USA > Iowa > Harrison County > History of Harrison County, Iowa, including a condensed history of the state, the early settlement of the county together with sketches of its pioneers > Part 37
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been by the parent government acknowledged as a republic, and that acceptance of the terms of annexation the same should have been accepted by Mexico instead of Texas. And besides, they say, what are the boundaries of your Texan re- public-the Neuces or Rio Grande? And besides, by adopting the policy and position that the Rio Grande is the boundary between the two Republics, rather than the Neuces, we are, by adopting the latter, by only the right of superior force, wrest- ing this territory from weak and helpless Mexico. Hence, then the causes of that war were, first, failure to pay a national debt; second, pretended protection of property either belonging or not belonging to the United States; third, to possess ourselves of this territory either by rightful or wrongful means. All this domain lying and being between these disputed lines was coveted by the administration then in power, a land of genial sunshine and never failing flowers; a land where "every pros- pect pleases and only man is vile." Our good government, like historic Ahab, determined to take possession of this "Naboth " plot, and at once proceeded to carry into execution that determi- nation by the use of men, cannon and muskets.
It is not my object to-day to discuss the causes of the war, but content myself by calling to mind the bravery and glory of those who were the soldiery in that sanguinary contest. Before me I see a little band of the remaining ones who so materially assisted in establishing the valor, bravery and glory of the American soldiery; here is E. E. Ervin, Nathan Myers, J. B. Baker, Wil- liam Frazier, D. P. McDonald, Elon A. Sample, Samuel Purcell, Samuel Vititoe, James Muncy, James Munroe, Babb, Baggs, Daken, William Spencer, E. Patridge et al., many of whom, at a more recent day, when the government was imperiled, without home or comfort, were the first to again fall into the ranks with regard to shouldered muskets and maintain inviolate, not only this sunny land above conquered, but the entire Union, one and indivisible.
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That which elicits our admiration most in all the battles of the Mexican war, is the fact that in each and every battle, in every engagement, be the same great or small, the American soldier was more than master when pitted against the foe, though that foe was two or three to one. Take, for instance, the first battle of the war, viz .: Palo Alto, a little place near the mouth of the Rio Grande, that grand old hero, Gen Taylor, with a little hand- ful of men numbering 2,300, everlastingly put to flight Aristas, with a force of over 6,000, put the Mexican forces to utter rout on their own chosen battle ground, (but to-day when we read the account of this battle, as it was then called, it sinks into utter insignificance, as compared to some of the little skirmishes of the late rebellion, and would not be a breakfast appetizer.) From here to Resaca de la Palma 1,700 Americans whip 7,000 Mexicans out of their boots, supply and succor a besieged garrison, and then soon cross the Mexican Rubicon, the Rio Grande, and carry the war into the very heart of the latter's country.
On the hights of Monterey the invincible Yankee, with only 6,000 regulars and volunteers, wrap in a girdle of grape and bayonets a fortified city of 15,000, and defended by 10,000 Mexi- can soldiers; here again, by the bravery and valor of the Yankee, the "eagle of the prickley pear and snake is captured by the .
eagle of the olive brauch and arrows."
Pass with me if you please to the greatest prodigy of that memorable contest, viz .: to the battle of Buena Vista. After the battle of Monterey, the grand army of veterans, who had won for themselves and their country so signal a victory, was depleted and called away by Gen. Scott to open a new path of glory from Vera Cruz to the capital of the Montezumas. But 4,073 men were left, and these instead of remaining pent up in the citadeled safety of Monterey-without infantry, only artillery and horse, go to the furtherest out-posts of Anga Neuva to watch the designs of the wily Santa Anna, who was in command of 20,000 men. This apparently deserted army, among the Mexican
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mountains, many long and weary miles from Monterey, and far from the Rio Grande, fearless and brave, apparently retreats, falls back behind the Sierra Madre mountains, into a little pass-a Thermopylae, is attacked by Santa Anna, the first day's battle is closed, the little, though gallant, army is only at bay-night and darkness close around them, there in the shadows of the moun- tain peaks and on the verge of deep gorges, not a man is driven from his post, not a man unemployed save those in the cold embrace of death. The second day is the repeating of the first, and as they witness the closing of this, exhausted but ever courageous, they fling themselves under their cannon's mouth for rest, expecting the morrow to usher in the scenes of the two days last past, but when the morrow's sun rose over mountain crag and flowery plain, the Mexican army had fled, leaving alike exposed his dead, wounded and rear of his army, to the mercy of the brave invaders.
