USA > West Virginia > Myers' history of West Virginia (1915) Volume II > Part 21
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"But let us again return to Bull Run. As the field now lies, shining under the springtime sun, and the Bull Run Mountains rise in the blue haze in the distance, it is hard to realize the two scenes that were enacted under McDowell and Pope. under Beauregard and Lee.
"But the study of the battlefield with maps and history shows that it was not after all so humiliating to our cause as we had long believed.
"Napoleon planned his battle at Waterloo, but Grouchy did not come and Blucher did, and rout and ruin befehl the Emperor of the French.
"McDowell, too, planned wisely, and victory was well nigh won, but Johnston came and Patterson remained behind and history repeated itself, as it is always doing.
"The battle encouraged the enemies of the Republic in every land. Charles Francis Adams represented our gwern-
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ment at the English Court at a reception when the news of the battle was still fresh. A courtier tauntingly said to him : 'These Confederates fight well at any rate.' 'Yes,' said Mr. Adams, drawing himself up proudly, 'of course they do, they are my countrymen.'
"We have no one to fear now but ourselves. Battle is the final court of appeal, and its decisions are often wrong. Constancy goes so often with the right that we think that all wars should end right, but as the tyrant Philip overthrew the Greeks at Cherona, so the barbarian Turk of to-day has triumphed over the cause of civilization in the land where its sun first rose.
"In all the sad journey from 1861 to 1865 the women of the North and South exhibited a fortitude that showed them truc descendants of the mothers of the Revolution.
"In the Sanitary Commission and in the hospital they were ever ready with their tender ministrations to the sick and wounded. The wives and sisters at home performed the work of the men in the field, and from day to day watched for the news from the front with an intensity of interest that no other events could produce. A battle
" 'Is a glorious sight to see By one who has no friend or brother there.'
"The mothers who prayed and watched, the sisters and sweethearts who cheered the soldiers with their letters from home must never be forgotten when we remember the events of that sorrowful time.
"'Woman was last at the cross and first at the tomb in the days of the Redeemer.' So in the darkest hours their tender hands and loving hearts bring consolation. The sacred name of mother, sister, daughter or wife was a constant inspi- ration.
"'A happy home is a suburb of heaven,' and ten thousand of these homes were rendered desolate by the war. Oh, chil- dren of this generation, thank God upon your bended knees that you have not been called upon to pass through this valley of the shadow of death !
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"From Bull Run to AAppomattox along the thousands of miles traveled to reach that goal lie many national cemeteries in which hosts of our Union dead lie buried. An old soldier is always in charge, and from sunrise to sunset the flag flies over these silent cities.
"And many a prison pen lay between the starting point and the end of the journey. Only a coward will mistreat a prisoner, and perhaps the darkest page on that history is one that we should not dwell too much upon now.
"I was a prisoner once, and enemies with arms in their hands fresh from the front treated me with kindness. Insults or threats only came from the cowardly camp followers in the rear.
"I will not describe in detail our journey from Bull Run to Appomattox to-day, but it included Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg, where so many lives were lost in vain.
"There, too, was the Wilderness, where the earth has been scarred by the labor of both armies, and these works remain undisturbed so that all the positions can be traced as though these entrenchments had been intended as monuments to record the movements of the two giants, Grant and Lee, who here clutched in the final conflict, which for eleven months raged without ceasing.
"It then first became evident that it was the Army of Northern Virginia that Grant was after, and that Richmond was a mere incident to the contest- in fact. so little did the silent commander care for Richmond that he did not even enter it in person when the Confederacy took its final flight.
"From the Wilderness to Spottsylvania Court House we went, and there. too, the earthworks are piled as a record of the great and final campaign. Let me stop here long enough to describe the Bloody Angle, where our troops, under Han- cock. Warren and Wright, fought with such gallantry. This spot was perhaps the bloodiest scene of all the war. I will not picture the ghastly details of dead and dying, but we are told that the musket balls flew so thick and fast that they cut down an oak tree eighteen inches in diameter within the rebel lines. This seems incredible, but in passing over Landram's field, a hundred yards or more in front of the east side of the
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'Angle', there we found the exploded gun caps of our men thickly sprinkled in the yellow soil. The field had been plowed twenty times or more since the war, and yet the old gun caps of thirty-three years ago were still so thick that in a space which I covered with my two hands I picked up eight upon the surface, and a large part of the field was equally marked in the same way. And though the Federal dead had been exhumed from the field so long ago, we found shreds of blue clothing here and there in the soft, fresh-plowed earth.
