The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1912-05-31
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complete, or just, that did not give
loving recognition to the heroism of
American womanhood. To illustrate
of the battle of Gettysburg? After
the battle was over, when Pickette,
the Ney of the Confederate army, had
led his seventeen thousand Virgini-
ans to the last final charge and
striking the crops of the superb Han
cock, his columns were broken like a
pitcher thrown against a wall; when
shattered and defeated they fed back
across that valley of death and the
battle of Gettysburg was over, when
the great red sun, just sinking out OF
sight behind the hills of Gettysburg
was going down in blood, stationed
on Little Round Top which gave me
view of the entire field, / saw
spreading out over the field of dead
and dying, a corps of women. There
were the women from Gettysburg,
and the surrounding country; there
were women of the Christian COM
mission, and there were the women
Of the sanitary commission, and
there in great numbers were the Sis
tiers of Charity. God bless their
great white bonnets, and their whit
er souls! They were there, and
spreading out over that battle field,
ministering to the necessities of the
wounded and giving the last cup of
cold water to the dying, and pointing
them to the Lamb of God, that TAX
eth away the sins of the world. An
other instance-Bartlett Overton the
only son of a widowed mother en-
listed with me, in July, 1861. When
we were preparing to leave the coun-
try for our camp of rendezvous at
Detroit, and while we were at the de-
pot waiting for the train, the mother
of this young man was there. / can
see them now, as with her arm about
her boy, they walked to and fro upon
the platform. The words spoken
were too sacred to be divulged; see
them as the engine whistle warns us
that our time is up, and that we are
leaving home; the train rushes into
the station and stops, and the moth
er taking her boy in her arms and
pressing upon his lips again and
again the last fond kiss of a moth
er's love, she lays him upon the al
tar of her country and her country's
God. Can there be sacrifice greater
than this? In the first battle in which
our regiment engaged, Bartlette Ov-
erton was killed, and yet, comrades,
these women were the wives, mothers
and sisters Of the Grand Army of the
and it was their splendid
and heroic self-sacrifice, that
was our inspiration in battle, and II
they had failed, our cause would have
been lost.
"a But what shall 1 say for the COM
rades, the unknown dead, when our
friends have fallen by the way and
passed into the valley OF SHADOWS?
While yet we mourn the loss, I know
Of nothing more consoling than to
know and often visit the last rest
Ing place. And some of us here, now,
whose lion-hearted heroes died with
the armor of their country on, will |
be permitted today to cover them ov-
Dr. with beautiful flowers. Others of
us, whose friends are not buried here |
or at their homes, yet they are laid
away In the great national cemeteries
beautified and enriched by the graf
itude of nation. They died to save;
and while we cannot make apilgrim-
age each year to where they sleep
We know that other hearts and other
hands as loving and as loyal as our
own will scatter flowers today upon
their silent tombs. A lady told me
Just year ago, her boy was killed
at Gettysburg, and buried there, and
said the gray-haired mother, while
her eye moistened, yet kindled with
a chastened pride, his name, and age
and rank, and letter of his company
and number of his regiment are grav-
en- on the monument erected to the
memory Of the brave men, that fell
on that decisive field of blood. An
other told me Of her boy who died
Of wounds received in action and was
buried at Annapolis.
But these, for whom my theme in
vites me now to speak, Where were
they buried?" They are not here at
home; not in the old family church
yard, not in the great national ceme-
teries beneath the shadow of a tow
ering monument, where friends will
go each year and scatter flowers and
tears. Oh, no, my friends. Scatter
I'd all over the Sunny South, from
the Everglades of Maryland to the
and from Gettysburg
to Appomattox, they fell in the thick
est of the fight and unfeshed where
they fell. They sleep the sleep of
death in unknown graves Unknown,
Hid say? No! Not unknown. Un-
known to you and me and all their
friends, and all the world and all
save one, and that Is God. that Sow
ereign God, who holds in his almigh-
ty hand the destinies of nations and
men. oh, that loving Father, who
In all ages, We are told In sacred
writ has never allowed a sparrow to.
fall without his kindly notice, and
has numbered all our hairs, He
knows them all by name; He knows
the marvellous greatness of the things