The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1914-05-24
VETERAN RANKS
Thinning Fast
Each Year SEES More Graves
for Nation to Decorate
al Arlington.
PROVES HONOR OF WAR
Total Of 100000 Northern Dead in
Civil War Tells Only Partial
Story Of Saen6ce.
PROVES HONOR OF WAR
ny MIRA II. MErCALF.

Before another issue Of The Sunday
Herald the battered remnants fof an
army. grander than ever Caesar mustered
under the banner Of imperial Rome. Will
have marched with faltering step and
saddened heart to lay its yearly tribute
Of tears and flowers on the graves OF an
cver-increasing number-the dead heroes
Of the civil war.
To the world Of today. this great trag-
edy of half century ago ID but tradition
ana not q living memory. but the passing
wears can never efface that record from
the very souls of those who went through
that fiery furnace in the great struggle
for the nations life with its frtghtful toll
Of precious young lives sacrificed to the
MoIoch Of one Of the worlds greatest
wars. Costly indeed was the price with
which the dawning peace vas bought:
Fourteen thousand men killed and wound
ed at Shiloh; l5,00o went down at Chick
ahominy; 1900 at Antietam. and 1900
more at Fredericksburg; 1900 killed or
crippled at Chancellorsville: ZOO lives
sacrificed ON the field of Gettysburg:
II, 900 at Chickamauga; n00o at Spottsyl-
vania, while 1900 fell in the Battle Of the
Wilderness.
One for Every Nine.
In those four years Of blood and carnage.
81, 900 men persisted by the bullet. $4,000
by disease, and 6.000 died from other
causes-a total of $4,000 dead-one man
for every nine who wore the Blue.
From the lips Of thoughtless youth we
sometimes hear the fiippant charge that
the .'old soldiers are still fighting the old
battles Of the civil war;" little realizing
what they mean to the SCARED survivors
of those epoch-making days.
Who that marched with Sherman to
the sea- can ever forget?
Who that came back from the slippery
slopes of Gettysburg can ever forget the
bloody tragedy which for three long days
turned its peaceful quiet into seething
hell OF shot and shell?
Who that Witnessed the destruction by
the Confederate army itself. Of its last
hope and stronghold. the city Of Rich
mond, in that memorable April Of '65.
will ever forget the INDISPENSABLE scene Of
horror, with the roar Of an Immense
confiagration sounding in their ears.
while the explosion Of the sunboats shook
the doomed city to its very foundation?
Thirty city blocks swept out Of existence
by the spreading flames, 1000 homes de-
stroyed, while hundreds Of hospital and
almshouse inmates were said to have
been blown into eternity.
Such IL War.
Such Is war! God forbid that our land
shall ever know another. but let US for
evermore remain one people. loyal to one
Tag, and united in one earnest effort to
make this nation the grandest ever risen
on the tides Of time.
Memories like these are ineffaceable.
and who has a better right to live again
fight" IL you will-the battles of that
fast-receding period. than the proud
heroes of that day? But the honored
ranks of that once powerful army are
rapidly thinning. Day by day In ever
increasing numbers. slowly winds the
funeral cortege through the streets Of
Washington to that vast, silent encamp-
ment on the wooded heights Of Arlington.
that consecrated spot whose silence is
only intensified by the dropping OF an
acorn or the whirr Of Wild birds wing
Not many are the years before other
hands must deck our soldiers graves
with the flowers Of spring. but when the
last soldier of that great war shall have
followed comrade and commander to that
land which knows no bugle call to arms,
may these lowly graves be still the shrine
whereon an unforgetting people shall lay
their tribute Of bloom and blossom, and
be forever guarded by that emblem of the
worlds best hopes, and the heritage Of a
people yet to be-that splendid. costly
nag for whose -
Every sfripe Of crimson hue.
And every star on field of blue
Ter thousand Of brave and true
Have laid them down and died.