Directory and soldiers' register of Wayne County, Indiana, 1865, Part 74

Author: Power, J. C., ed
Publication date: 1865
Publisher: Richmond, Ind. : W.H. Lanthurn & Co.
Number of Pages: 510

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But they miscalculated. to supremacy, they regarded the popular They understood the people of the South; vote, when it failed to register their wishes, but they were totally incapable of un ler- as an intrusion and a nuisance. They were standing the character of the great working born in a garden, and popular liberty, like elasses of the loyal states. That industry freshets overswelling their banks, but covered which is the foundation of independence, and their dainty walks and flowers with slime and so of equity, they stigmatized as stupid mud-of democratic votes. drudgery, or as mean avarice. That general

When with shrewd observation, they saw intelligence and independence of thought the growth of the popular element in the which schools for the common people and northern states, they instinctively took in the newspapers breed, they reviled as the incite- inevitable events. It must be controlled or ment of unsettled zeal, running easily into cut off from a nation governed by gentlemen ! fanaticism.

Controlled less and less, could it be in every! They more thoroughly misunderstood the decade; and they prepared secretly, earn- profound sentiment of loyalty: the deep love estly, and with wide conference and mutual of country which pervaded the common connivance to separate the South from the people. If those who knew them best had North.

never suspected the depth and power of that

We are to distinguish between the pre- love of country which threw it into an agony tenses and means, and the real causes of this of griet when the flag was here humbled, war. [how should they conceive of it, who were

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wholly disjoined from them in sympathy? these miscreants with shrieks of fierce accu- The whole land rose up, you remember, when sation; and every pale and starved prisoner the flag came down, as if inspired uncon- shall raise his skinny hand in judgment. sciously by the breath of the Almighty, and Blood shall call out for vengeance, and tears the power of omnipotence. It was as when shall plead for justice, and grief shall silently one pierces the banks of the Mississippi for beckon, and love, heart-smitten, shall wail for a rivulet and the whole raging stream plunges justice. Good men and angels will cry out, through with headlong course. There they "How long, oh Lord, how long, wilt thou not calculated, and mis-calculated!

avenge?"

And more than all, they miscalculated the And then, these guiltiest and most remorse- bravery of men who have been trained un- less traitors, these high cultured men with der law, who are civilized and hate personal might and wisdom, used for the destruction brawls, who are so protected by society as to of their country; these most accursed and de- have dismissed all thought of self-defense. tested of all criminals, that have drenched a the whole force of whose life is turned to continent in needless blood, and moved the peaceful pursuits. These arrogant conspira- foundations of their times with hideous tors against government, with Chinese vanity. crimes and cruelties, caught up in the black believed that they could blow away these clouds, full of voices of vengence and lurid with self-respecting citizens as chaif from the bat-

punishment, shall be whirled aloft and plung- tle-field. Few of them are left alive to pon- ed downward for ever and ever in an endless der their mistake!

retribution; while God shall say, " Thus shall

Here, then, are the roots of this civil war. it be to all who betray their country;" and all It was not a quarrel of wild beasts, it was an in heaven and upon the earth will say "A- inflection of the strife of ages, between power men !"

and right, between ambition and equity.

But for the people misled, the multitudes An armed band of pestilent conspirators drafted and driven into this civil war, let sought the nation's life. Her children rose not a trace of animosity remain. The moment 1.1) and fought at every door. and room, and hn.l. to thrust out the murderers, and save

their willing hand drops the musket, and they return to their allegiance, then stretch the house and household. It was not legiti- out your own honest right hand to greet mately a war between the common people of the them. Recall to them the old days of kind- North and South. The war was set on by ness. Our hearts wait for their redemption. the ruling class. the aristocratie conspirators All the resources of a renovated nation shall

of the South. They suborned the comm n people with lies, with sophistries, with cruel deceits and slanders, to fight for secret objects which they abhorred, and against interests as dear to them as their own lives.

be applied to rebuild their prosperity, and smoothe down the furrows of war.

