Year: 1879

How wonderful it.alli ' Sometimes, tho memories of the war are out Of mind for brief period, ,and we piod along in the drudgery of our tame and common life Then suddenly, perhaps the sight of a maimed soldier, perhaps the roll of drum, the call of bngle,, the leis urely rustic of the old flag peacefully swinging brings back in a tumuhuous rush the recollcc, tions of that magnificent and awful time. There was a short struggle with Mexico, there were skirmishes with the Indians; but we looked upon real, great, prolonged national war, taxing the power of thirty or forty nil lions of people and marshaling armies by the hundred thousand, as something of which pos sibly the last in our century had been seen, under Napoleon. How many boys read of great battles and wondered and wondered how it would seem. AS their pulses leaped at the description of great thunderings of cannon, the rattliug of musketry, the wild cheering of the charge, they asked, Gould go through a battle How should I feel How do wound ed men look and act? What do they say ?? andtter long night march, the cold rain, the biveuac on the cheerless hill or in deep woods Il wish could sec it all, said many boy

 ' Of sudden 300, 900, 70O 900, at last mil lion men on one side of great civil war Dying men by the hundred thousand blood in streams debt by the thousand million, a na- tiOn's life trembling in the balance, black clouds of sorrow aad despair covering the whole land The boys who doubted their own hearts rallied by regiments, brigades, divisions and grand armies, and the world never saw braver soldiers or more terrible battles. It was the cause: it was all tue cttuSe.

 The dear land we love. the flag the Union, the Declaration of Independence, the foremost republic of ali time the continent dedicated to liberty, the nation that God had set af1oat to work out the problem of free government edu- cation, peace, justice, equal rights-to lead mankind toward future nobler than our rich est dreams Should all this vission of unut- terable glory be plotted out DisHnion two republics, score of republics, petty ambitions, factions, revolutions, dshonor, anarchy, a wretched crushed continent begging for kings to take all and give only peace. This the new future of America? No! NO No NO! for ever NO! And one grand "Fall In!" rang and rolled across the land. And day and night the air quivered and hummed, thrilled and shuddered with multitudinous drumming and fierce trumpeting. By the hundred thousand the young men dropped all work, and thought but of war. stood erect, shoulder to shoulder, and from green valleys. rocky hills, broad pra- ires grimy from mines and furnaces or trim and cleanly from school or shop they came down inlong swinging ranks with the clash and the clang and the roll of stormy war-mu- sic, to right all the great wrong. Ah, but the wifei The wife will weep, but she will not say nay She loves the land too and thanks God that her husband is man. The mother? The mother is asking blessing on her soldier boy. The children? God and the country will take care of them, and they shall not be ashamed of their father It was worth con- mon century to live those four years!

 The enemies of free government said we nhf foco fhaf Hnrad fnI fn money, to materialisn, to commerce that we had nc historic consciousness, no history, no power of cohesion-a loose congregation of states that would fall apart with a quarrel no central commanding power to compel or ganiZatiOn and obedience. It was the republic they hated it's example and steady influence. They would have hated the southern republic if it had succeeded

 We asserted that there is no power on earth like that of free people and that whatever is to be done bya whole people can best be done by a free people. It was for us to show that a free people could carry on long war, could show submission, organization, devotion; not because a king commanded it, but because we felt and wiled it. It was of infinite mpor : tance because the failure of this republic would have delayed the world century. We were fighting the battle of the world, not for the north, not against the sOuth,r not for the southern slave or the black or white slave, not against the shareholder. It was for all, for the whole people, for all peoples, for hu- manity. That combination of truths and tra- ditions, beliefs intellectual and moral discov- cry and growth that we call civilization con- peled us. The common soldier felt it but could noteXplain it. It was worth all it cost. for the world could not. afford to let it end otherwise A divided republic would have meant eterna! war, and ii was best to end it then and forever.

 War is not an uumixea evil None but 8 perfect people can endure perpetual peace, and the strongest people are made where there is {, Well-balancGd war with nature Conflict is tie law of the universe. with evil eternally struggling. The good cannot live at peace Ii it would, for there will be peace only when all evil has vanished The wickedest thing in the universe in selfish and wicked war between wicked rulers and people; unless it be a cow ardy peace-a peace that will see liberty ana justice stricken down and stand by silent and idle. Wrong and oppression are challenge to Heaven and all just men. War raises men to great thoughts and deeds, calls them to sac rafce for something not their immediate self the value of country, of it's daily protection The beauty and nobility of obedience and dis cipline are taught, and mutitudes are better citizens for having been good soldiers. The

 

 country are not the men to kill it, ,afterward.

 The true soldier is not onewho kills, but one who preserves law and order Our heroes thought more of dying for a good cause thai of killing. We, their comrades cannot fOrgel the dead; we remember their faces, their tones we saw their blood saw them ln hospi- tals wasting away, or buriedsth hastily as we advanced or in the face of retreat a com plaint was never heard. Blakesee, noble young soldier from these Litchfield hills, lay dying in Hilton Head hospital. spoke tu him and he replied ''Colonel, Pm not sorry, would do it again." He had hazarded his life for his country and he would repeat the risk. It is right for us to be here to do honor to the dead of the war; and it is the best use to which we can put some of our time and some of our money Let monuments be raised in every town,l let songs be sung and orations delivered. Bring children to see these monuments. tell them the story of devotion and bid them talk, it into their life blood. We have still highe, duty-to yindicate the cause for which oul soldiers fought, and to be always ready to show the world that they died in q holy struggle t, make the world better. It IS cur duty to savt what they won, not for party or race but fo, all. Something was fought for and won. Il must have beeen something serious and worti keeping. There was a grand appeal to tn, final arbitrament and the verdicts were tha the Union is perpetual, that all men are equa before the law and that all men should hay justice through the law. May God make it s and permit us the honor of leading in showin! that republic can give in the highest degre a free, moral, energetic, intelligent, and happ, people-a light and blessing to the world

 The speaker fitly closed his address with re beating quotation from the memorable ad dress of President Lincoln at Gettysburg.

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