The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1908-04-26
In Honor of Our
Soldier Dead.

Today is Memorial Day in Florida
when we all pause for few hours IN
the strenuous rush of life to think
not of the present nor the future
but of the heroic past and OF the dead
who fell in the mighty, epoeh-maaking
struggle between the North and South
which changed the destiny OF the
world.
These soldiers of the South who
gave up their lives as bravely and
unselfishly as ever men did in all the
worlds history, are buried in every
Southern state, some on the tields
where they fell, some in city, town
and village cemeteries, in lonely
country graveyards and some in
Northern states where they died in
prison In each Of their graves there
lies the poor, pathetic dust OF man
who was once hero, for he gave all
and lost all for what he believed to
be right-"angels could no more" To
the women of the South. mourning
over their beloved dead in the years
following the conclusion of the war,
is due this beautiful custom of me-
mortal day, and General John A Lo-
gan. of the Union army, was so i'm
pressed with it that he recommended
it to the Grand Army of the Repub-
lie, and it was officially adopted as
an anniversary to be observed every
year.
And so it has come to pass in both
-Nnrth-anA-Se'AAhr 4afh,-t or the soldier
dead, and strew flowers upon their
graveA The passions and preJudices
OF Rf have so nearly subsidized at
the North that that section now frank
~ recognizes that Southern soldiers
who met the supreme test of honor
and good faith by dying for the cause
they espoused were as essentially
heroes as the men on the other side
Who met the same test; and so we
nave in every part of the republic
come to look upon Memorial Day as
time to evoke the best feelings of
our hearts. to sorrow in common for
the dead. and to thank God that after
all these fearful sacrifices in which
each side thought it was right, the |
nation still lives and we are a united
people sharing equally in the heri-
tage of brave deeds of American sol
diers both North and South.
Memorial Day does US all good. for
II renews the memory of a great past,
and at this distance from the conflict
between the states, it's lessons sink
into the heart without the bitter
poison of the hates and the myriad
talsehoods engendered by war. which
kept the North and South as wide
apart in sentiment and sympathy as
though they were hostile foreign ma
ions. Z
We cannot do our Confederate dead {
90 much honor. No bounties tempted
hem to enlist; they fought without
'ay and as ragged and starving as
continentals were at
'afley Forge; Grant said in the hour \
his triumph that they deserved
ne honor and admiration of all man a
ind for their superb yalor and en-
Iurance unsurpassed in human an /
ais; and as long as Southern flowers
loom and there are Southern hands
o pluck them we will put upon the
raves of our dead soldiers with each i
eeurring year the sweet and fragrant :
iemorisls of our undying love and
onor. d
To do less would prove us a de-
enerate people, unworthy of our
neage and our country.
But after all. there is an added
nd Increasingly beautiful significance p
Memorial Day in these latter times. =
nd that is that all our soldiers, both :
orth and South, who made the SUI "
RENE sacrifice and died for their r
18th were American soldiers, citizens r
our common country, and the sweet :,
of our land will make no a.
stinction, and rising above the -
,isonous hates and unjust preiudices I,
the past will drop the flowers upon ~
e graves OF blue and gray alike n,
here they lie in dreamless sleep m