Pass from here if you please, and for a few moments contem- plate what is taking place in another part of the Republic. There is Gen. Scott at Vera Cruz, disembarking his troops-only 10,000, against a nation of seven to eight millions of inhabit- ants. Now he captures the city with 5,000 prisoners; then on to Contreras, and from there to Cherubusco; this taken, he is thundering his cannon within the shadow of the Nation's Capi- tol.
Here let me give you a specimen of the bravery and pluck of the usual American volunteer, a story that is related by a no less personage than Gen. Grant. The place is Molino del Rey; the actors are Grant, a volunteer, and a score of Mexican soldiers sit- uated on the top of the building captured. Grant was looking upward, and happened to notice a score of Mexican soldiers on the top of the building, and determining to capture them, he improvised a ladder by backing up a cart to the wall and then ascending by climbing the shafts, when on the roof, there found this private soldier, having already captured this entire gang,
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and was then standing guard over them. From Molino del Rey . thence to Chepultapec and then to the Capital of the Nation- they capture it and take up their abode in the Palaces of Axyacatl and Montezuma.
In all these engagements the Americans were outnumbered from three to five, but the intrepidity and perseverance of brave boys at each occasion was equal to the task be the way over mountain crag, through deep defile, morass or summer's trop- ical hottest sun; ever the same brave and determined boys. I can truthfully say that in Gen. Scott's first three battles he cap- tured more men than constituted his entire army.
February 1848, after nearly two years a treaty was signed, and the war with Mexico was a matter of the past-had gone into history, but the cost thereof was a matter of uncertain compu- tation. In the matter of dollars and cents the government paid Mexico fifteen millions; to this add the 5{ millions due this gov- ernment for claims allowed, the cost of the war 120 millions and 25,000 soldiers' lives; then again, add to this the 10 millions that the government paid Texas in the settlement of boundaries. What is the consideration this government receives in return for this 150 millions of dollars?
The present State of California and the territory of New Mexico-the former extending along the Pacific coast for 750 miles, and reaching into the interior 250 miles-now having a population of over one million, and the wealth at the present is beyond the conception of the human mind.
At the time of this treaty and the payment thereof, many of the statesmen of that day called this vast extent of territory wholly worthless, and no less a personage than the great Thomas Benton, more familiarly known as "Old Bullion," declared that it would be impossible to ever utilize the same, and the land was without value whatever; but how short-sighted are many of our wisest men on many of the new subjects that come to the surface in this day and age of American politics and American policy ?
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The State of California of to-day is of untold value to this Union. What outlet would this great Nation have on the west were it not that we had access to the Pacific coast, together with her magnificent bays? Through this great national artery pours in and out the commerce, of not only this nation, but the commerce of the world. See the great, grand cities which have sprung up as if by magic since the discovery of gold in Califor- nia-since the treaty of peace, called the "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo " in February of 1848.
Never had it entered the mind of any of those who were so in favor of the war, that a city like San Francisco would rise on the margin of the bay of that name, which in two score years would rival the great city of New York? Never did it enter into the conception of those of the South, that in two years after the treaty of peace between this and the Mexican govern- ment, that Upper California, with a sufficient population, would be knocking at the doors of Congress and be admitted into the sisterhood of States as one of the free States? That which was then declared as utterly impossible, viz .:. The building of a railroad across the Sierra Nevada mountains, connecting the far west with the home east, was in a few years, (say 20) to the astonishment of the old fogy, performed, and Palmer, in 1881, swept across the continent in his palace car with the swiftness of the falcon when pursuing his prey.
