The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-07-05
HomeWard March Of Veterans From Gettysburg Begun
The Blue and the Gray Now Indissoluhzy Blend e d "Beat Time" to Same Marital Air.

Gettysburg, Pa., July 5-Thousands of veterans began their homeward march, today, after a last exchange of greetings with the new comrades they found here Before night, more than will have gone. Tomorrow the vet erans will be given breakfast, the last meal in camp. That is what the army says but those who have seen the kindly courtesy that has been shown to the veterans by these busy men throughout a trying week, know that they will be fed as long as they stay here. if it's a month.
 On the crest of Cemetery Ridge stands the statue which New York has raised to her men who fought and died at Gettysburg. On the top of a tall marble shaft is the heroic figure of a woman. In her right hand is wreath, in her left a thin staff crowned with a liberty cap. Her hsad is bowed as if in grief but that long right arm with it's wreath of brass points out straight toward Seminary Ridge, mile away, across the fields. where Longstreet stood with bowed head watching Pickett and charge.
 New York raised the statue to her own dead and beneath, in a half circle are rows of graves of her men who fell here, 50 years ago.
 It takes but little imagination to make that tall column with it's speak ing figure that nolded voice of the nation. It takes but a little touch of sentiment that has grasped every man who has come to the veterans camp to think of that outstretched arm as lifted in benediction to the. men who lived and the men who died on this greatest battfeld Of the war.
 Down 100 yards through the trees from the statue runs the Emmettsburg road, the main artery from Gettys- burg to the camp. Over that road in the heat of a July sun the veterans of the armies of Meade and Lee, to- day. streamed honaeward, tired possi- bly, but lifted out of themselves by four days of a reunion such as would seem hardly possible in any other country in the world.
 Many a veteran who passed over the road, today, and many who have pass ed before turned with streaming eyes to catch a last glimpse of that long arm with wreath as he trudged the dusty road. It is the first landmark that stands high enough to be seen on the way to the battlefield and 1t is the last as the town swallows up the road.
 The army tents probably will stand here until next week The regulars will stay until the last veteran is gone. Some time before the end of the month the brown city will come down, the army will go back to other tasks and leave the field of Gettys- burg to memory.
 That the reunion will live in mem ory as long as life lasts for the men who were here cannot be doubted. It's S7,f1 T I< Tao- f0 aJ11T1 T1o&c but if the old men who gathered around it's fires act as they acted here, talk as they talked here, the war be- tween the states is really over so far as those who fought in it are con cerned. The unreconstructed tReb'' and the unforgiving "Yank will be hard to find.
 Major General Liggitt. in command of the Gettysburgh camp, paid high tribute, today, to Major E. J. Nor movie, army quartermaster, who has been it's guiding spirit. He said:
 t'To perfect organization and CO., ordination down to the last detail, the conscientious devotion to their work on the part of all the officers and en- listed men on duty here, the success of the encampment is due.
 '1It may be observed that the suc- cessfu1 handling and supply of a per sonnel the equivalent in number of three army divisions has been quickly accom- p1ished by excellent system. When one remembers that this per sonnel is composed of men who aver age seventy years of age, coming from all parts of the country and the nor taIity- and sick percentage has been far below what might have been con- sidered normal, the remarkable char acter of this great undertaking be- comes more c1ear.''