Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1922-07-20
THE RICHMOND REUNION

bAoAhA5 IL ehC CAtAo Inilcl GIdlob.
And its annual reunions are equally
as unique among public gatherings.
Such an organization and such
gathering would be impossible in any
land but this.
More than fifty seven years ago
Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee
met on the historic field of Appomat-
tox and negotiated such an agree.
ment as put an end to fratricidal
strife.
They had been educated at the
same national institution, and had
been officers in the same army. and
the April sunshine fell upon the heads
of two Americans who have taken
their place in the Pantheon of the
Immortals.
General Grant treated his great an
tagonist with chivalric courtesy and
by so doing touched a chord in the
hearts of the people of the South
that is vibrating still.
The soldiers he had led opened their
haversacks and fed generously their
erstwhile foes, and the memory of
their action abides still with many
so-called "rebeP' who in a few DAYS
will sing and shout and fling his hat
in air while the fountain of his heart,
touched by the magic wand of mem
DRY, will send forth tears which can
not be restrained.
The northern soldier returned to a
land that was prosperous. He was
assured food and raiment and the
other comforts of life.
The southern soldier returned to
face poverty and hardship, and in
many cases suffering keen and bitter.
Fields lay idle and fallow. the
smoke from thousands of homes des.
troyed by fire hung like a pail of OBJ
pressive gloom over the land; every
hillside was pierced by the red fur
rows of war; the wall of bruised
hearts rose above the din of human
habftations. and want kept watch by
many a hearthstone; but they re-
deemed their sorely stricken land.
They illustrated the noble adage
that peace hath her victories no
less renowned than those of war
and now those who survived the on
set and carnage of war, and the hard
ships and trials of peace, will meet
again on historic ground and in a his
toric city to live over again a past
crowded with achievements as glor-
ious as ever illumined the annals of
war.
They will bend before affairs, which
are in their sight consecrated to
holy and immortal memories, but
they have obeyed the divine injunc-
tion, and been reconciled to their
brethren befire they will offer their
gifts or make their devotions.
They will shout when Dixie" is
played. They will lift their voices
high in singing the old songs they
often sang in camp. but they will
sing no songs of hate-they will cher
ish no bitterness-they will not seek
"even by breath to fan into a flame
the embers of settled strife"
The day for that is past. The sons
of Maine and Texas, of New York
and Alabama, of Pennsylvania and
Virginia sleep side by side under the
peoples on Flanders Field, and their
heroic blood blent in crimson stream
has watered the tree of liberty, "the
leaves of which shall be for the heal
ing OF the nations"
When General Dodge pointed out
on the battlefield of Gettysburg to
Mr.. Lincoln, where federal and con-
federate commando met in death
grapple, Mr.. Lincoln said: "Ohi it
was terrible; but Dodge, thank God,
they were all Americans, for no 9TH
er men could have fought as they
did"