The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1913-05-30
Scene Re-enacted.

\ q S0 tuOuSduu SlTOuS.
And today, looking over the past, out
OF the mists and shadows see rising
pefore me shadowy figures Of men
forming into the ranks of war. Yes,
they formed more rapidly than could
be even imagined by a poet who was
ito die in 1886. For three days after
Mr., Lincoln's call was made there
/ marched through Washington the 9Th
Nj, ssachusetts Infantry, and the first
blood to be shed has been enshrined
lin poetry, for private, in marching
Through the streets of Baltimore, was
shot down by seceder Straight to
his heart the bullet rushed: down
from his breast the red blood gushed.
land DER his face a glory rushed.
j Thus. like king, erect in pride,
,raising blood hands toward Heaven,
he cried: All hail the stars and
stripes, and died.
But it was tragic hour, when, from
the mountains and the valleys and the
/ plains, from the shop and the factory
and the mill, boys unframed in the art
lof war gladly went forth and formed
in the ranks to defend the country.
Men of all classes, clergy and lawyers
and doctors, all in the hope and aspir-
atoms of youth. who went forth and
j formed in the ranks of war. They
went to save the Union. They were
your comrades. They We're your
friends. They were your messmates.
They marched side by side with YOU
! You saw some of them die
/ Let us recount some of the Incl
idents. One that have taken out OF
the library OF patriotic mosaics, is of
! q mother in Wisconsin, who gave her
tonly son to the country 1t was the
lone Great sacrifice which she could
make. But the tragedy of it all is
tfat he fell on SOUTHERN battle field
and was missing, and perhaps the sad
/ Gest message ever sent from a battle
/ field was that one word missing.
The story of this mother is that years
fafterward comrade in arms, college
/ man, returning to visit his boyhood
home in Wisconsin, went over to call
! on the missing comrades mother. She
/ said, No. | have never heard from
Robert since that battle, but there
hangs his coat and his hat on the wall,
/ just as he left them the dav he
marched away You can remember
/ the last meal, when you enlisted Per-
hars brothers also were going, and the
Eight before there was no sleep for
father and mother Mother prepared
sumptuons breakfast, but as you sat
around the table none was eaten, and
the family grace became sob. 1t
was the sob of the Nation Major
! Cole told me himself that he had to
forcibly take his wifes arms from
around his neck as he mounted his
horse and rode away. Looking back,
he saw her standing at the gate The
incidents serve to illustrate the cost
! of sacrifice. The sacrifice, the tre-
mendous price which had to be paid
for the redemption Of oppressed man
kind and the perpetuatIon of the On /
ion. The Nation was plunged into the
depths of grief; unfathomabIe grief, /
but out of its grief it rose to heights of !
glcry, for with the
freedom of the slaves also the shacg-
les of prejudice and religious dogma
were broken from the minds of men.
1t brourh mental emancipation as well
as physical. 1t taught men that they
were brothers, for churches were
turned into hospitals and commissary
terians sang and worshipped with the
shouting Methodists. 1t gave slim
ulus to music. art and literature, and
developed some of the finest poetry
! the world has ever heard sung. 1t
brought from the heart of Julia Ward
Howe her famous battle hymn which !
has taken an ilnperishable place in the
hymnolcgy Of the earth. With its
sweep and grandeur, and it's powerful
imagination, 1t fills the soul with In
effable delight and stirs the heart to
its utmost. It's closing lines will ever
be immortal:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was
borne across the sea
With glory in his bosom that trans
figures you and me.
As he died to make men holy. let us
die to make men free,
For God is marching on
Heroic figures like John Brown
were caught by the imagination and
reacted in those inspirational lines
which cheered many a boz. in blue as
you sang John Browns body 'cs
Wondering in the tomb, but his soul
goes marching on" The heroic pur-
itanism Of John Browns soul was con
quering the Spirit of the cavalier
Not man and horse, but man and God
And the fountains of human life we're
broken up, and the deers OF every
heart became fountain Of patriotism. !