Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-05-28
both arms and both legs gone, came home
soon, and the hero worship was divided.
The First Funeral.

both arms and both legs gone. came home
soon. and the hero worship was divided.
The First Funeral
MANNED soldiers had hardly become .
common sight in our village, however,
when one day there was taken from the
baggage car of the noon train big. OBJ
long box. to meet which solemn delega-
ton had marched down from the village.
The ministers of all the three churches
headed the Notwithstanding before
uDheard of there for UNCONVENTIONAL preJu-
dices were strong in our village before the
war-and besides these were the local JUS
tice. the two local lawyers and all the
other prominent men In the place. The flag
on the liberty pole was hung at half mast.
with the union down. and with broad,
black stripe added above and below; and
all the church bells tolled from the time
the train stopped at the station till the
terrain Church.
1T was the first of the many war
funerals that were held in our village, and
1. cast most profound gloom over every
thing. We boys, who had been allowed to
form company of Juvenile Home Guards,
were also allowed in the procession We
were as much cast down any one in the
audience. the largest that had ever been
from their homes miles and miles away.
Not nearly all could enter the church, and
outdoor services were held for those who
had to remain outside.
THE body In the big box was that Of the
schoolmaster. who had blown the fife so
enthusiastically on the day our volunteers
mad gone away to the war. Most of the
boys in the Juvenile Home Guards had
been his pupils, but we all forgave him OH
that day for the skill with which ne mad
welded the ferrule upon some of us. His
grave was the first soldiers grave in our
village to be decorated with flowers L;
would have been dapOrato d If ha bo ho-y,
the most unpopular man in all that region;
as he was one of the best liked, the mound
o. earth under which they laid his body
away was fairly covered with home ade
wreaths and bouquets.
All Too Common.
After that. as the war went on, the sight
OF manned and sick men who wore the blue
in the streets of the village became so COM
mon that the villagers took it as a matter
Of course. Oblong boxes came often, too
and there were more soldiers funerals and
more fower-strewn graves, for the volun-
teers from our neighborhood belonged to a
fighting regiment that was decimated again
and again.
BY and by my brother Sam passed his
eighteenth birthday and followed my big
brother Jim to the front To us boys, who
were not more than nine or ten years old
when the fighting began, the war began to
seem the normal thing Destitution among
soldiers families began and all the women
in the village and neighborhood spent a
good deal of their time scraping lint and
making bandages for the wounded and put
ting up bags and boxes of things to. send to
the men in camp and hospital.
BY easy stages the war became the uni
versally absorbing topic. War songs took
the place of almost all other popular
music. The note of underlying sadness ex-
pressed In Tramp. Tramp, Tramp, the Boys
Are Marching, Take This Bible Home to
Mother and their like made itself manifest
everywhere. There may have been many
jolly war songs, but I remember only one
that was at all jolly. The orthodox version
of this old song wound up in this way:
And Wen all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home
but 1t was sometimes sung surreptitiously
by the older boys little differently:
And well all drink stone blind
When Johnny comes marching home
Eager for News.
LAS the years wore along the stay-at-
homes began to take daily newspapers in
stead of the 'Seemi- Weekly for it did not
give the news promptly enough to suit,
and the nightly meetings at the post Office
were enlivened and made more interesting
by the views and comments of the vet
Grams whose terms of enlistment had run
out, OF VINO mad been lnVaIlQeQ nome. MY
big brother Jim was one of these and soon
after his return my father, his patriotism
set on fire by one of Father Abraham's
calls to arms, went to the front to take
his boys place To US boys who were too
young to fight it began to seem likely that
the war would last long enough for US to
grow to the soldiers age. as many had
who were only a little older than we.
1.-THE boys OF today have nothing In
their lives, it seems to me. SO absorbing
as the growing history Of the war unfolded
to US daily in the papers and in the letters
from our fathers and brothers was to u.s..
We studied battle pictures in Harper's and
Leslie's with an intensity that can hardly
be described, and, though our village was
so far Inland that none of us had ever seen
a ship or a steamer or piece of water
large enough to float a vessel, we learned
enough about naval matters to understand
the news of the river and sea fighting very
well.
Most Vivid of All.
"The war maps, too, both those appear
ing In the papers and the larger ones to
hang on the wall, which were sold by en-
terprising canvassers, were studied by US
as few boys study anything nowadays so
far as 1 can learn. There was one of these
maps showing the course of Sherman's
march to the sea- by means of broad
purple band, which had a peculiar and alb
sorbing fascination for us all. 1 have
copy of that map now; 1t holds the place
of honor in my den. and 1 study it still
sometimes, for my father was with Sher-
man when minnie bullet put his name
among those in the awful list of the killed
in the Tribune.
1.-THE most vivid memory of all places that
dreadful list before my eyes even now
sometimes; it is more vivid even than the
memory of my fathers funeral. 1t seemed
unreal to all of us. because his body could
not be brought back, and 1 have never
been able to put flowers on his grave. The
custom of half-masting the flag on the lib
erty pole for soldiers funerals had been
discontinued, they had become so common,
but was revived again when the funeral
services were held for him.
Lincoln's Death.
1.-THE memory next most vivid is of the
day when the flag on the village liberty
pole, black bordered. reversed and half
masted, proclaimed to the neighborhood
the news that Lincoln had been killed. 1t
would be impossible to describe the grief
and dismay with which our village and the
neighborhcod received this news. Nearly
every house and nearly every farm had its
own private liberty pole, and long before
night the flags on them all were in mourn