The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1914-05-09

The past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the
great struggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation
the music of boisterous drums-the silver voice OF heroic buges.
We see thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators
We see the pale cheeks of women and the flushed face of men; and
in those a~ssemblages W see all the dead whose dust we have COW
cred with flowers We lose sight of them no more. We are with
them when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them
part with those they love. Some are walking for the last time in
quiet woody places with maidens they adore. We hear the whis-
perings and the sweet VOWS of eternal love as they lingeringly part
forever Others are bending over cradles, kissing babies that are
Some are receiving the blessings Of old men. Some are
parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their hearts
again and again and say nothing, Kisses and tears, tears and kiss
minging Of agony and love. And some are talking with
wives and endeavoring with brave words spoken in the old tones. to
drive from their heart the awful fear. We see them part We see
the wife standing in the door with the babe in her arms standing in
the sunlight sobbing. At the turn of the road a hand waves-she
answers by holding high in her loving arms the child. BE is gone
and forever.
We see them all as they march proudly away under the Haunting
flags, keeping time to the grand wild music Of war-marching down
the street of the great cihes-through the towns and across the
prairies-down to the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eter-
nal right We go with them one and all. We are by their side on
the CORY felds-in all the hospitals of pain-on all the weary
marches. We stand guard with them in the wild storm and under
the quiet stars. We are with them in ravines running with blood
in the burrows of old fields. We r with them between contending
hosts. unable to move. wild with thirst, the life ebbing slowly away
among the withered leaves. We see them pierced by balls and torn
with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the
charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but hu-
man speech can never tell what they endured.
We are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We
see the maiden in the shadow of her first sorrow. W see the sill
vered head of The old man bowed with the last grief
The past rises before us and we see four millions of human be-
ings governed by the lash-we see them bound hand and foot-we
hear the strokes of the whips-we see the hounds tracking women
through tangled swamps. We see the babies sold from the breast
of mothers. Cruelty unspeakable Outrage infinite
Four million bodies in hains-four million souls in letters.
All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father and child trampled
beneath the brutal feet of might And all this was done under our
beautiful banner of the free.
The past rises before us. We hear the roar and shrek of the
bursting she'll The broken letters fall The heroes die. We look,
instead of slaves we see men and women and children. The wand
of progress touches the auction block, the slave pen, the whipping
post, and we see homes and fresides, and school houses and books,
and, where all was want and crime and cruelty and fear we see the
faces of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died for iberty-they died for
us. They are at rest They sleep in the land they made free. un-
der the flag they rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad
hemlocks. the fearful willows. and embracing vines. They sleep
beneath the shadows of these clouds, careless of sunshine or of
storm, each in the windowless Palace of Rest Earth may run red
with other wars-they are at peace. In the midst of battle, in the
roar of conflict, they found the serenity of death. 1 have one senti-
ment for soldiers living and dead: Cheers for the living; tears for