California is in fact to-day the key of the west just as truly as the city of New York is of the east. Farther up inland, sits Sacramento, grand and beautiful, a fairy queen, fanned by the health invigorating breeze from the placid waters of the mighty Pacific, and hedged around by an ocean of flowers and superabundance of fruit-truly a land flowing with milk and honey.
"No fairer land the prophet viewed When on the sacred mount he stood,
And saw below, transcendent shine The groves and plains of Palestine."
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California with her 120 million acres of land is no small part in the great domain of this government; and when you add to this the acreage of the territory of New Mexico as origi- nally bounded, comprising all of the present territory of the present New Mexico and all of the territory of Arizona with their 165 millions of acres of land, we have, as an increased domain, to the amount of 285 million acres of land, the value thereof can never be fully estimated so far as the same is of value to this government.
This, then, is the real product of the war with Mexico. I can safely assert that in no war was there ever that value resulting from the same as in this, when we come to compare or determine the value of the same now to this people as a nation. What think you of the area of all this vast domain as compared to that of the old world, viz: England, France, etc. Again let me ask what have the soldiers of this war received from the hands of this government for the sacrifices and sufferings en- dured during this two years war? Their treatment has been, and is, a burning shame and disgrace to the nation which has reaped the reward and benefit of their bravery and hardships.
A few have been pensioned at a very late day, but these were only the few who could prove away back in the past forty years, that the pains and aches, the halting of the step or the sleeplessness by night and pains by the day were the direct result of wounds or disease contracted while in the line of duty in the service, and this must be additionally supported by evidence that this disability did not exist at the time of entering the service, and to do this made the case an utter impossibility, for the men of forty years ago are not all, but are nearly all passed away. The galley slave at the oar or the convict in the mine has nearly received the same amount of assistance as has the good, brave, enduring and uncomplaining soldier of the Mexican war.
Why not pension one and all? Their conduct and hardships, and the vast and valuable domain resulting to this government
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through their acts, richly merits and demands the protection and bounty of this Nation.
While millions of dollars-the income of this war, are yearly being thrown away, or frittered out in needless expenditures, they who brought these captives home to Rome pass down to their graves unnoticed, unhonored, unwept, unpaid and unsung.
Shame to the government that will thus neglect her bene- factors-that will permit her brave defenders to pass to the poor house and a pauper's grave.
This vast domain, annexed and purchased, is of such magnitude that seven such States as that from which hails the Great Chief of our now enlarged Union could be easily constructed. Seven States as large as the Empire State.
And with this, a free, untrammeled inlet and outlet from the West to the East, from the Golden Gate on the west to Hell Gate on the east, a highway of not only this but of all nations, a wealth of cereal, fruit, flower, fish, herd, mine, which, added to what was formerly possessed, makes these thirty-eight States and nine territories the most varied, healthful and wealthy of any of the nations of the earth.
What would be the result if the boundaries of this republic were shortened on the west to what they were at the inaugura- tion of the war in 1846?"
What would be the result if the sixteen iron bands that bind the Atlantic to the Pacific were now severed, and all trans-con- tinental trade, traffic and travel forever suspended ?
Infinitely better for us who reside in Iowa, that the mouth of the grand Mississippi, the "father of waters," should be dried up. Infinitely better for the East that the great outlet, viz .: water to the gulf, should be under tribute, than that the four Pacific rail. roads should be destroyed and discontinued forever.
Such, then, my Mexican army friends, are some of the great benefits that you, in your day, have been instrumental in bring- into being: You should have a just, a glorious pride in thus
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benefiting the government that has received the reward of your noble and heroic deeds, while suffering you to starve and die in poverty and neglect.
MEMORIAL ADDRESS,
DELIVERED BY JOE H. SMITH ON MEMORIAL DAY, 1886, AT DUNLAP, IOWA.
