¢ | died at her home ELLA WHEELER WILCOX
MEMORIAL DAY
-
SENTIMENTS.
What Some Well Known People
Say.
A BEAUTIFUL NATIONAL OUSTOM.
Views of Ella Wheeler Wilcox—Thoughts’
of Professor John Clark Ridpath and
Ex-Senator Ingalls — Commodore Mel-
ville and Colonel Forney on Our Heroic
Dead. :
{Copyright,- 1897.)
It would be unbecoming to enlarge on
the subject of Memorial day without
paying some introductory tribute to its
founder. Very few indeed attribute the
beautiful national custom of decorating
the graves of the heroes of the civil war
to a woman, Mrs. Martha G. Kimball,
a soldier in the war herself, for she
followed it from its beginning to its
close, nursed the wounded soldiers and
perfected the hospital service in General
Sherman’s army, and, in fact, watched
over the Union soldiers like a mother.
Two short incidents display more. of
Mrs. Kimball’s character than pages of
eulogy:
‘‘A boy was sentenced to be shot. His
mother sat on the steps of the capitol in
Washington. She remained there dis-
tracted with grief for three days and
nights trying in vain to see President
. Lincoln. A lady, beautiful and of lov-
ing disposition, passing in front of the
capitol, paused to learn the pitiful story,
and then, with the determination of that
viking race from which she sprang,
sought and pleaded the poor mother’s:
cause with the president himself. Lin-
coln hearkened to her eloquence, and
turning his sad eyes on her said: ‘Take
this card to Stauton and save the boy
and mother. It is a relief to have you
tell me how you would manage the af-
fairs of state.’ ’’
‘“The battle of Winchester was over,
the condition of General Molaeur'
~command demoralized, so’ &s to bring
~on this officer in the presence of his
men a sharp reproof from Sheridan. A
lady, beautiful and of loving disposition,
‘had nursed General Molineux after he
thad been wonnded in a previous battle
‘in the performance of a brave duty. She
addressed General Sheridan thus: ‘You
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- ‘Madam, if I have done so, I will apol-
; . he supplemented this act of gallantry
| a major generalship.’’
| of those who had died in the cause of
| the Confederacy. She thought of the
3 | weed strewn, neglected
¥ | brave boys who fell fightfg in the blue
' and wrote to General John A. Logan,
| then commander in chief of the Grand
| miration and requested example of thosa
{ southern women.
| the sympathy
| on the 80th of Jf 3
May, 1868, es- =,
tablishing Me-
morial day. Mrs. ¢ 7
Kimball, who ey
>
have done a great wrong to a brave
man.’ The hero of Winchester replied,
ogize to him before his soldiers.” And’
by recommending General Molineux for
The lady was Mrs. Kimball. , It was
while she was traveling in the south
that she noticed how assiduously the
southern women garlanded the graves
mounds over the
Her eloquent
pleading enlisted
and co-operation
of General Lo-
gan and resulted
in the famous or-
der No. 2 that
went into effect
in the Quaker City some three years
ago, ‘now lies at Laurel Hill. A little
mound, a simple headstone and a huge
Norwegian pine mark the spot where
the founder of a great national custom
lies buried.
The lines that follow were mailed to
me by Ella Wheeler Wilcox in response
to my request for some original remarks
on the subject of our national observance
of May 80. It is evident that this popu-
lar poet takes a serious view of the pres-
ent situation and does not hesitate to
express her’ feelings as forcibly as she:
does poetically:
Our country’s starving children plead for la-
: fo no work to give them. Yet, behold!
She ig the swarming offspring of her neigh
r a
While*her own kin stand roofless in the cold.
Not for such ends the heroes whom we honor
Preserved our country in her strength and
pride.
So many and so dark the stains upon her,
Well might the warrior question why he died.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.
In response to my next call came the
following hopeful paragraphs from
Commodore Melville, an old soldier, the
chief in the United States bureau of
steam engineering in the navy depart-
ment at Washington. In addition he can
lay claim to being a celebrated arctic
explorer and the designer of more than
one of our late war vessels:
Decoration day, the day of all the year that
is given to the highest and holiest ceremony
that the living can pay to the dead—the dead,
the heroic dead, the brave souls, the light
and life of the fairest and bravest, who with
youth and beauty in the dark days of 1861
bared their fair young breasts to the storm of
shot and shell and stood between the devastat-
ing hosts of iconoclasts and the only true gov-
ernment that God has permitted to be on the
face of the earth!
