Gentlemen of the
Commissions, Governor Cummins, Ladies and Fellow Citizens:
No words can express to you my appreciation of the honor
which this occasion and this hour confers upon me. The chief executive of our
state, who so much desired to be present today, and who has been prevented by
the press of official business, has requested that I say to the distinguished
representatives from the state of Iowa, for him and for the people of
Tennessee, that nothing could have afforded him more pleasure than to be
present with you, and join with you in the ceremonies connected with this
gathering.
Speaking for our governor, I take pleasure in saying that
the state of Tennessee, within whose borders and confines this magnificent
military park has been located, bids you a most hearty welcome, and her
citizens will vie with one another in making your visit a delightful one, and
this occasion a memorable one.
Those who love their country and its many glorious
institutions rejoice at these manifestations of love, loyalty and devotion that
have made possible this and similar gatherings here since the dedication of
this National military park. People from distant and neighboring states have
congregated here from time to time to pay a tribute of love and respect to the
memories of sons whose valor, heroism and bravery won for them undying fame in
the years long gone by.
A little more than forty-four years ago, there were
struggling on and over the grounds on which we now stand, two mighty armies.
The historian has recorded the result of that great struggle and of the war in
which it occurred. He has written of the causes that precipitated that
conflict. He has given to the world the story of the privations of the armies;
he has told you of their battles, their defeats and their victories. That great
conflict is over and belongs to history, and I shall not therefore take up your
time upon this occasion in dwelling at length upon the war between the states.
What I know of it, I have gathered from the pages of history, and from the
experiences of those who endured it from the beginning to the end. I can but
rejoice that the war is over, and that we are here today the representatives of
a reunited country, American citizens, enjoying the advantages and privileges
of this peaceful present and joyfully contemplating the future.
Representing as I do a generation born and reared since the
smoke of the late conflict between the two great sections of our country
cleared away, and Peace resumed her wonted sway over a united and satisfied
people, prosperous today in their pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, welded
together by the bands of fraternity as strong as steel, and as enduring as the
very foundations of the hills, it is difficult for me to realize that there has
ever been the sanguinary estrangement, the great fratricidal strife, to which
many in this distinguished presence were eye-witnesses and in whose deadly
conflicts so many were active participants.
This friendly, this fraternal gathering, has brought
together veterans who wore the blue and those who wore the gray, once arrayed
in deadly, aggressive war, each swinging high his banner bright and flashing
his polished steel, marching to death under shot of musketry and storm of
leaden hail, keeping step to drumming cannon, urged on by the maddened kings of
war, the blue stabbing at the life of his antagonist in gray, the gray parrying
the thrust only to dip his blade in the blood of the blue; it is difficult, I
say, for me to reconcile this and similar gatherings all over the land to the
record of history. But such is history's record, reinforced by the testimony of
the presence of those today who fought in that terrible war, and in the bloody
battle of Shiloh, those whose comrades lie sleeping in the quiet sanctuary of
the tomb yonder, overlooking the beautiful, the historic Tennessee, or resting
peacefully in unmarked graves beneath the whisperings of the oaks or the
moaning of the pines in yonder forest.
The civil war was a decisive one in the history of this
nation, and the battle of Shiloh was a decisive battle in that war. The civil
war settled the many great questions that had been perplexing to the statesmen
of that day and age, and the bloody battle fought here on the sixth and seventh
of April, 1862, settled the result of that war. Without that war, deplorable
and unfortunate as it may appear, this land would have been the scene of many
violent outbreaks, and the end could not have been foreseen. Constitutional
liberty, aye the very constitution of the government was involved; the life of
the nation was at stake; dangers from without and within were real and
apparent. Whether this government could exist half slave and half free, whether
there should be the perpetuation of the institution of slavery, or whether it
should be abolished, whether this was a union of indestructible states, an
indissoluble one, or whether it was a voluntary compact, from which one could
withdraw without the intervention or consent of another, these and other
kindred and delicate questions had to be determined. Wars before had been
waged, but no such questions had ever arisen as those confronting the American
people in the early days of the sixties and prior thereto.
The Revolution had been fought and the liberty of the
colonists had been won on bloody fields, and against great odds.