[At this point in his oration, Mr. Beecher paused, and said: "I will thank the band to play an air, and you to get up that are sit-

I charge the whole guilt of this war upon ting down, and you to sit down that have the ambitious, educated. plotting, political been standing; and I will sit down too, and leaders of the South. They have shed this rest for a moment." When the band had our places again, and attend to · ur business," and then proceeded with his speaking.] ocean of blood. They have desolated the oeased playing, he said : " We will now take South. They have poured poverty through all her towns and cities. They have be- wildered the imagination of the people with Has this long and weary period of strife been an unmingled evil? Has nothing been gained ? Yes, much. This nation has attain- led to its manhood. phantasms, and led them to believe that they were fighting for their homes and liberty, whose homes were unthreatened, and whose liberty was in no jeopardy.

Among Indian customs is one which ad- mits young men to the rank of warriors only after severe trials of hunger, fatigue, pain, and endurance. They reach their station, not through years, but ordeals. Our nation has suffered, and now is strong.

These arrogant instigators of civil war have renewed the plagues of Egypt, not that the oppressed might go free, but that the free might be oppressed. A day will come when God will reveal judgment, and arraign at his bar these mighty miscreants; and then, every orphan that their bloody game has The sentiment of loyalty and patriotism, next in importance to religion, has been root- made, and every widow that sits sorrowing. and every maimed and wounded sufferer, and ed and grounded. We have something to be every bereaved heart in all the wide regions proud of, and pride helps love. Never so of this land, will rise up and come before the much as now did we love our country.

Lord to lay upon these chief culprits of But four such years of education in ideas, modern history their awful witness. And in the knowledge of political truth, in the from a thousand battle-fields shall rise up ar- lore of history, in the geography of our own mies of airy witnesses, who, with the memo- country, almost every inch of which we have ry of their awful sufferings, shall confront probed with the bayonet, have never passed

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before. There is half-a-hundred years' ad- sity of our doctrines, we are put in sympathy vance in four.

with the masses of men in all nations. It is We believed in our institutions and princi- not our business to subdue nations, Int to ples before; but now we know their power. augment the power of the common people. It is one thing to look upon artillery, and be The vulgar ambition of mere domination, as sure that it is loaded; it is another thing to it belongs to universal human nature, may prove its power in battle ! We believed in tenipt us; but it is withstood by the whole the hidden power stored in our institutions; force of our principles, our habits, our prece- we had never before seen this nation thunder- dents, and our legends.

ing like Mount Sinai at all those that wor- shiped the calt at the base of the mountain.

We acknowledge the obligation which our better political principles lay upon us, to set

A people educated and moral are compe- an example more temperate, humane, and tent to all the exigencies of national life. A just, than monarchial governments can. We vote can govern better than a crown. We will not suffer wrong, and still less will we have proved it. A people intelligent and re- inflict it upon other nations. Nor are we ligious are strong in all economic elements. concerned that so many, ignorant of our con- They are fitted for peace and competent for flict, for the present, misconceive the reasons war. They are not easily inflamed, and, of our invincible military zeal. "Why con- when justly incensed, not easily extinguished. tend," say they, "for a little territory that They are patient in adversity, endure cheer- you do not need?" Because it is ours! Be- fully needful burdens, tax themselves for'cause it is the interest of every citizen to real wants more royally than any prince save it from becoming a fortress and refuge would dare to tax his people. They pour of iniquity. This nation is our house, and forth without stint relief for the sufferings of our fathers' house; acenrsed be the man who war. and raise charity out of the realm of a will not defend it to the uttermost. More dole, into a manificent duty of beneficence. territory than we need? England, that is

The habit of industry among free men. not large enough to be our pocket, may think prepares them to meet the exhaustion of war that it is more than we need, because it is with increase of productiveness commensu- more than it needs; but we are better judges rate with the need that exists. Their habits of what we need that others are.

of skill enable them at once to supply such armies as only freedom can muster, with

Shall a philanthrophist say to a banker, who defends himself against a robber, "Why arms and munitions such as only free indus- do you need so much money?" But we will try can create. Free society is terrible in not reason with such questions. When any war, and afterward repairs the mischief of foreign nation willingly will divide its terri- war with celerity almost as great as as that tory and give it cheerfully away, we will an- with which the ocean heals the seams gashed swer the question why we are fighting for in it by the keel of plowing ships.

territory!

