Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1905-09-28

hanks or the little stream in far-away
Pennsylvania to the shady nook
where, al night long in the moonlight,
the mockine bird sang in this land of
his boyhood and his devoted love.
Gathered about his final resting place
were few indeed of bis kith and kin,
but the tempered sunshine fell on
fair women and brave men of both
north and south-the blue and the
gray-all enmity stilled, pleas. God,
forever. And of those who stoS. with
tear-dimmed eyes, as a bugler OF The
Eleventh Alabama sounded the SOL
dier's lullaby over the f~resn-heaped
mound. Elinor Benton had laid E little
spray of lilies of the valley On the
lowering casket. 1t was a gray-s.eeved
arm, for the old uniform was seen on
one or two veterans, that drew her
gently away and led her, bowed and
reverent, from the burial of her earliest
love. It was the same arm on which
she was leaning now, as she stood
gazing down upon the dancing waters
under the forefoot, and it was on these
two, Elinor and brother Jack, that
Queen Resale looked with trimming
eyes; then, questioning, up into her
stalwart husbands face.
But for whom did not Queen Rosalie
scheme and plan? Was it not she
who. when the Pelhams had to part
with old Pyramus, sold a precious
ring to buy him? Was it not she who
found place after place among the
officers for young Pomp, we'll nigh
spoiled in the exaltation of being his
own master? Was it not she who
pleaded for Hector, faithful to her hus-
band through many scenes, yet some
times lax in duty through the fascina-
lions of New Orleans? The old home
at Charlottesville had gone to other
hands after the doctors peaceful death
in '66. Jack had previously settled
down to hard work in New Orleans
and, like many another manful young
Southron, was winning his own way
in the paths of peace. Life seemed
vested with new interest to him, how
ever, since the coming, early in the
winter, of Aunt Elinor to stand spon-
sor on a very interesting occasion, and
If Rosalie Benton had a wish still un-
gratified it was one that babe fair
soon to be numbered with others of
the past. Her soldier Fred was proud
and happy in his profession, a sue
cess, despite all prophesies of Stanton
to the contrary and all pleadings of the
squire to quit and learn the law. Her
baby boy had no peer in army circles
in the south. Her brother, after one
serious illness during the yellow fever
the previous autumn, was in the
best Of health and the height Of hope
and spirits. Always a frequent visitor
at their bright army home at the old
barracks, he had become practically a
day boarder, as he expressed it, since
the advent of Aunt Elinor. The war.
that left its scars on so many a soldier
frame, seemed to have bequeathed no
bitterness TO the men who battled in
the field. They that fought SO man
fully in the smoke-shrouded ranks,
either blue or gray, had no stomach
for the ~post-bellum warfare waged in
congress and convention by unterrified
orators of the McKinnon type-men
so seldom heard of on the fighting line
that only when the war was over did
we begin to realize the valorous zeal
that burned unquenchable in their
breasts. McKinnon had gone no more
to the old home city. He scored bril-
liantly a while in Georgia after the
war-pronlinent in the bureau Of
freedmen, refugees and abandoned
lands-then went to congress on the
carpet-bag ticket, but only for a term.
We heard of him in Mexico in $50,
head Of some colonization scheme that
soon dwindled into smoke, then lost
track OF him entirely.
AS for the old brigade, the few re-
naming forms are bent; the boards
are thinned and grizzled; the old and
honored leaders have almost all been
gathered to their fathers; only one OF
two of those that, rising with it, won
the star of command, still move and
have their being. But as year follows
year, the few survivors gather to tell
again the tales Of Gainesville, Gettys-
burg and the awful wilderness, and to
crown with love and loyalty the names
Of those that made them and led and
lived with them through all that he
roic struggle for national life, there
rings vel a sentiment second only to
the faith and fealty they owe the flag
%boundless is their belief in the men
that wore the blue; b%oundless, also, is
their soldier admiration for the men
that wore the gray.
THE ENID