The constitution had been written long before; the war of
1812 had been fought and its results had gone on the pages of history without
the settlement of these great questions which were agitating the public mind
and threatening the dissolution of the Union. It was now that the American
people were facing a crises. They looked and beheld on the political horizon a
cloud, flecked and afar, standing against the sky. They saw that cloud enlarge
and grow until it hid the sun and sky, and darkness covered the land. But it
was only that darkness that preceded the sunburst of universal freedom in this
land.
Another conflict of arms must be waged, but it was not to be
a conflict of conquest and subjugation, but of the claims of constitutional
government, prompted and carried on by sentiments of unsullied patriotism.
These claims were denied by a people who loved their country and its
traditions. He who wore the gray and marched under the stars and bars was alike
loyal to his home and his principles as was he who wore the blue and marched
under the stars and stripes.
A peaceable solution of these great questions had been
sought in legislative councils, in judiciary proceedings, and at the ballot
box, but in vain. The issues were well defined, and all arbitrament but that of
the sword must be abandoned. At Sumter, Bull Run and Manassas, the signal
cannons pealed forth the incipient strife. The salutation is answered in
hurrying troopers from every nook and corner of the divided land; there is
heard the farewell bidding to home and loved ones, and seen the hurrying of
platoons to the embattled front. Grant, hurrying up the Tennessee and
Cumberland, and planting the victorious stars and stripes at Forts Henry and
Donelson, and then in a hand to hand conflict at Shiloh, on this red field of
battle, with Johnston, the Blucher of the Confederacy, and on to the Father of
Waters to open the gateway to the sea, Bragg and Johnson thundering against
Buell and Burnsides. Thomas standing like a rock at Chickamauga, Hooker scaling
the heights of Eagle’s Nest and fighting the battle in the clouds, Johnson like
a giant with arms of steel, holding in check the advancing foe, challenging
them to battle at Dalton, Ringgold and Kennesaw, making the last grand stand at
Atlanta, Sherman’s march and encampment at the sea, Lee heading his army at
Gettysburg, the bloody encounters of Spottsylvania, the Wilderness and along
the Rappahannock, the battles of Vicksburg, Franklin and Murfreesborough, and
the dashing campaigns of that matchless chieftain, the wizard of the saddle,
Nathan Bedford Forrest, all of these closing in the imposing scene at
Appomattox, surpassing in its grandeur anything in the annals of war.
Marathon had its Miltiades; Thermopylae its Leonidas; Arbela
its Alexander; Marengo and Austerlitz their Napoleon; Waterloo its Wellington,
and Yorktown its Cornwallis and its Washington. But it was reserved for
Appomattox to crown the climax and to encircle with immortelles the brows of
her Lee and her Grant. The latter, unwilling to humiliate the heroic leader of
the cause he had so gallantly defended and gloriously lost, appears not with
sounding trumpet and bugle blast, caparisoned as the conqueror comes, but in
the costume of the camp and saddle, he appears, his great heart swelling with
emotions of gladness and gratitude that the end had come. He has shown himself
the general worthy of his country and cause, as well as the proudest mention of
history. He now, in this imposing hour, with the gaze of the world fixed upon
him, does not mistake the opportunity of adding to his laurels as a soldier the
grander glories of the statesman, philosopher and humanitarian. Lee, the pride
of the south, who had led many bloody charges, the victor on many hard fought
fields, but whether in victory or in defeat, the same calm, self-possessed,
masterly man, has now come to lay down his sword at the grave of the cause he
had so loyally defended, thus yielding to the inevitable — defeated, but his
pride still pulsing through his great soul, he is soon to quit the life of the
soldier to serve his country in the noble example of an American patriot and
industrious citizen.
These and other events of military and patriotic sacrifice,
occurring in rapid succession, make up a history fraught with victories and
deeds of heroic daring, long marches, privations, great suffering, and
achievements in military science and strategy unknown to former wars.