Free society is fruitful of military genius. At present, for I pass to the consideration It comes when called: when no longer need- of benefits that aeerne to the South in dis- ed, it falls back as waves do to the level of tinction from the rest of the nation-the the common sea, that no wave may be great- South reaps only suffering; but good seed er than the undivided water. With proof of lies buried under the furrows of war, that strength so great, yet in its infancy, we stand peace will bring to harvest.

up among the nations of the world, as asking 1. Deadly doctrines have been purged away no privileges, asserting no rights, but quietly in blood. The subtle poison of secession was assuming our place, and determined to be a perpetual threat of revolution. The sword second to none in the race of civilization and has ended that danger. That which reason had affirmed as philosophy, the people have

Of all nations, we are the most dangerous settled as a faet. Theory pronounces, "There and the least to be feared. We need not can be no permanent government where each expound the perils that await upon enemies integral particle has liberty to fly off." Who that assault us. They are sufficiently under-

would venture upon a voyage on a ship, each stood. But we are not a dangerous people plank and timber of which might withdraw because we are warlike. All the arrogant at its pleasure ? But the people have reason- attitudes of this nation, so offensive to for- ed by the logic of the sword and of the bal- eign governments, were inspired by slavery, lot, and they have declared that states are and under the administration of its minions. inseparable parts of national government. Our tastes, our habits, our interests, and our principles, incline us to the arts of peace.

They are not sovereign. State rights remain; but sovereignty is a right higher than all This nation was founded by the common others; and that has been made into a com- people for the common people. We are mon stock for the benefit of all. All further seeking to embody in public economy more agitation is ended. This element must be liberty, with higher justice and virtue, than cast out of political problems. Henceforth have been organized before. By the neces- that poison will not rankle in the blood.

religion.

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2. Another thing has been learned ; the industry is collapsed ; but it is not dead. It rights and duties of minorities. The people sleepeth. It is vital yet. It will spring like of the whole nation are of more authority mown grass from the roots that need but than the people of any section. These United showers, and heat, and time, to bring them States are supreme over northern, western, forth. Though in many districts not a gen- and southern states. It ought not to have eration will see wanton wastes of self-invok- required the awful chastisement of this war ed war repaired, and many portions may to teach that a minority must submit the con- lapse again into wilderness; yet, in our life- trol of the nation's government to a majority. time we shall see states, as a whole, raised to The army and navy have been good political a prosperity, vital, wholesome, and immov-

schoolmasters. The lesson is learned. Not able.

for many generations will it require further 6. The destruction of class interests, work- illustration.

ing with a religion which tends toward true

3. No other lesson will be more fruitful of democracy, in proportion as it is pure and peace than the dispersion of those conceits of free, will create a new era of prosperity for vanity, which, on either side, have clouded the common laboring people of the South. the recognition of the manly courage of all Upon them have come the labor, the toil, and Americans. If it be a sign of manhood to loss of this war. They have fought blind- be able to fight, then Americans are men. folded. They have fought for a class that The North, certainly, is in no doubt whatever sought their degradation, while they were of the soldierly qualities of southern men. made to believe that it was for their own Southern soldiers have learned that all lati- homes and altars. Their leaders meant a tudes breed courage on this continent. Cour- supremacy which would not long have left age is a pas-port to respect. The people of them political liberty, save in name. But their all the regions of this nation are likely here- leaders are swept away. The sword has I.cen after to cherish a generous admiration of each hungry for the ruling classes. It has sought other's prowess. The war has bred respect, them out with remorseless zeal. New men and respect will breed affection, and affection are to rise up; new ideas are to bud and blos- peace and unity. som; and there will be men with different am- 4. No other event of the war can fill an bition and altered policy.

