The Columbus weekly dispatch., 1908-05-03
Friends 80 Fellow Citizens


honor Ere upon the new mad
mounds beneath which sIumbers tn
dust of heroes we place our garland
OF beauty and fragrance in token 0
our gratitude and admiration for tn,
sacrifice which they so nobly mad,
and the sacred cause for which
though dead, they yet speak to us
IS it not fitting that first we ask our
selves in all sincerity, Are we pre-.
pared for this solemn service, so akin
TO worship, Of praise and homage tc
valor and patriotism unsurpassed in
human records?
''Stoop, angels, from the skies;
There is no holier spot of ground
Than where defeated valor lies
BY mourning beauty crowned"
Though appreciative of the high
honor conferred on me, | yet most
heartily wish that one, who from
memory and experience, could recall
the causes and events of secession,
war, and reconstruction, had been
chosen to speak to you today. With
You, / should have preferred to hear
from one of our beloved and hon
ored veterans the story and meaning
OF those dread days. Not, however,
from lack of interest in or study of
these great questions and events did
/ hesitate to address you; but, for
lack of time adequately to prepare
and discuss with you the momentous
issues and the tragic scenes which
this presence and these surroundings
so vividly suggest-with reluctance
and extreme difidence, accepted the
complimentary invitation so courte-
ously and urgently extended
As a child of the Confederacy,
among the faintest of my recoIIec-
tiOns, are those of father absent
from home, gone to the war" and
of the sudden return and brief stay
of an uncle or cousin in whose KNAPP
sack I found what I could not eat,
hard tack" the bread-often the
luxury of the Confederate soldier. In
'64 or 65, my father was post sur
geon of the hospital located near the
M. & O. depot; and indistinct visions
Of long lines Of low hunks, on which
lay suffering. dying soldiers. yet
hnger with me, and almost bring
back the shudder and the distress of T,
the child that fed from the blood ,
and the groans that then dismayed
him. In those barracks. in the Gil
mer Hotel, the College Dormftory, {
the old Fair Grounds buildings. and I
IN many Of the homes of the town, r
all transformed into TEMPORARY hos 5
p5tals for the sick and wounded from q
the fields of Shiloh and other points f
70 the north of us, three thousand or =
more brave defenders of the South q
were at one time crowded: and in +
these fmprovised wards were minis 9
tered to as carefully and tenderlv as n
conditions would permit. In relays. Fl
me noble women of the town came 2
. ehe ala OF the overtaxed doctors
md nurses, bandaging, feeding, com I
orting the sick and the dying as only e
, mother or a sister can Death and II
disease here held high carnival; and n;
'or time the graye-diggers in the il
ieId about us were kept busy day dl
and night opening the long lines of B
into which twenty-five or lc
thirty stricken soldiers were lowered b1
10 their final rest each day. Fifteen sc
hundred of the gallant Confederate v
dead were thus buried in this plot ca
freely given by the odd Fellows of SC
he town for this patriotic purpose. tt
The one hundred or more Federal OF
soldiers also inferred out yonder were T
later removed to the National Gem k
etery at Corinth. 1t was over these til
and the Confederates alike that on ia
hat first public Decoration Day in 50
-he South April 25, 1866, the women J;
Of Columbus strewed their flowers el
and evergreens; death having leveled fc
friend and foe and hushed the voice Il
Of anger and vengeance. al
Sadly, but not with upbraiding, a:
The generous deed was done; pl
In the storm of the years that are NJ
fading h
No braver battle was won" lie
if
In appreciation and commemora- al
ton of a deed so beautiful, as you r;
Judge f. NJ. Finch of New T
York wrote in 1867 for the Atlantic in
that graceful, tender little Nj
Iyric s'The Blue and the Gray" from 1c
which the above lines are quoted. ri
The occasion of the poem, as before I'll
given, he explains in prose prefa- h