THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT. 105 THE SOLDIERS' MONUMENT. JOHN L. SWIFT. THIS monument, faultless as a work of art, built by the generosity of willing hands and loving hearts, should be a perpetual rebuke to those who cavil about, or croak over our impending dangers. This monument is not raised to ornament a fleeting political shadow or crumbling fabric of government, it is raised to add its weight of confidence in the best country and government on earth; a country and government whose course of greatness and whose measure of national purity and perfection are but begun. This monument is here to extol the fact that these men did not suffer nor die for naught, when they devoted their existence to the noblest military contest of which the human race boast. can For no barren project of local vanity, not for the revival of the traditions of combats of slaughter on hostile fields, but to immortalize patriots and patriotism, do we, in sober demeanor, with serious thought and with reverend words, bequeath to suc ceeding generations this gift of the loyal living in remembrance of the loyal dead. A great Union soldier once said, "Forgiving the past, but not forgetting it, we will cherish the memories of the war forever!" That, with us is a universal sentiment, for we have nothing, save our religion, that is purer or loftier to cherish, than the memories of the war. At once we dismiss the babble, that anniversaries reserved to decorate the final resting-place of soldiers, and monuments erected in their esteem, tend to keep alive the recollections of civil war. Thank God those recollections are, and are to be kept alive! Alas for the American nation when it no longer thrills with conscious pride, to the memories of its grandest hour! It would be a criminal slander on human nature to impute indifference on our part, to the men who made us what we are. Whiter, for the fires that strove to blacken and blast its fame; purer, for the blood that watered its base; stronger, for the tramp of armed men around its assaulted portals, - we, now and here, rejoice in the rescued temple of our liberties. The credit and glory of the undesecrated walls of that temple and of its unmoved foundations are due to the work and hardships of the American soldier. It was their service which made us to-day, fellow-citizens enjoying the same rights, the same chances, the same incalculable career, whether we hail from the East or from the West, from the North or from the South. then to the American soldier now and ever! him in sermon and speech! Honor him in sonnet, stanza, and epic! Honor him in the unwasting forms by which art seeks to prolong his well-earned fame! Honor the volunteer soldier, who, when his work of devastation and death was ended, put aside his armor, melting into the sea of citizenship, making no ripple of disturbance upon its surface! Honor the citizen soldier of America, who never knew the feeling of vindictiveness or revenge! Honor OUR HEROES AND MARTYRS. EDWIN H. CHAPIN. OUR heroes and martyrs! they are identified with the names that live upon the lips of millions. Our heroes and martyrs! a cloud of witnesses for the spirit and worth of the nation. OUR HEROES AND MARTYRS. 107 Our heroes! named in the homes of all who have left home and occupation, comfort and kindred, and stood in the midst of battle; presented to us in glorious clusters on many a deck and field. These are the men who illustrate the value of our country. But, where the hero stands, there also the martyr dies. With the chorus of victory blends the dirge, mournful yet majestic, too. The burden of that dirge, as it falls from the lips of wives and mothers, of fathers and children, is sad and tender, but, as time passes on and it reissues from a nation's lips, it swells into exultation and honor, "How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!" Some of us have read of that company, whom their brave officer had so often conducted to victory, who would never part with their dead hero's name. Still, day by day at the head of the regimental roll it is called aloud. The generation that loved him have passed away, but their sons, and their sons' sons, will ever and always love the honored name. Tour d'Auvergne," still first of the brave band, is summoned, and, ever and always a brave soldier steps from the ranks to reply, "Dead on the field of honor." "La "Dead on the field of honor!" This, too, is the record of thousands of unnamed men, whose influence upon other generations is associated with no personal distinction, but whose sacrifice will lend undying lustre to the nation's archives and richer capacity to the nation's life. And yet, these martyrs are remembered by name. Go visit the homes of the land; homes of wealth and plenty, but richer now by the consecration of sacrifice; homes of toi and obscurity from which the right hand of support has been taken away, or the youthful prop, poor and obscure, - there these, the unknown fallen, have names and riches of solemn tender memory. What aristocratic legend refers to a prouder fact than that which sll be recited in the still summer field where he labored, and by the winter fireside where his place is vacant, "He fell in the great war for Union and for freedom." Sleep, sleep in quiet grassy graves, where the symbols that ye loved so well shall cover and spread over you, by day the flowers of red, white, and blue, by night the constellated stars, while out of those graves there grows the better harvest of the nation and of times to come! OUR HONORED DEAD. HENRY WARD BEECHER. How bright are the honors which await those who, with sacred fortitude and patriotic patience, have endured all things that they might save their nation from division, and from the power of corruption! The honored dead! They that die for a good cause are redeemed from death; their names are gathered and garnered; their memory is precious; each place grows proud for them who were born there. There is in every village, and in every neighborhood, a glowing pride in its martyred heroes; tablets preserve their names; pious love shall renew the inscriptions as time and the unfeeling elements efface them. And the national festivals shall give multitudes of precious names to the orator's lips. Children shall grow up under more sacred inspirations, whose elder brothers, dying nobly for their country, left a name that honored and inspired all who bore it. Oh, tell me not that they are dead, that generous host, that army of invisible heroes! Are they dead OUR HONORED DEAD. 109 that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language? Are they dead that yet act? Are they dead that yet move upon society and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism? Ye that mourn, let gladness mingle with your tears; he was your son, but now he is the nation's; he made your household bright, now his example inspires a thousand households; dear to his brothers and sisters, he is now brother to every generous youth in the land; before, he was narrowed, appropriated, shut up to you; now he is augmented, set free, and given to all; before, he was yours, now he is ours; he has died to the family that he might live to the nation. Not one name shall be forgotten or neglected, and it shall by and by be confessed of our modern heroes, as it is of an ancient hero, that he did more for his country by his death than by his whole life. O mother of lost children! sit not in darkness, nor sorrow whom a nation honors. O mourners of the early dead! they shall live again, and live forever; your sorrows are our gladness; the nation lives because you gave it men that loved it better than their lives. And when the nation shall sit in unsullied garments of liberty with justice upon her forehead, love in her eyes, and truth on her lips, she shall not forget those whose blood gave vital currents to her heart, and whose life given to her shall live with her life till time shall be no more. Every mountain and hill shall have its treasured name, every river shall keep some solemn title, every valley and every lake shall cherish its honored register, and, till the mountains are worn out and the rivers forget to flow, till the clouds are weary of replenishing springs and the springs forget to gush and the rills to sing, shall their names be kept fresh with reverent honors which are inscribed upon the book of national remembrance. |