intelligent southern man, of candid nature.| 7. Meanwhile, the South, no longer a land with more surprise than the revelation of the of plantations, but of farms; no longer tilled capacity, moral and military, of the black by slaves, but by freedmen, will find no hind- race. It is a revelation indeed. No people rance to the spread of education. Schools were ever less understood by those most fa- will multiply. Books and papers will spread. miliar with them. They are said to be lazy, Churches will bless every hamlet. There is a lying, impudent, and cowardly wretches, good day coming for the South. Through driven by the whip alone to the tasks needful darkness, and tears, and blood, she has sought to their own support and the functions of it. It has been an unconscious via dolorosa. civilization. They were said to be danger- But in the end it will be worth all it has cost. ous, bloodthirsty, liable to insurrection; but Her institutions before were deadly. She four years of tumultuous distress and war nourished death in her bosom. The greater rolled across the area inhabited by them, and her secular prosperity, the more sure was her I have yet to hear of one authentic instance ruin. Every year of delay but made the of the misconduct of a colored man. They change more terrible. Now, by an earth- have been patient, and gentle, and docile, quake, the evil is shaken down; and her and full of faith and hope and piety; and, own historians, in a better day, shall write, when summoned to freedom, they have that from the day the sword cut off the can- emerged with all the signs and tokens that cer, she began to find her health.

freedom will be to them what it was to us-

What, then, shall hinder the rebuilding of the swaddling-band that shall bring them to this republic? The evil spirit is cast out: manhood. And after the government, hon- why should not this nation cease to wander oring them as men, summoned them to the among the tombs, cutting itself ? Why field, when once they were disciplined, and should it not come, clothed, and in its right bad learned the arts of war, they have proved'mind, to " sit at the feet of Jesus ?" Is it themselves to be not second to their white feared that the government will oppress the brethren in arms. And when the roll of conquered states ? What possible motive has men that have shed their blood is called in the government to narrow the base of that the other land, many and many a dusky face pyramid on which its own permanence de- will rise, dark no more when the light of eter- pends ?

nal glory shall shine upon it from the throne of God !

Is it feared that the rights of the states will be withheld ? The South is not more

5. The industry of the southern states is jealous of state rights than the North. State regenerated, and now rests upon a basis that rights from the earliest colonial days have never fails to bring prosperity. Just now been the peculiar pride and jealousy of New

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England. In every stage of national forma- unparalel burdens and sufferings of four tion, it was peculiarly northern, and not south- bloody years, and permitted him to behold ern statesmen. that guarded state rights as this auspicious consummation of that nation- we were forming the Constitution. But, once al unity for which he has waited with so much united, the loyal states gave up for ever that patience and fortitude, and for which he has which had been delegated to the national labored with such disinterested wisdom.

government. And now, in the hour of vic- To the members of this government asso- tory, the loyal states do not mean to trench ciated with him in the administration of per- upon southern state rights. They will not do ilous affairs in critical times; to the senators it, or suffer it to be done. There is not to be and representatives of the United States, one rule for high latitudes, and another for who have eagerly fashioned the instruments low. We take nothing from southern states by which the popular will might express that has not already been taken from the and enforce itself, we tender our grateful northern. The South shall have just those thanks.

rights that every eastern-every middle- every western state has-no more, no less.

To the officers and men of the army and navy, who have so faithfully, skillfully, and

We are not seeking our own aggrandize gloriously upheld their country's authority, ment by impoverishing the South. Its pros- by suffering, labor and sublime courage, we perity is an indispensable element of our offer a heart-tribute beyond the compass of own. We have shown, by all that we have words. suffered in war, how great is our estimate Upon those true and faithful citizens, men

of the southern states of this Union; and we and women, who have borne up with unflinch- will me: sure that estimate, now, in peace, by ing hope in the darkest hour, and covered still greater exertions for their rebuilding. the land with their labor of love and charity,

Will reflecting men not perceive, then, the we invoke the divinest blessing of him whom wisdom of accepting established facts, and, they have so truly imitated.

with alacrity of enterprise, begin to retrieve the past ?

