The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1914-09-15
A Vision of War
Robert G. IngersOll.

the music of boisterous drums
the silent voice of heroic bugles.
We see thousands of assemblages,
and hear the appeals of orators; we
see the pale cheeks of women and the
flushed faces of men; and in those
assemblages we see all the dead
whose dust we have covered with
flowers. We lose sight Of them no
more.
We are with them when they en-
list 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 the
maidens they adore. We hear the
whisperings and the sweet VOWS of
eternal love as they lingeringly part
forever Others are bending over
cradles, kissing babies that are
asleep.
Some are receiving the blessings
of old men Some are partins with
mothers who hold them and press
them to their hearts again and again,
and say nothing And some are TALK
ing with wives and endeavorirg with
brave word, spoken in tn" old tones,
t. drive from their hearts the awfui
fear. we see them part. We see the
wife standing in the door with the
babe in her arms-standins IN the
sunlight sobbing-at the turn OF the
road a hand waves-she answers by
holding high in her loving arms the
child. He is gone, and forever.
We see them all as they march
rroudly away under the Haunting
flags. keeping time to the grand, wild
music OF war-marching dowr the
streets OF the great cities through
the towns and across the Drairies-
down to the fields of glory, to do and
&c die for the eternal right.
We go with them, one and all. We
are by their side on all the cory
fields-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 are with them between contend
ing hosts, uanble 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 bound with them in the
prisons of hatred and famine; but
human 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. We see the silvered head of
the old man bowed with the last
grief.
The past rises before us, and we
see four millions of human beings
governed by the lash-we see them
bound hand and foot-we hear the
strokes OF cruel whips-we see the
hounds tracking women through
tangled swamps. We see babes sold
from the breasts of mothers. Cruel
ty unspeakable! Outrage infinite!
Four million bodies in chains
four million souls in letters. All the I
sacred relations OF wife, mother,
father and child trampled beneathil
the brutal feet OF might. And all
this was done under our own beauti-
ful banner of the free.
The past rises before US We hear
the roar and shrek of the bursting
shell. The broken letters fall. These
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 liberty-they died for us. They
are at rest. They sleep in the land
they made free, under the flag they
rendered stainless, under the solemn
pines, the sad hemlocks, the fearful
willows, and the embracing vines
They sleep beneath the shadows of
the clouds, careless alike OF sun
china ar of atoru aach In tho win