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HIS, the decisive battle of the
American Civil War, was a
struggle between veteran
troops; the Army of Northern
Virginia, enthused by recent victor-
ies, deeming themselves invincible,
and commanded by their popular
hero, General Robert E. Lee, against
the grand Army of the Potomac. It
MINNESOTA SOLDIERS’ MONU-
MENT,
— - ————
Ei 46 py
In Honor of Fallen Heroes of the
Civil War, Recently Dedicated on
the Vicksburg Battlefield.
—Leslie’s Weekly.
was fought under the most favorable
weather conditions. During the
three days of battle, July 1, 2 and 3,
1863, the warmest portion of the
~ year, the usual heat was much miti-
gated by light breezes, the sun being
frequently veiled by clouds, yet no
rain fell until the afternoon of the
4th. Seventy-six degrees marked the
extreme heat the 'first day, eighty-
one degrees the second, eighty-seven
degrees the third; the average for
the entire three days was seventy-
seven degrees. The first day’s fight
was a triumph for the Confederatgs;
the second ended without securing to
them any decided advantage, al-
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though the fighting of that day was
a series of bravely desperate as-
saults, which have written the names
of the Peach Orchard and the Wheat-
field upon one of the bleddiest pages
of American history; the third day
closed leaving the Confederates re-
pulsed at every point, after which
they withdrew from the field and re-
tired the following day in good order.
The Federal loss during the three
days’ fight was 17,684 Killed and
wounded and 5365 missing (made
prisoners). Total, 23,049. he Con-
federate loss was 15,564 killed and
wounded and 7465 missing. Total,
23,029. Twenty-nine States had
troops in the two contending armies
at Gettysburg, Maryland having com-
mands in both.
Encouraged by their success at
Chancellorsville in May, 1863, in ac-
cord with matured plans, the Con-
federate army drew out of Freder-
icksburg, Va., 158 miles south of the
Gettysburg field, on the second day
of June, 1863, and began its north-
ward march through the valleys of
the Shenandoah and the Cumberland,
ftom.
bent upon an invasion of the loyal
States. Six and one-half miles south
of Gettysburg, Pa., they crossed Ma-
son and Dixon's line and stood on
Northern soil. The Union forces
started in pursuit on the 13th and
followed with energy on the Confed-
erate right flank, keeping well be-
tween Lee's command and Washing-
A mountain range intersprsed
a screen between the two grand ar-
mies,
Much misunderstanding exists
among the uninitiated visitors to the
battlefield as to why Lee advanced
from the north on Gettysburg, while
the Northern troops held a position
to the south of the invading army.
This is readily explained by the fact
that the Southerners had penetrated
tysburg, had occupied Carlisle and
York, Pa., with Harrisburg, the cap-
ital of the State, as their objective
point. Alarmed for the safety of the
Confederate capital in Virginia, and
apprehensive that Hooker might in-
tervene between himself and Rich-
mond, Lee had turned backward with
orders to his corps commanders to
concentrate their forces at Gettys-
burg, then a peaceful farming vil-
lage of 2100 souls, but thereafter to
be celebrated so long as history lasts
as “The Waterloo of America.” Here
the flood tide of the Rebellion reached
high-water mark. The decisive vic-
tory of Meade cheered the Northern
hearts and nerved their arms for the
arduous campaign which culminated
in the surrender of Lee at Appomat-
tax. :
The importance of Gettysburg as
the decisive battle of the war has
been recognized by the United States
Government, and with unstinted
hand has the field been preserved and
embellished. The States, too in
honor of their. soldier dead, have
raised beautiful monuments in their
honorable memory, while the veteran
organizations themselves have taken
pride in marking their individual po-
sitions on the battle lines. :
Decoration Day.
Little children, gravely marching r
With your garlands gay,
Something bring beside the flowers
To these graves to-day. :
Bring a love of truth and valor
And of brave deeds done,
Bring a tribute to all heroes °
Underneath the sun.
. Not alone to those who perished
& In the eager fight,
But to all who've:lived and labored
Ever for the right. E
pu
: Old Soldiers’ Day.
Forget? No, never, marches long; .
The hospital and camp;
The stirring thrill of fife and drum;
The hurried onward tramp;
The silent bivouac ’neath the stars;
The night before the fight;
Forget the lonely picket line?
The bullet’s whistling flight?
Slow, shuffling are the halting steps
That strive along the route;
And dim the eyes that answer back
To comrades mustering out. ;
The roll is called. Who answers now?
On sick leave, or away?
On furloughs to the Better Land?
Promoted, did you say?
O sentinels on lofty heights,
Beyond the tides that swell,
Our dull ears seem to hear you call
To us that all is well. .
“Attention. company! Fall in
Passing the Ides of May, :
“Brothers of Gray and Blue, mark time!”
Tis Decoration Day.
122
Then gently let the blossoms fall.
“Lights out!” At last ‘Retreat!”
“The countersign?” A little sleep.
At Reveille we'll meet.
— Arthur Ward, Seaford, N. Y.
Memorial Day.
In the dream of northern poets,
The brave who in battle die
Fight on in the shadowy. phalanx
n the fields of the upper sky;
And, as we read the sounding rhyme,
The reverent fancy hears
The ghostly ring of the viewless swords
And the clash of the spectral spears.
We think with imperious questionings
Of the brothers whom we have lost,
And we try to track in death’s mystery,
The flight of each valiant ghost.
