Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-07-28

on the subject Of distinguished visitors
to the field Of Antietam, which is their
stone-quarry and gold mine," remarked
a New Yorker. at one Of the hotels the
other day, who had returned from a
Sunday excursion there. when we
arrived in Sharpsburg everybody told
us that William Jennings Bryan had
been driven over the Acid the day be.
fore. The toll-gate keeper on the
Hagerstown Pike was our fiji st inform
ant. He regretted exceedingly having
missed the sight, but he was away
from the house at the time and his
daughter had let Bryan through She
described him as Of smooth face, riding
In buggy drawn by two borses, with
colored man for a driver. When he
reached the Mckinley monument, near
the Burnside bridge, he had solilo-
quized: There is the man that ran
against ME twice for the presidency. 1
don't lay it up against him, now. He's
all right, and 1 am going to give
twenty-five cents for q picture Of his
monument
THE next morning I read i'm the
Washington newspapers that Bryan
had preached sermon the day before
in some church in Nebraska. on the
text, None of these things move me-
or something Of that kind. 1t is clear
that the man who unprecedented him
at Antietam the day before was an i'm
poster. I suspected 50 at the time,
especially when the dealer in curios, of
whom I inquired. declared that he
thought the man said 10 be Bryan was
not right in the head. Rut the curio
man was the only skeptic there. Every
body else felt sure OF the distinguished
visitor. and the fact that he was drawn
by two horses in a buggy and had a
Niger for a driver seemed as impor-
tant testimony as to his identity as
that he was smoothly shaver.
But this was only one Of the delu-
sions of grandeur which the towns
people were hugging. They had had
Dewey with them 4 few days before
and today expect they are telling peo-
pie of the recent visit Of President
Roosevelt, for my companion. who
wears glasses. when he saw the creduli-
ty of the people on this paint, confided
to small group of natives near the
Dunkard Church. that he was really
President Roosevelt travelling in dis
guise. He explained that ne had signed
A different name on the register at the
cemetery because he did mt Ike TO dis
quiet the veteran superintendent, who
might think his tenure of office in dan
ger by any delinquencies discovered by
so distinguished an on-looker The ma
tives We're all ready to take this story
In, as they had those of their former
visitors, until gave it a shock by tell
Ing them that I was Admiral Schley.
There was one man in the crowd who
had too much sense to believe that
Il said to myself, as went over that |
field: What will be left of |
this a thousand years from now, and |
what will the people of that day think |
Of these memorials? The granite and |
marble monuments are not likely to
last long. in the heavy frosts of the |
Maryland hills. and I doubt if the
States and cities which in this gener-
alton have reared memorials to their
fallen SONS, would renew the monu-
ments two centuries hence. These will
probably suffer the fate Of the grave
stones in some of the oldest of ceme-
teries. The bronze tablets will last
longer, and if kept in repair should tell
their story thousand years hence \
But who will stop to read that story?
Perhaps more people than now.
1T seems unlikely that the United
States will ever be invaded by foreign
armies. and perhaps it is not too much
to hope that no battle will ever again
be fought on the soil of this continental
republic. Perhaps before such an en-
counter could occur here. the Parlia-
ment of Nations will have come to pass
Then the monuments al Antietam will
be peculiarly interesting az relics of A
horrible custom which the world has
grown out of. And thousands would
go to Antietam to gaze upon these |
just as they lock now at the
Roman Colosseum and think of the
encounters which took
place there. Antietam may be greater q
thousand, years hence than now, in
public estimation; or its memorials
may seem like odd encumberers Of tho
ground.
There is something pathetic in
what the curio man told me of the bull
'St supply II IS sui SO SOOQ tndI
The toll gate keeper presents each call
er with two or three. which he has
T licked up on the field, and seems we'll
with the dime. And yet
the curio man says that bullets are not
what they used to be ten years ago.
when he began doing business; T. ere
then seemed no limit to the number
which could be picked up about the
fields and around the stone walls To-
day they are rather scarce. He pre-
diets that the time is coming when the
boy who finds a bullet on the field of
will think he has uncovered
my companion who has seen service
In the Cuban war, tells me that the
on this field indicate a great
change which has come over the prac-
lice of arms in the last forty years.
Plackards tell that a certain place was
The headquarters Of the Union Army1
for five days. Only a few miles Is the.
site of the Confederate artillery. To-
Jay contending armies could not be so
neighborly. The field OF Antietam,
however. he declared ideally adapted
for fighting on modern lines, because it
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