Weave wreaths and garlands, ye fair maids
of America, to decorate the tombs of the heroic
dead, who died to save-our fair land. Weep
not, but rejoice that your brothers and lovers
have left behind them in their somber tombs
the evidence that our country was worth sav-
ing—aye, dying for—and that the example is
set forth for coming generations for all time
that the spirit of 1776 and 1881 is still abroad in
our land and will never die.
GEORGE W. MELVILLE,
Engineer In Chief United Statgs Navy.
Professor John Clark Ridpath writes
me on the subject from the scene of his
editorial labors on The Arena. The his-
torian challenges thought on the after
life and embodies sentiment on a na-
tional memory in this short but admira-
ble essay:
OUR DEAD.
Where, after all, are our brave dead? The
traditional belici of the world has been that
they live. But very
vague faith is the
faith of mankind
with respect to
where the departed
dwell or in what
state. On this theme
conjecture has been
rife in all ages, Cer
tain it is that hu-
man beings have
never been. content
to die without a
hope.
Of all the argm-
ments that have
been presented on
. this subject that
of Henry Thomas
Buckle is the best.
His own mother passed away. He was at that
time composing his review of ‘‘Mill’s Essay on
Liberty.” The shock to the great historian and
thinker was almost unbearable, but he rallied
and inserted in the essay which he was eom
posing that remarkable paragraph on the sur
vival of the dead as he was able to see it and
hope for it.
Buckle’s argument is this: There is in hu
man affection and desire an equation the first
part of which is here and the other part of
which is—where? That is his great thesis re-
duced to a syllogistic suggestion. He alleges
what is true—that life without the after half
of the equation of hope and desire is a reduc
tio ad absurdum.
Our brave dead who went from us in the
flory ordeal of war either exist or they have
ceased to exist. There is no middle ground.
The broken equation of hope and affection in-
dicates their existence beyond that dividing
curtain which the poetical language of man-
kind has called ‘‘the veil.”” We choose to be-
lieve, or at least to think, that our herowus are
living somewhere in a happy fruition of patri-
otic joys, unclouded with sorrow, unacquaint-
ed with further pain and anguish. We say of
them, ‘‘They sleep.” Rather let us say of
them, ‘‘They wake."
If immortality be a dream, it is indeed a
generous and beautiful dream, tending ever to
make itself more real as the end of life ap-
proaches. ' :
+ ‘f.ittle are we disposed to yield to enthusiasm
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH.
| tract was oathed by the spirits in blue amid
that our heroes of the Union war are not dead,
that they are not sleeping, but that they are
both living and free; that they go forth and
know and rest and love and aspire. Happy
were we to be sure that they are able to un-
. clasp the brazen volume of the Backward Look
and to see in ourselves and our work the hap-
py results and beautiful hopes and joys which
they so unselfishly procured and consecrated
|
by their life and death.
JOHN CLARKE RIDPATH,
Boston. Editor of The Arena.
Major Green Clay Goodloe, paymas-
ter in the marine corps at headquarters,
Washington, a Kentuckian by birth,
who served in the Kentucky cavalry in
the early part of the civil war, makes
the following response:
The bright and beautiful page in our repub-
lic's illustrious history is the thought that the
dead were to live always in the hearts of the
living, the survivors were to have honors with-
out stint heaped upon them, the maimed
should be tenderly and appropriately cared
for, as the dust of their fallen husbands and
fathers woald be vigilantly guarded. This con-
the flash of battle and steel, and so long as a
drop of loyal blood circulates their memories
and nobility will be shielded as the mother
guards her offspring. Had not the patriotism
of the blood of the land gone forth to battle,
‘liberty would have slept forever in our land
and the Union been interred. The Union lives,
and the winding sheet, brave Old Glory, com-
forts her heroes in the tomb of the Union.
GREEN CLAY GOODLOE.
From the west Mr. Ingalls sends me
the accompanying letter symbolic of his
own sentiments on Memorial day mem-
ories and observances: i
Other wars have been waged for ambition,
for a frontier, for a dynasty, for a throne, but
no such passions impelied the soldiers of the
republic. They fought for the supremacy of
the moral code in politics, for the beatitudes
in the commonwealth, for the Golden Rule as
the foundation of government. Their death
was a protest against the injustice of human
destiny. JOHN JAMES INGALLS.
Atchison, Kan.
