Year: 1868

This the Thrtieth day of May, by general
agreement, and upon the suggestion Of the
Grand Army of the Republic" the patriotic
survivors of our Civil War will revisit


throughout the land the sepulchers of their
departed comrades, aud will offer there appro-
pirate testimonials of affection and respectful
recoections. Hither they will bear floral
tributes-the chaplets symbolizing the peace
which follows the stormy and fatal conflict and
the laurels which speak of an unfadng glory.
These are honors marked by an antique sim
plicity, and they will touch the hearts of the
people with quiet tenderness which noiser
ovation might not awaken. Even thus we can
imagine the cOntempative Athenians, wreath
ing the monuments of their dead warriors and
dreaming of that eternal Elysium which had


been purchased by self-sacrificing bravery. In
the ardor of our renewed national life, and
while indulging in brilliant anticipations of
the future greatness of the Republic, we may
chance to forget those whose bodily presence
has ceased TO remind us of n devotion to their
country as honorable as any which the ample
page of history records Ours is the hurry
and excitement of instant emergencies; upon
us devOlyes the duty of reducing TO q concrete
permanence, and to a practical utility, the ad-
vantages and the honors of a sanguinary war !;
we are SO to arrange our public affairs that
our children may feel that no drop of blood,
precious in the sight Of our common Father,
was split in vain that the light of home was
in no instance extnguished without an abiding
compensation ; and that if great success were
vouchsafed to us and an almost miraculous
4. ,o4.. A
cOarsely unmindful of those who, at the price
of their own lives, bought for us such mag
nifcent opportunities. There were moments
during the war when the fate of this Common
wealth seemed to depend upon the unfinching
persistence of a mere handful of men. Their
desperate valor yielded to no check the shat
tered columns were closed up with Obedient
alacrity the forlorn hope pressed on, with the
iron tempest bowling around it, only to be
mown down in the cumulative harvest of death;
and when the field was won, how many widows
were there unconscious of their fortune, and
how many mothers who were yet to hear that
the first born son, so warmly welcomed and so
tenderly cradled, had gone down in the shock
of the battle. with no friendly hand to wipe
the death-damp from his brow, and with no
loving ear to catch the last feeble utterances of
departing soul 1t is impossible for any man
of ordinary sensibility to think with equani-
nifty of all this disappointment and sorrow, and
inexpressible agony, as wasted and worse than
wasted. 1t is frightful to consider failure now,
in the smallest particular of justice and
humanity, when the conditions Of national
greatness have, by such vicissitudes, been
subjected to our disposal. The ceremonial of
to-day will bring back to many minds the
actual purposes of the war, and the noble
associations which it will recall to the most
thoughtless will be lamentably squandered
should they fail to arouse something loftier
and rarer than nero partisan passion-a reso-
luton to cast no vote except fox tho Euest