heroic bugles. We see
thousands of assemblages, and hear
the appeal Of orators; we see the pale
cheeks of women and the flushed faces
of men; and in those assemblages we
see all the dead whose dust we have
covered with flowers. We are with
them when they enlist in the great
army of freedom. We see them part
from those they love. Some are walk
ing for the last time in quiet woody
places with the meidens they adore.
Others are bending over cradles, kiss
ing babes that are asleep. Some are
receiving the blessings of old men.
Some are parting from mothers, who
hold them and press them to their
hearts again and again and say MOTH
ing, and some are talking with wives
and endeavoring with brave words
spoken in the old tones to drive away
the awful fear. We see them part.
see the wife standing in the door with
the babe in her arms standing in the
sunlight sobhing-at the turn OF the
road a hand waveS-She answers by
holding high in her arms the child.
He is gone, and forever. We see
them as they march proudly away un-
der the Haunting flags. keeping time
to the wild, grand music of war
down to the field of glory. to do and
die for the eternal right. We go with
them one and all. We are by their
side on the glory fields, in the hospi-
tails of pain, on the weary marches.
We stand guard with them in ravines
running with blood-in the burrows of
old fields. We see them pierced by
ball and torn by shells in the trenches
Of forts, and in the whirlwind of the
charge, where men become iron with
nerves of stael. We are with them
in the prisons of hatred and famine.
but human speech can never tell what
they endured. We are at home when
the news comes that they are dead.
We see the maiden in the shadow of
sorrow. We see the silvered head of
the old man, bowed with the last
grief. The past rises before us and
we see four million of human beings
governed by the lash-we see them
bound hand and fOot-we hear the
strokes of cruel whips-we see the
hounds tracking women through tan
gled swamps. we see babes sold from
the breast of mothers. Cruelty un-
speakable. Outrage infinite. Four
million bodies in chails-four million
souls in letters. All the sacred rela-
lions of wife, mother, father and chill
dren trampled beneath the brutal feet
Of might. And all this was done un-
der our own beautiful banner Of the
free.
The past rises before us. We hear
the roar and Shriek of the bursting
shell. The broken letters fall. These
heroes died. We look. Instead OF
sla YES we see men, and women, and
children. The wand OF progress
touches the auction block. the slave
pen, and the whipping post. and we
see homes and fresides and school
houses and books, and where oil was
want and crime and cruelty and fear
we see the faces of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died
for libeIty-they died for US. They
are at rest. They sleep in the land
they made free, under the flag they
rendered stainless, under the solemn
pines, the sad hemlocks, the fearful
willows, the embracing vines. They
sleep beneath the shadows OF the
clouds, careless alike of sunshine OF
storm. each In the windowless palace
OF rest. Earth may run red with
other wars-they are at peace. In
the midst Of battle, In the roar OF
conflict, they found the serenity of
death. have one sentiment for the
soldiers, living and desd-cheers fol
the living, and tears for the dead.
Room tor Every Honest Man.
In his speech at Ashland, Oregon,