The sentiment printed below comes
from Colonel James Forney, son of John
Forney, the founder of the Philadelphia
Press. As a lieutenant in the navy this
contributor was brevetted captain for
meritorious service—sent ashore by Ad-
miral Farragut in 1862 to hoist the first
Union flag on the custom house at New
Orleans and bring away the Confederate
banner:
Memorial day is the most impressive of all
our national holidays. On that day we throw
away all care and go out and decorate the
graves of those soldiers and sailors who fell in
battle so that we might live to enjoy a free
and great country.’ The scene is very pathetic,
to see the old veterans, bending over with age,
putting the flowers over the remains of their
comrades. It would, however, be a much hap-
pier and grander scene for the future if the
north and south would join together, instead
of having separate days. and make Decoration
day sacred to the memory of both. This would
indeed make it of all days one of the grandest
in the history of the republic.
JAMES FORNEY,
Colonel United States Marine Corps.
The following is sent me, fitly enough,
by an author who comes of a soldier
, family. Dr. Mc-
Cook does not
need identifica-
tion as a natural-
ist, one of the
leading authori-
ties of the world
on American ants
and. spiders and
. the author of the
popular ‘‘The
Tenants of an
Old Farm.’’ Dr.
McCook of the
E famous ‘‘Fight-
JOHN JAMES INGALLS. ing McC ook’
family is the pastor of the Tabernacle
Presbyterian churciv of Philadelphia and
one of the most prominent men in the
ministry. He writes as follows:
In the midst of a great bittle an Indiana
soldier was borne upon a stretcher to the rear,
both thighs shot through by a shell. It so hap
pened that he was carried by the point where
his division commander stood direeting the
conflict. ‘‘Stop, boys!’ lie cried. His bearers
set hin down in front of the officer; who step
ped to his side and spoke a word of pity and
uttered a hope that he might soon be well.
“Look at that,general, ’’ said:.the soldier, lifting
a corner of the blanket thas covered his man-
gled limbs. ‘*No, no; it's all up withme. No
man can live after that. But that isnt what I
want to say, general. I've a wife and five
babies out there in Indians who won’ have a
cent to keep them beyond the pension they
will draw. And I love 'em, general, I love ‘em
more than I know how tatell. But ¥d do it
again, if I had it all to de. over nom, rather
than see the Union destroyed. I've done my
duty, and I’m not afraid tadie. Goodby, gen-
eral. Now, boys, move on.” And thes carried
him out of sigh?:
- The eyes that followed the brave fellow for
a moment were used to such scenes, but they
were wet with tears just thon. No wonder
grateful countrymen hallow the memory of
these men and when the flowers of sprimg
have gathered with their first fullmess hasten
with loving hands to deck their graves. But
there is no flower that exhales its sweetmess
upon the hero's resting place so fragrant in
our souls ns the deeds of suffering self sacrifice
even unto death which. sompel our love and
SOFTOW. HENRY C. McCoOK.
What with war steries and tombstone
morals the tenor of this collection would
have been fittingly decorated with the
rue had not a well known army man
eome tc the rescwe by mailing me a
question and an answer:
‘‘How should Memaerial (Decoration) day be
kept?’
Having taken past in many a Decoration day
parade and in nine cases out of ten with the
result of being drenched to the skin with rains
from a sympathetic but inconsiderate sky, 1
dave no hesitation in replying: - :
Decoration day should be kept—dry.
CHARLES KING,
Captain United States Army.
There $8 no need to identify Captain
Charles King as an army.man, for there
is scarce a novel reader in the country
but has both laughed and cried over his
storieg of army and garrison life. The
gallant captain begs further to state,
while on the subject of Decoration day,
that the above question deserves a better
suswer, but that it catches him at his
the German, his voice trembling with
3p to chase shadows, but somehow we think
—
busiest moment. LILLIAN A. NORTH.
MEMORIAL DAY.
MAY 30, 1897.
Softly the south wind comes from haunts afar
"And brings its charm to waiting hills and
vales,
But now it is not redolent of war,
Of grewsome horrors and heartbreaking
tales.
For peace, with her fair white uplifted wings,
Reigns now unhindered east, west, north and
south;
The green spring turf unto the plowshare |
clings,
And cobwebs lace the brazen cannon’s
. mouth.
No more are serried hosts in battle drawn;
No more are brothers matched in bloody
strife. |
The tragic, devastating war is gone, |
And a new era dawns to stir the life
Of this great nation, to uplift the race,
To forward freedom, to enfranchise man,
To give the lowliest a chance and place
For each to do the very best hecan.
Not in the realms of ancient Rome and Greece,
Nor in the idyls of Utopia
Can there be found or pictured states like
these
Or any power of such benignant sway.
