The Elbert County tribune., 1907-05-23

CEE Naples and die!" wrote an en-
y thusiast, and gave a new vogue
to a moribund old world city by
a sententious saying. But to the
American whose soul is alive to patri-
otic emotion, more fitting exhorta-
tion would be, see Gettysburg and
live, And SO seeing, live to be conse-
Grated anew to American ideals. Real
ize and drink in from that historic
fount the immortal lesson of what
they did here" that the nation might
live-a grand object lesson made
manifest SO that he that runs may
read by its 600 monuments and tab
lets dedicated there to American val
or. A thrilling page it is that may
be read in these silent yet speaking
symbols which mark the various posi-
tions held by the $40 organizations
that fiercely contended for victory
during those fervid July days of '63.
And punctuating the long lines OF mar
BILE and granite memorials that thickly
strew the picturesquely diversified
field imposingly stand out the colossal
bronze images of the leading generals
in the commanding stations each oc-
cupied, or where they fell wounded or
dead, while directing their hosts.
While here and there dotting the ele-
vations whence the batteries beiched
out their terrible shots and shell are
grim cannon, in some instances the
self same pieces that sent their wing
ed deaths searching Ewelrs, Hill's
and Longstreet's lines stretched
around the town and along Seminary
ridge. or hurled them at Meades en-
battled front opposite.
All the historic landmarks. too. are
there to-day. Away to the west the
Lutheran seminary, still standing like
sentinel on the outpost, round which
the waves of battle ragged and spumed
and from the cupola of which Rey-
nolds and Buford watched Hills ad-
vance debouching from the woods on
either side of the Chambersburg pike;
and, just beyond, the undulating plain
and McPherson's wood, the scene and
altar of sacrifice whereon the valient
first corps of Meade's army unstinted-
ly poured out its libation of blood To
the east and south, Cemetery hill and
its prolonged ridge, along which stand
out those never to be effaced features
of the landscape-the national ceme-
terry, with its 1915 graves of union
dead, the clump of trees or high wa
ter mark of the rebellion" whence
Pickett's braves were hurled back In
disaster and death; the bloody an
GLE" and the peach orchard, which
season after season renews itself in
blossom and fruit; the wheat field
yearly sown to the same crop, but no
longer yielding its harvest of death;
grim DEVILS Den. rocky. wood-,ar-
gled maze to-day as it was and mas
ever been since the red Indian and
savage beast sought it for their lair;
the same wooded heights of Little and
Big Roundtop, partly denuded, yet
with many surviving ancient trees
SCARED and broken and torn by solid
shot and shell, or trunks pimpled by
mimic bullets, but fruitful yet with
leafy life.
Vanished only are the mangled
corpses of the slain, the rushing col
umns of struggling foeman. the blaz-
ing lines. the crash of musketry and
cannon's deafening roar, the dying
groans and frantic, swelling cheers.
With all these marvelously preserved
vestiges Of the battle still defining its
varying fortunes, and with the graph
ic story of the guides. very little ex-
ercise of the imagination is needed
even to a stranger. none at all to the
veteran who fought there to recon
struct the scene, and once seen render
its realization vividly impressed for
ever on the mind.