The northern myth comes back to us,
And we feel through our sorrow’s night
That those young souls are striving still
Somewhere for truth and right.
A chosen corps, they are marching on
In a wider field than ours;
| Those bright battalions still fulfil
The schemes of the heavenly powers;
some thirty-seven miles beyond Get-
ATMGHT ATTACK ON FORT
EISHER = TY AJ GIULMAN,
NAVAL: POST
To the patient, brave endurance
f an unearned pain;
To the strife for truth and honor,
Earnest, though in vain.
Thus, with noble emuiation,
High resolve and pure, :
Shall you, hope of all our Nation,
Make her future sure.
—Evelyn Fletcher.
Diamonds are almost perfectly
transparent to X-rays.
And high, brave thoughts float down to us,
The echoes of that far fight
Like the gleam of a distant picket’s gun
Through the shadesof the severing night.
No fear for them! In our lower field
Let us keep our arms unstained,
That 5 last we be worthy to stand with
them
On the shining heights they’ve gained.
We shall meet and greet in closing ranks,
In Time's declining sun,
When the bugles of God shall sound recall,
And the Battle of Life be won!
—John Hay.
FIXING UP SPRUCE GUM.
Not All the Product is Sold as It
Comes From the Tree.
“This has been a great gum year in
the Maine woods, so everybody says
up there,” said ‘a Bangor man.
“There are two or three Bangor mer-
_cantile houses which make a specialty
of spruce gum in the rough, and buy
large quantities of it from the lum-
her men and those who make a regu-
‘lar business of gathzring gum in the
forests. These buyers are supposed
to give the gum a process of refining
to make it fit for the chewing gum
trade, but it seems to be an open
secret that the refining is merely a
process of adulteration. The gum,
unseparated from the bark and woed
of the tree from which it was hacked,
is thrown into a kettle, where it is
boiled until it has been resolved into
a savory but by no means pleasing
locking mass of the consistency of
molasses. The separated bark, wood
and often other foreign substances
that rise to the surface are skimmed
off. With the gum finally freed from
its natural objectionable ingredients
to the mass are added paraffine and
rosin, with sometimes sugar.
“The admixture thickens the boil-
ing mass and after all is well assimi-
lated by vigorous stirring, the gum
is’ pounded on a smooth marble slab
where, while it is yet hot, it is rolled
out in a thin sheet a quarter of an
inch thick, which is separated into
inch cubes by a steel die. These are
wrapped in paraffin paper, packed 200
in a box and the famous Maine spruce
cum of commerce is ready. “Not all
he spruce gum is treated in this way,
though. Some is put up unadulter-
ated and with the natural flavor of
the spruce intact. In this way,
though, the gum soon becomes sticky
in the chewer’s mouth and so while
absolutely pure, isn’t as desirable in
an economic sense as the spruce gum
with its reinforcement.
“The impression that some gum
gatherers seém to want to establish
that gum from certain localities, is of
better quality and flavor than that
from certain other localities is only
sentimental. The quality of the gum
depends on the sap of the trees—the
bigger the tree the better the gum.
There ig sentiment as well as commer-
cialism manifest among the lumber-
packs in the gathering of spruce gum
during their long winter in the wil-
derness, as is well known in Maine.
In their idle hours or by the camp-
fire they whittle out of fragrant cedar
blocks miniature barrels, boxes, cas-.
kets and the like, hollowing them out
and filling them with the choicest of
the gum from which they have ex-
pelled and expressed every mite of
impurity. These they bring into the
settlements when they return in the
spring as gifts for sweethearts, wives,
children or friends.
“Doctors up our way say that the
pure spruce gum is an excellent tooth
preserver and aid to digestion. The
adulterated article is known locally
as ‘patent gum’ and there is always
a ready and profitable market for it.”
—Sun.
Why She Couldn't.
An asylum for the deaf and dumb
being sadly in need of funds gave a
dance. Among the many outsiders
present were two good looking men.
As they were talking together, one
of them exclaimed: ‘By Jove! there
is a pretty girl; I would like to dance
with her.”
“Why don’t you ask her?” re-
“| sponded his companion, according to
the Cosmopolitan Magazine..
“How?”
“Why, by signs, of course.”
So he crossed the hall and placing
himself in front of the girl pointed
with his index finger to her, then to
himself and then whirled his finger
round and round to indicate dancing.
The girl smilingly nodded an assent.
Finding that her dancing was as
perfect as her figure he went through
the same operation a little later in
the evening. Again she nodded as-
‘sent, As they were waiting for the
music to start another gentleman ap-
proached the girl and asked for the
next dance. :
“I am sorry,” she replied in the
sweetest of tones, nodding toward her
silent partner, “but I have this dance
with the dummy.”
A Love Story. :
Bishop Mounsey relates the love
story of a Tamil ‘“who came to Arch-
deacon Sharp a few days ago and
| asked him to help him find a suitable
helpmeet. A Tamil is very dark, so
there was likely to be some difficulty
in persuading one of our Dyak or
Chinese girls to accept him.” The
archdeacon did his best, and found
‘what he considered to be a suitable
bride for the young man, but before
speaking to the young woman sound-
ed the father. The reply was: “I
have the honor to inform you that I
have told the thing in secret,
but she have answered me with her
tears, she is very much refusing and
inwilling to marry that chap, if the
others—Chinese or Dyak boy—she is
much willing.” The conclusion of
the letter is: “If should any of us
wish her to marriage that chap, she
‘might responsible kill herself and dy
before marriage.”’—London Globe.