But this brave land sprang not at once, full
born,
Nor found its heritage without a price.
Through battle’s blaze, through toil and hate
and scorn,
Our great republic had its glorious rise.
Today we meet to honor those whose scars
And death were given that freedom should
not die—
Heroes of dark, blood red and cruel wars,
Who won for us the final victory.
Bring from fair gardens and the mountain
side
Flowers for their graves touched with the
south wind’s breath,
That their blest deeds may in our hearts abide
And honor crown their sacrificial death.
Fling out the flag! Let speech and music flow!
May grateful hearts pause and the wealth of
May
Be brought for tribute til! the whole world
know ; ’
The sacred import of Memorial day.
JOEL BENTON.
A RAW RECRUIT.
BY WILL M. CLEMENS,
[Copyright, 1897, by Will M. Clomens.}
In Sergeant Norton’s picket squad
was one of the raw ones, a new recruit.
Oberholtz was his name, and he looked
it. Most young Germans are brave in
the face of danger, and John Oberholtz
was one of the majority.
The night was as uncertain in a weath-
er way as were the English words of
Oberholtz, and as Fred Neston scurried
along his picket line the cottonwood
trees looked to him like a file of black
giants. It was a shadowy, murky, som-
ber might, this June evening, 1864, in
the country round about Spettsylvania
Court House.
Sergeant Norton stopped shert in his
lone march and put his hand to his ear.
A stramge noise came from a ravine not
far away where John Oberholtz was on
duty. Less than two miles to the south
were the Confederate lines, amd the
young sergeant was fearful lest the gray
sharpshooters would reduce the number
of his picket squad. He ran toward the
ravine as fast as the darkness would
permit him and came rather unexpect-
edly upon the young German standing
motionless upon a knoll, his gun point-
ed at some bushes a few feet distant.
The hand of Oberholtz was upon the
trigger of his gun, and his usually red
face was ashen white. He was in the
act of firing when the. sergeant called
him. EN
‘‘Oberholtz, what is the trouble?’
questioned Norton sternly.
‘‘Der vas a rebel in der bushes, ”’ cried
nxcitement. .
‘‘Put down your gun, ’’ whispered the
sergeant as he came alongside the new
THE HAND OF OBERHOLTZ WAS UPON THE
TRIGGER.
recruit. ‘‘Don’t shoot. If there is only
one, we ean capture him. ’’
The German obeyed and brought his
gun to the ground.
Norton stepped forward a pace or two,
having discerned a face and form in the
anderbrush. He drew his revolver and
advanced quickly.
‘‘Surrender, or I'll shoot!’ he. de-
manded very earnestly.
Scarcely had he said the words than
he quickly put his revolver back in his
belt and uttered a gasp of surprise.
The frightened face of a young woman
confronted him.
He saw ber stagger as if about to fall,
and, reaching forward, caught her by |
the arm. She vainly tried to speak ta
him and laid a trembling hand upon the
arm of the sergeant. I
‘“You had a narrow escape, miss,”
Norton said to her as the German re-
cruit advanced to his.side.
She looked at Oberholtz in alarm and
again endeavored to speak, but .failed
utterly. She nodded her head as if to
indicate an affirmative reply.
With his cap Norton fanned her pretty
face while her body lay limp upon his
arm. The night wind caused her brown
hair to brush his cheek, and when her,
blue eyes looked, full of an unknown
fear, into his own he felt a thrill of ten-
der sympathy within.
“I feel so faint and so tired!” ul f
whispered, at last recovering her voice.
‘“No wonder, young lady, ’’ said Nor-
ton gallantly, and, pointing to Ober-
holtz, he added: ‘“He might have shot
you. Luckily I came along just as I
id.”
‘I thank you, sir, so much, ’’ she re-
plied, standing erect and by her move-
ment declining the support of the sol-
dier.
She continued rather painfully, ‘‘Per-
haps I did wrong in coming, but we
were starving and’’—.
Her voice faltered. . !
“Who? Where?'’ asked Norton anx-
iously, eager for information. :
“Over yonder,” she replied faintly,
‘father and I. We live half a mile
from here between the lines of the two
armies. My father is a Confederate offi-
cer. Two days ago some of the Yankee
soldiers came along and took everything
we had in the house, and since then’’—
She uttered a little sympathetic cough
and went on.
‘“We have absolutely nothing to eat.