[Editor Harrison County News :- We, the undersigned, com- rades of Shields Post, G. A. R., of Dunlap, Iowa, would respect- fully request the publication of the address delivered by Joe H. Smith, of Logan, on last Memorial Day, to the comrades of Shields Post and the citizens of Dunlap, firmly believing that the perusal of the same would not only be instructive, but highly entertaining, as the same breathes the spirit of true patriotism. Signed by S. P. Patterson, Charles Taylor, J. B. Patterson, F. P. Eaton, W. H. Dedrick, Samuel Baird, W. H. Squire, P. B. Wiles, S. L. Manning, Charles Mackenzie. ]
Happy is the people who know of war only through the bloom of Decoration Day. They halt not through life with crippled limb, so made by the bullet's furrow or disease of swamp; scarcely ever in this beautiful land of sunshine and plenty do they feel the gnawings of hunger, nor wear away the live-long night with sleepless eye, to lull to softness the pain of severed limb or broken bone or aching muscle.
They hear not the tolling of the funeral bell, which for a score and more years has followed along the lonely way of that widow, so made by war and battle's carnage; each stroke upon the brim thereof seems to her to be the restoration of that time when her hope, support and heart had fled at the news of death of him who was the idol of her life. Many a brave-hearted woman, whose hands have been hardened by labor and roughest toil, that but for bloody strife, all would have been lovingly done for her by those stronger hands which, during all this time, have
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been lying folded beneath the Southern sod. And let it be the earnest prayer of us all that the generation now coming upon the stage of action may know nothing of the suffering, carnage and desolation of war except by report. Twenty-six years this month, while standing on this identical spot where your pleas- . ant village is now situated, viewing the beautiful flowery car- peted prairies, and speculating in my own mind as to the proba- ble future of this matchless valley, little did I then think, little did you who were my comrades in arms, little did you who were civilians at home looking after the wants and necessities of the helpless at home, for a moment suppose that in less than one year would this great Government be surging in the vortex of internecine war. Yet unexpected and awful as the change, the same was thrust upon us.
Those opposed to and entertaining opinions foreign to our Government, predicted that the weakness of this form, viz .: the total lack of standing armies, would cause the same to crumble into dust at the first approach of internal dissension; that man was incapable of self government, and that all the bright hopes of the "fathers" would vanish at the approach of civil dissen- sion as does thedew before the morning sun. What has been the sequel? At the first sound of the tocsin, the minister invokes God's richest blessing on his flock, his support in the maintenance of this Government and the assisting power to break in pieces the shackles which held four millions of human beings in involuntary servitude-to forever wipe out of statute books that blackest and foulest blot on this free land, the mart and traffic in human flesh-then leaves the pulpit for the tented field; the farmer leaves his plow in the furrow, his crops ungath- ered, his home unfinished; the lawyer hastily shelves his books, the causes so carefully briefed are stowed away, the case is left untried, the high and worthy ambition for legal fame and renown is laid aside; the merchant closes his place of merchan- dise, hastily casts up his accounts, leaves a pittance with his
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wife, so that for a time the wolf of hunger would not haunt her door; the physician turns his patients over to less skillful hands; the mechanic with hurried excitement casts his planes, saws, square and hammer aside; the anvil no longer rings out the merry sound of home, peace and plenty; they of the hum- bler walk and condition of life are all alike akin to the former; all catch the contagion of love of country; the secular affairs of life become matters of little or no importance when compared to that one great thought of love of country and the permanency of Government-the scream of the ear-piercing fife, the blare of trumpets, and the roll of drums were our matins and vespers. The great heart of the Nation was beating with un wonted rapid- ity, and the universal impulse was akin to that which moved men when they cried out " What shall we do to be saved." The inheritance which was purchased by the blood of the fathers was imperiled; all zealously and fearlessly left these homes of comfort and care for the time, expecting that sometime in the future when this fratricidal rebellion was trampled into the dust, they would again return to that home with a Government the more strongly and the more firmly knit and cemented together by suffering and blood, thereby transmitting to their children that inheritance bequeathed them by the patriot fathers.
