Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-07-07
Washington
' ' LETTER
BY H. 3. WALKER
PLAN NEW WET" REUNION
BY H. 3. Wal
Star Stan Correspondents.
Star Bureau,
Metropolitan National Bank Bldg,
WASHINGTON. July 7.

Metropolitan National Bank Bldg,
WASHINGTON, July 7.
Delighted with the success of the
great encampment of veterans at
Gettysburg last week, in celebration
of the fiftieth anniversary of the
great three days fight, G. A. r. men
are already talking of arranging for
monster celebration in Washington
two years from now. The proposed
celebration here will be a peace
jubilee. 1t has been talked of for
some time, but at Gettysburg last
week the proposal everywhere met
with great favor, and Congress will
probably be asked this winter to pro-
vide for such an event.
General Lees surrender to General
Grant, in April, 1865, practically
marked the end of the Civil War,
although there was some fighting for
several months afterward The pro-
posal talked of now is to celebrate
the fiftieth anniversary of the end of
the war with a big peace jubilee in
the national capital in April, 1915. If
the plan is carried out, 1t is believed
that it would bring together even a
larger number of veterans than there
were at the Gettysburg reunion.
Enthusiastic Over FraternaI Feeling.
Veterans, Johnny and "Yank'
alike, returning from camp, are full
of enthusiasm over the spirit of good
feeling between the old soldiers of
the North and South, of which thu
reunion has been productive. Espe-
cially is this true of the Confederates.
Aside from a few bigots there has
been little bitterness in the North
against the South for many years.
In the States of the Confederacy,
however, the war feeling has been
far from dead The South was van
pushed, and defeat is more likely to
embitter than victory. Then, too, TIL
war was fought almost wholly in the
South, and the Southern States were
laid bare and impoverished to an
extent that the North has hardly been
able to appreciate. 1t is no exagger-
alton to say that in man parts of the
South the defeat of the Confederacy,
no less than the days of carpet bag
ging' and "sealawags," charged to
the North in the reconstruction
period, have never been forgiven or
forgotten
l lived with the old vets at Gettys-
burg for nearly q week, and talked
with hundreds of them, North and
South | met old "Johnnies" who
went home from the war to find their
farms laid waste, their families scat
tered, and nothing left, and who have
been too poor to get away from their
little cotton and tobacco fields since. |
For fifty years these men have been
hating the North, and teaching
hatred to their descendants.
Expects Hatred, Finds Love.
II have been hating you Yanks be-
cause | thought you hated u.s." one |
Old South Carolinian told me, land |
here I find all of you as kind as
brothers. Now we got to go home |
and tell all the folks that you folks |
Is our good friends. all of you, and |
there amt no North and South no |
more.''
Sounds like forty years ago. this
kind of talk, doesn't it? But these |
old vets of the Confederacy are
about forty years behind in their |
in development since the war. The
Gettysburg reunion, / believe, will do
more to produce good feeling between
North and South and lead to the de-
velopment of the arrested Industries
and civilization of the latter than any
single event in fifty years.
Entirely aside from any question OF
sentiment or politics, though, the |
Gettysburg encampment was a mar |
velous affair. Viewed exclusively as
a demonstration of modern military
methods of quartering and caring for
a great army, it was the most re-
markable thing the world has ever
witnessed.
Here were from $4,000 to $4,000 men,
not young and stalwart soldiers, but
feeble old men, whose average age
was over 20, and most of whom were
more or less decrepit, living for
nearly a week out of doors, in camp.
Sleeping in tents. eating in the open,
and spending their days in open
country under broiling sun, at the
hottest season of the year, the de-
tails of camp arrangement and equip.
ment were such that the deaths
among these old men averaged only a
trihe more than one death day.
The mortality rate at Gettysburg
last week was lower than the aver
age rate among men of this age in
their own homes.
This single fact is probably the
most remarkable commentary pos
sibe on the advance in military
science. not only since the Civil War.
but since the Spanish American War
in 1898. when healthy young men died
like flies in the camps at Chicka-
manga and elsewhere.
Reports of the Red Cross show
that on July 2 alone, that day when
men died by the hundreds in the
cities there were more than 1000 peo-
pie in the camps given temporary
relief-a glass of water. place to
sit or lie a few moments. a cool
bandage for the head. or some other
trif1ing attention (the ounce of pre-
vention) in the Red Cross stations.
But for this work the casualty lists
at Gettysburg would probably have
been much greater.
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