My poor father took ' ill while at home |
on a furlough and is now a helpless in- |
yy LL
|
|
|
THEY STOOD TOGETHER IN THE CENTER OF |
THE ROOM.
valid. I could not leave him long |
enough to go to the rebel camp, and the
houses of our neighbors are deserted. I
ventured up here to see if I couldn’t get
just.enough food for father’s supper.
He ise weak!”’, And, laying her trem-
bling hand upon Norton’s arm, she
pleaded; ‘‘Can’t you give us just a little
food, sir?”
There was a tear in the eye of the
young sergeant as he bade her accom- |
pany him to the brigadier’s quarters.
She meekly followed hin, leaving Ober-
holtz to resume his picket duty. Norton
took her arm and helped her over the
rough places along the way, meanwhile
learning her name and other facts about
herself and her family.
To the brig@lier’s tent they went to-
gether, and Norton introduced her as
‘‘Edith Madden, aged 17, the daughter
of a Confederate. ’’ :
He told the girl’s story in as few '
words asgpossible, the narrative receiv-
ing the utmost attention from the court-
ly old brigadier. He was a man of little
speech, this brigadier, and when Nor-
ton had finished he put his head on one
side and looked critically at the girl and
then at the sergeant. Then he seized pen
and paper and wrote a few lines hur-
riedly.
‘‘Here, orderly!” he shouted in his
gruff voice. ‘Take this to the commis-
sary. ”"
Turning to Norton, he added: *‘Ser-
geant, follow the orderly. Put the pro-
visions in a"wagon. Load her up with
crackers and coffee and sugar and such
stuff.’
“Yes, sir,”’ replied Norton, saluting
his superior. He started to leave the
tent with the young woman at his side.
‘““And, sergeant!’ added the gruff
voice. =
Yes, 81” ;
‘‘Put enough in that wagon to last
em for six months. ”’
**Yes, sir.” :
‘‘And, sergeant, take a file of men and
accompany the wagon and this girl to
her father’. house.’
‘“Yes, sir.”” And Norton and.the girl
stepped out into the night.
In the course of an hour a wagon
ereaking under its heavy load passed
down the ravine where Oberholtz paced
to and fro with his gun, and six soldiers
marched upon either side of the wagon.
Norton and his companion, the daugh-
ter of the enemy, brought up in the rear.
It was moonlight when the soldiers
and the wagon returned, two hours later.
Something delayed the young sergeant,
for it waibtully an hour later when he
came back to camp. There was a queer
sort of smile upon his’ face and a
strange happiness in his breast. The fol-
lowing night Norton passed the guard,
and for several hours he lingered in the
country over nearer the enemy. He was
reconnoitering,so he told the guard when
he returned and gave the countersign.
Another night and still another he
went outside the lines, and one evening
a week later he went again, this time
taking with him two companions, Ober-
holtz, the new recruit, and a white
haired old soldier in a fugitive cap.
As they walked along Norton chatted
gleefully with the elderly man.
‘I thought I'd bring Oberholtz along
. for luck. Ever since he came near kill-
ing her he worships the very ground she
walks on.. I feel grateful to him any-
way. If he had not been a raw recruit
and a German, this thing could never
have happened.’’
The three men wearing the blue en-
tered ar old house in the woods. An old
man sitting inthroned in a rocking
chair gave them kindly greeting.
Sergeant Fred Norton took the hand
of pretty Edith Madden, and they stood
together in the center of the room. The
white haired soldier, Chaplain Whit-
taker, took from his pocket a leather
covered volume, and there in the Vir-
ginia woods, in the quiet of the summer
night, Fred and Edith were made man
and wife. :
The Gray and the Blue.
On the battlefield at Richmond, Ky.,
in 1862. a Confederate and Federal sol-
dier were lying some distance apart.
Both were prostrate from severe wounds.
“I ar dying for water,’’ the boy in blue
cried out in despair.
‘I have water in my canteen to which
you are welcome, ’’ said the one in gray.
“I couldn’t move to save my life,”
groaned the wounded Federal: The Con-
federate lifted his head and, looking
over at his wounded foeman, called out
in compassion, ‘‘ Hold on a little longer,
Yank, and I'll come to you!’
By digging his hands into the ground
the heroic southerner dragged himself to
the side of the Federal, groaning every
time he moved. After the sufferer had
drunk eagerly the two clasped hands in
token of buried hatred. The Confederate
had overexerted himself and brought on
a hemorrhage, from which he died in a
short time. The boy in blue kissed again
and again the cold hand that had
brought him relief, when he was taken
away to the hospital, where he died
next day. .