What was the condition of this fair and formerly peaceful land at that time? Courts of justice were closed; schools, the nursery of the nation, were unattended; the temple of "Janus" had every aperture thrown wide open, every cheek was blanched with fear, every heart was frozen in despair, and all over the whole land the hand of infuriated passion, prejudice and crime was waving with a vulture's scream for blood. What prompted this unparalleled rising of the loyal strength? Was it love of
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country ? say:
Yes. Well and truly did the sweetest Scottish poet
" Breathes there a man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said: This is my own, my native land? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no minstrel raptures swell. High though his place, proud his name; Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite that wealth, power and pelf, The wretch concentered all in self, Living shall forfeit fair renown,
. And doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust from which he sprung, Unwept, unhonored and unsung."
Who were those who then were seeking to destroy the life of the nation? They were those who were sworn to support the Constitution of our land- those who were holding offices of trust and responsibility therein-they who had been nurtured and fed under the very shadow of the capitol-they who were nutured and fed at the expense of the Government they were now attempting to destroy.
Who are those which constitute that vast loyal soldiery, pour- ing down from the loyal North to the sunny, seceding, erring South? The old man, grey-headed, bent and worn with the ser- vitude to which he is unequal, is there. The young boy, fair, golden-haired, with the farewell kiss of a mother's lips yet warm upon his forehead, is there; and the strong man, in all the pride and glory of his lusty manhood, is there; they all marched to the brink of life-stepping into the awful chasm to death. This is the material upon which is encircled the laurel wreath of fame, which crowns the victorious brow of war. Hardly had the head of the column entered the rebellious States-hardly had the keel of the war ships cut the southern waters, when the roll of the dead was begun. Henceforward it lengthened year by year through four years of warfare. Dead on the slippery decks; dead by the campfires of the night; dead in the smoke-clouded battle; dead in the murderous prison pens. Time, which has hidden the trenches under the green, and plowed over the track
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of the heavy guns, has softened the first violence of mourning into gentle sadness, and is healing a nation's wounds. But wherever loyal men and true comrades are to-day, a people brings its offering with which to garland the graves of their dead heroes.
The 300,000 graves filled by this war with the most loyal and the best of this land, to-day, from their bright repose, call us and our thoughts to the cause for which they sacrificed life and all. We pause by these graves, imagining that we are there, comrades and citizens, for a parting service. We could not find all the graves to-day. You know where they are. The waters are the restless graves of some; the bluffs of the quiet rivers cover some; the thronged burial place, where drooping captives mustered strength to bury the starved dead, hold some in end- less captivity. So, now you have decked the graves of those who sleep at home, pause and here honor the graves of those who sleep afar off.
This is no time for many words. Sometimes words are help- less, because the great idea disdains the bondage of language. The men whom we remember were not men of words, but deeds. All their words were written with their bayonets. With their sabres they shaped the destiny of their land. "They died in defense of their country." What is more eloquent than the majestic simplicity of that phrase-" their country ?" Let not him try to measure the length and breadth of these words, who thinks of his country only as a place to buy and sell and get gain; let him not try to sound the depth of these words, whose idea of his country is only that therein he shall get public office and honor and profit; let him not aspire to the heighth of these words, who thinks that peace is better than righteousness, safety better than manhood. They who endured hardship and daunt- lessly met the fiery storm, and poured out their blood, and lay with their white faces upturned to God, they knew-in their life-time knew-what "our country " means. They, in their
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graves, tell us that no country can live without law and liberty and true manhood, and because they saw in the flag the soul of the great Republic, with strong hearts and chivalric daring they planted themselves by the Stars and Stripes, and now sleep 'til the reveille of the resurrection morn.
This service which we all witness to-day is peculiarly under the auspices of the Grand Army of the Republic-the rem- nants of that mighty army which swept along from Atlanta to the sea, from Washington to Richmond and to Appomattox, from St. Joseph, Mo., to the Gulf, and thence to the heads of all the tributaries of the Great Father of Waters.
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