In this connection I cannot refrain from speaking briefly of
the sequences of this unprecedented conflict. I see these two mighty armies,
each strong and firm in the righteousness of its cause, made up of the boys and
young men from the glebe and fallow, from the shop, mine and factory, from
hamlet, town and city, responding with alacrity to the call of arms from the
respective heads of the warring sections, melt away like snow. I see the
soldier in gray shaking in friendly grasp the hand of his erstwhile foe in
blue, while the soldier in blue divides his rations and his money with his
defeated but unconquered brother in gray, each bestowing his blessings upon the
other, and they are foes no more but friends forever, the heirs of a common
heritage, each proud of his valor and achievement in war. The bivouac is ended;
the tattoo and reveille will be sounded no more. The sky for a covering at
night and the blood-stained earth for a bed, have been exchanged for the
comforts of home. While many of the homes in this southland were desolate and
in ruins, it was still home, sweet home. The knapsacks are hung up, and the old
dented canteen is put on duty in the field. Tales of war entertain the fireside
and social circle, and war songs are sung as the days come and go. Only a few
months elapse until the neglected fields are blooming with the products of his
labor. The horse that pulled the cannon or bore upon his back the dashing
cavalier in January, now pulls the wagon to church for the discharged soldier
and family in August.
In this beloved southland, with all of its tender memories,
and sweet associations, no battalions of soldiers or armed constabulary are
needed to troop the land, to enforce allegiance to the flag borne by the
victors in 1865. The south appealed to the sword, the last arbitrament of
nations, she staked her all and lost. She accepted the result proudly and with
patriotic ambition set to work to redeem her waste places and to rebuild her
fortunes by the sweat of honest brows. Trained in the school of liberty and
democracy as preached by the Apostle of the New Dispensation of Freedom, our
purposes and aims have been and ever will be, henceforward and forever the
same. Sectional lines have vanished, and social economic and moral questions
engage our time and thought. My faith in the wisdom, the patriotism and the
integrity of the American people causes me to believe that the great questions
and issues left us by the civil war, as grave and complex as were ever
addressed to mankind, will be settled and settled right. Let us confide in one
another and in God, and our peace and salvation are assured.
My friends, you have come from far off Iowa, to dedicate
these monuments to your heroic and immortal dead. We all know that these, your
testimonials of love and reverence will soon pass away. The tooth of time will
destroy that proud monumental shaft, and those beautiful patriotic lines will
soon be effaced and no longer read. But while the monuments of brass and marble
will crumble, there is builded in your heart and in mine, in the hearts of all
who love freedom, liberty and a peaceful united country, one that shall stand
so long as the human heart can love. The deeds of your sons and of ours who
wrote the history of a great struggle with their own blood, and who piled upon
the altar of their country the most precious sacrifice, will continue to live
when these proud monuments shall have gone to dust, for
“On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread;
While Glory guards with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.”
You who have come to our own Tennessee will soon return to
your homes, and these imposing monuments, these testimonials of a grateful
state to her heroic dead, will be left to and entrusted to us of the south.
Tennessee assures you that her citizens will care for them, and upon the graves
of your soldiers, who sleep in this southland, will bloom the rose, the violet
and the lily, and on the periodical recurrence of lovely springtime, when the
decoration day shall come, these mounds, whereunder sleep your dead, will be
beautified by loving hands, and if in your northern country some southern
soldier may sleep, guard well his mound and keep it green. Some loved one here
has prayed for one who never returned, and as some mother whose son, or some
wife whose husband, or some sister whose brother weeps over an unknown grave
here, planting thereon some sweet flower, caring for it with tender hand and
watering it with her tears she will believe that loving tender hands are caring
for the one yonder.
My friends, as we go hence from these grounds, hallowed by
tender memories and baptized with the blood of heroes in the long ago, let us
gather inspiration for the conflicts of the future, rejoicing that we are all
citizens of the same country, living under the same flag, enjoying the same
blessings. As you shall return to your homes, we assure you that you carry with
you our warmest and kindest feelings. The southern country through which you
have journeyed is enjoying an era of prosperity. Her furnaces are aglow; her
sons are in the forefront; her industrial development is the pride and marvel
of the world. Our joys are your joys; our prosperity is your prosperity. A more
glorious day has dawned upon this nation, and we are all rejoicing in the hope
of a more glorious future.
Our distinguished governor, who presides over the destinies
of two millions of peaceful, contented, prosperous and patriotic people,
speaking for our citizenry, extends to the people of Iowa through her
illustrious governor who graces this occasion with his presence, assurances of
friendship and good will. If in the future it shall not be our good fortune to
meet you again, may the ties that bind us here draw us together in a reunion
beyond the River, under the shade of the trees in that sinless, summer land.
Governor Cummins, Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been a
pleasure to meet you.
SOURCE: Alonzo Abernathy, Editor, Dedication
of Monuments Erected By The State Of Iowa, p. 261-8
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