But chiefly to thee, God of our fathers! we render thanksgiving and praise for that

Slavery can not come back. It is the in- wondrous providence that has brought forth terest, therefore, of every man to hasten its from such a harvest of war the seed of so end. Do you want more war? Are you not much liberty and peace!

yet weary of contest? Will you gather up

We invoke peace upon the North. Peace

the unexploded fragments of this prodigious be to the West. Peace be upon the South. magazine of all mischief. and heap them up In the name of God we lift up our banner, for continued explosions? Does not the and dedicate it to peace, union, and liberty, South need peace? " And since free labor is now and for ever more. Amen!

inevitable, will you have it in its worst forms, The ceremonies at the fort being ended, or its best? Shall it be ignorant, imperti- the excursionists, all unconscious of what was nent, indolent? or, shall it be educated, self- transpiring at the capital of the nation-there respecting, moral and self-supporting? Will being no telegraphic communication between you have men as drudges, or will you have it and the late rebel states-betook themselves them as citizens? Since thay have vindicat- to sight-seeing, and thus spent the entire day ed the government, and cemented its founda- of Saturday, the 15th, visiting famous locali- tion-stones with their blood, may they not ties of the once haughty, but now desolate offer the tribute of their support to maintain and ruined city of Charleston. The Sabbath, its laws and its policy? It is better for re- too, was appropriately spent in religious serv- ligion; it is better for political integrity; it is ices among the freed people of the city, Mr. better for industry; it is better for money-if Beecher preaching in Zion's Church to an you will have that ground-motive-that you andience of three thousand dusky skinned, should educate the black man, and, by edu- but eager and attentive auditors. Thus they cation make him a citizen. They who re- spent Saturday and Sabbath, intending to fuse education to the black man, would turn continue down the coast to Florida before the South into a vast poor-house. and labor their return. As they were about to resume into a pendulum. incessantly vibrating be- their journey, the appalling news that Pres- ident Lincoln had been assassinated on the

From this pulpit of broken stone wejevening of the day they had just been cel- speak forth our earnest greeting to all our ebrating, reached them. All desire to extend land.

tween poverty and indolence.

their visit vanished, and the prow of the ves-

# Little did he think that in less than ten

We offer to the President of these United sel was at once turned homeward, that they States our solemn congratulations that God might the more freely unite with their friends has sustained his life# and health under the in expressions of sorrow at the loss of him who had piloted our ship of state safely through the most terriffic storm of civil war

hours the hand of an assassin was to put an ever experienced by any government on the end to that life.

globe.

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THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN, universal gloom, himself one of the principal mourners.

As is well known, took place on the even- ing of April 14th, 1865. While the Presi- dent and his wife, Major Henry R. Rathbone and Miss Clara L. Harris were quietly occu- pying a box in Ford's Theater, Washington City, the box in which they were, as they supposed, privately seated, was entered by J. Wilkes Booth about 10} o'clock, suddenly and unobserved. He stepped quickly up behind the President, placed a pistol almost touching his head, and fired, the ball entering just back of the left ear, passing through the brain, and out near the right temple. Major

ARREST OF THE ASSASSINS.

Various circumstances led to the conclusion that the assailant of the Secretary of State was John H. Surratt, whose mother's house had been a place of common resort for dis- loyal persons. The proper authorities pro- ceeded to take possession of the house, making her a prisoner in it. Before daylight on the morning of the 18th, a man by the name of Payne, who was afterward identifi- ed as the assailant of Mr. Seward, came to Rathbone sprang at the assassin, who drop- the house under such suspicious circumstances ped his pistol, and defended himself with a dagger. After wounding the Major in the arm, Booth leaped out of the box down to the stage, a distance of twelve feet, assumed as to justify the officers in arresting him, which they did. In the meantime the government was active in its efforts to ferret out the Booth, the chief actor in this awful drama, a tragical attitude, flourished his dagger, ac- but it was not until several wrong moves- companied by the exclamation, "Sic semper tyrannis ;" after which he quickly passed out of the theater, mounted a horse that stood in readiness for him, and made his escape from the city. Mr. Lincoln was removed to a res-

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Directory and soldiers' register of Wayne County, Indiana, 1865, Part 74

Author: Power, J. C., ed Publication date: 1865 Publisher: Richmond, Ind. : W.H. Lanthurn & Co. Number of Pages: 510

Author: Power, J. C., ed
Publication date: 1865
Publisher: Richmond, Ind. : W.H. Lanthurn & Co.
Number of Pages: 510