The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1910-05-05
THE DAYS THAT ARE PAST.
"Old Timer" Writes of Memorial Day
at Rivers Bridge.


day is memorial day at Rivers
bridge.
Twas there the bugle called to strife,
And huge missiles of war did
scream;
To-day youth and beauty take their
place,
With peace, sweet peace, that rules
supreme"
These thoughts run riot with an
old mans brain as he calmly sits and
views the throng of young and happy
faces as they pass by in friendly chat
or love-lit eye, as the case may be;
their young faces wreathed In
smiles and the little children darting
here and there through the care free
throng too fast for the anxious moth
ers to keep up with them, and the
girls with their laughing eyes as they
steal sly glances from under their
hats-and such hats-to the COM
panion by their side, made pretty
picture and filled an old mans heart
with pride to see so many at one
place all unconscious of the mixed
feeling of Joy and sadness that filled
the hearts of all who took part or
were old enough to remember and
feel the pinch of pain or death or
poverty that this memorial occasion
brings fresh to their memory.
Here to an old man comes the con-
trast of now and then, to-day is COM
fort, plenty and peace, then was tur-
moil, suffering, want and distress,
and as the battle ragged huge black
columns of smoke marked the in
vaders' course as they applied the
torch to the homes as they passed,
and with the rattle of musketry and
the roar of cannon that made the
earth tremble and windows rattle for
miles around, gave anxious hope with
fear that the ruthless enemy might
be stayed, soon gave way to despair
as the noise and din of battle grew
less, with the retreating forms Of the
grey too plainly told that all was lost
and Sherman marched in triumph to
Columbia, leaving on these grounds a
field of carnage never to be forgot
ten by those who saw it, made strange
emotions in the heart Of an old man
who has seen 1t -fron-then until the
present, thought as he viewed this
happy rhrong that ignorance Is bliss
where tits folly to be wise, for only a
few were present who had to undergo
the pinch and suffering and poverty
OF that day, and as he views the we'll
dressed crowd and the huge hats and
flowers on them, he remembers too
well the sunbonnet made with splints
to give it shape out Of home made
cloth and the whir of the spinning
wheel and the rattle and bang of the
loom all comes back as the old man
smiles at the crowd and wanders In
the past.
Yes, let these meetings be kept up,
let not the chivalry Of the past be
blotted out, let our public men keep
fresh in the minds of succeeding gen.
erations how their fathers fought,
bled and died, whipped but not con-
quered, and from the ashes and DESC
lation has arisen a united country
whose glory Is only in its infancy.
Each year let the ladies strew
wreaths and garlands Of flowers on
the sacred spot so made by these
heroes who died for a principle, and
as the worthy and venerable presi-
dent, DR.. N. F. Kirkland, stated all
was lost but honor.
Then the speeches, they should too
remain. This last but not least by
Rev. C. c. Brown, who was a Barn
well boy, in his speech on this oc-
casion says he was the first who
struck blow for the Confederacy by
throwing a Prince Edward slipper at
a Northern boy for calling him little
rebel and striking him in the face
with it, but lost the slipper, it fall
ing in one of the great lakes, for they
were on a boat, That showed the
temper of the times, but all is past
except the memory, and this South
land will soon be and is now the gar
den spot of earth, where all may live
in peace and plenty and the weary
ones may be at rest. OLD TIMER.
KANSAS WHEAT HARD HIT.