Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1908-12-25
Civil War Stories
where Gen. Grant Died.
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among the nations of the world, there
comes feeling of awe and reverence
as he stands amid the scenes made ia
nous by the deeds Of these heroes. He
instinctively raises his hat as he gazes
on the places where they breathed their
last, or stands beside the mould which
! covers their ashes.
,, What man is not the better Ameri-
can for having visited the grave of
Mary. the beloved mother of Washing
ton, on the outskirts of Fredericks-
! burg? Alone and with head barred l
stood for an hour some years since
gazing on that neglected grave, and it
cried out against the nation which had
forgotten the resting place of the wom-
an who had brought into the world the
greatest man of the eighteenth century
! and made possible the freedom of mill
lions of people. Thanks to a band of
noble women, splendid shaft now
rears itself aloft above these sacred
ashes and tells it's story to visiting
thousands.
Who is not the better patriot for hav
ing made visit to Mount Vernon.
Va, the beautiful home of Washing
ton, the father of his country? AS one
Wanders through the rooms of the old
mansion, inSpectS the hundred objects
which were intimately associated with
our first President, studies the man.
Of vic tho
tomb in which rest his ashes, one is, as
it were, brought face to face with
Washington as man and a patriot
and learns the lesson of human effort,
human sacrifice and human pOssibili
ties, as no study Of biography will
teach them. l remember how "the loud
laugh which speaks the vacant mind"
of one tourist grated on my ears and
apparently shocked others as we stood
in the vacant pathway which winds
past the tomb of the man whose name
and deeds will live as long as liberty
survives. But even this idiot was not
quite SO nearly unteachable as he must
! have been before that visit.
The Declaration Of Independence be-
came to me somehow more real more
palpable than ever before, as l sat in
the very room in the Monticello man
sion in which Thomas Jefferson sat
when he wrote the immortal document
which advanced the cause of human
liberty more than it had been forward
ed by any single act in centuries. And
as 1 stood in the shadow Of the simple
but noble shaft which marks Jeffer
sons grave, felt that had taken a
lesson in American history more valu-
able than any which schools teach.
Such, or closely allied, must be the
feelings of any American who views
the tomb of Gen. Robert e. Lee, the
! hero of the Lost Cause, at Lexington,
Va; the unmarked grave Of John Iy-
Ter and the ornate tomb of James Mon
roe in Hollywood cemetery, Richmond;
the old theater in Washington where
Lincoln fell at the hands of the assas
sin; the tablet set in the floor of the
depot at the nations capital to mark
the spot where Garfield fell, the victim
of half-crazed Guiteau, or the thousand
and one other places Of historic inter-
est with which our country is dotted.
Of such places, each Of which has it's
great lesson to impart, few are more
interesting than Mt. MacGregor, Sara
toga county, New York. 1t was there,
in a small and unpretentious cottage,
that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, the great
%
President of the United States,
breathed his last.
The mountain, to the top Of which
the dying hero was taken on the after
noon of June %, 1885, in the vain hope
that there, amid the purest air and
the pleasantest surroundings, he might
successfully battle with the only foe
which ever conquered him-Death--
and where he succumbed to the inevi-
table after the bravest of his many
battles, is about nine miles north of
Saratoga and rears its head some 1900
feet above tide-water. The view from
the summit is superb. The Adiron-
de czs, the Green mountains Of Yer
mont and the Fishkill mountains form
almost a complete circle on the hori
zon while the valley intervening is en-
trancing in its beatty. Saratoga lake
glimmers in the distance, part of Sara
toga village is visible, and on a clear
day one may see the monument ut
Schuyleryille, where the British gen
eral, Burgoyne, surrendered to the
American forces in the war of indie
pendence.
The cottage in which Grant breathed
his last was the property of Joseph w.
Drexel, of New York, who had pur-
chased it for a summer residence.
Learning that the generals physicians
desired to remove their distinguished
patient from the coast to the noun
tains, Mr. Drexel offered his cottage,
and the tender was accepted with
thanks. When the general came to the
cottage every one knew that his dis