"At Richmond the marks of war abound, and the ap- proaches and defences are still shown by trenches and parapets.
"In all these Virginia battle-grounds the pits showing the empty graves of soldiers whose remains had been transferred to some national cemetery are to be seen on every hand as a horrid reminder of the past.
"Petersburg, with its ten months' siege, invited our careful attention, and the remains of the ghastly crater where so many men, white and black, were slaughtered as they huddled together in the deep hole, from which they could neither advance nor retreat.
"At Spottsylvania we met a party of Virginia school girls who had come twenty-five or thirty miles to see the famous region, and they were looking at the fine monument built by the Sixth Corps to commemorate the death of Sedgwick, their commander general. We told them that we were going on to Appomattox, and they said they were glad the war was over. but that they could not bear to think of looking at Appo- mattox.
"Staying over night at a hospitable home near the Wilder- ness, we were entertained with accounts of dark days of the war. One lady told us with some of the old tone of remon- strance how the Yankees drove away her cattle against her indignant protest.
"An old Confederate who joined in the conversation said their soldiers were much more considerate and honest, for when they went to Gettysburg they paid or offered to pay for everything-in Confederate money.
"But let us hasten on to the end where peace spreads her
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wing- again, where Grant gave back to lee's army their cavalry and artillery horses to use in plowing the neglected fields of the South. He treated them as our countrymen and then and there laid deep the foundation of respect and conti- dence that, let us fondly hope, will grow stronger and more cemented with the coming years.
"Now and then some discordant bray is heard in the general peace, and some one not particularly noted in the war seems ready to fight it all over again now after it has passed into history. But. fortunately, this sentiment is small and growing less and less.
"In the last Congress a fire-cating congressman wanted to try it on again, and announced that he was ready to renew the contest on a moment's notice, when one of my Confederate friends came over to me and, rolling up his sleeve, said: 'Do you see that saber cut ?' Turning his face he then showed me a bullet scar near his car and said : 'I have two more of these mementoes on my left leg, and I have got through with my part of it, and the gentleman now speaking may fight it out alone next time, as he did not do much of it when he had the chance.'
"The Appomattox field is marked with tablets, so that in a visit there you may know when you are standing upon the exact spot where one of the great events of that memor- able scene occurred.
"Speculative vandalism has done its work and the Sur- render House has been torn down and the brick and lumber marked and piled up ready for removal to some other place. there to be again set up as a show house to be exhibited for gain.
"But the memories of Appomattox cannot thus be re- moved. The house at some distant city would be out of place. Appomattox Mountain could not be seen from its doors. Here a marker shows where Grant and Lee met ; there another where the famous apple tree once stood : another where Grant set up his headquarters for the last time in the presence of an armed foc : here Lee read his last orders to his troops as they passed around him : and most interesting of all. here is marked
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the place where the hostile arms were stacked to be used no more against brethren forever.
"Best of all there is no great charnal house at Appomat- tox. Nineteen graves show that the Confederate armies gathered their dead together there, and in doing so they found one skeleton in blue that by oversight had not been removed to a distant national cemetery, and this Union soldier now lies buried side by side in the little cemetery of the Confederate dead, and his grave is annually decorated with those of the men with whom he died on this historic field.
"As we turn from the scene where the curtain rang down thirty-two years ago upon the final act of the greatest drama the world has ever seen, the full moon rose and soon
" 'The woods were asleep and the stars were awake,'
and only the note of the whip-poor-will disturbed the solemn silence.
"In looking around to-day over this assembly we mourn more and more the friends of our youth. Where are our comrades of 1861? Where are those who broke ranks with us in 1865? We meet some of them here to-day, grizzled, and gray, and with young hearts yet, but alas, how many have fallen out by the way !
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"We miss and mourn them.
"'And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill, But, O for the touch of a vanished hand. And the sound of a voice that is still.
Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea-
But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me.'"
Speech by Congressman Mansfield M. Neely of First Con- gressional District of West Virginia, at the Twenty- ninth Annual Lodge of Sorrow, Held at the Court Theatre by Wheeling Lodge No. 28, B. P. O. Elks, on
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Evening of Sunday, December 7th, 1913, as Reported in Part by Wheeling Register.
OUR FORGOTTEN DEAD.
"Oh, for a Muse of fire, that would ascend The brightest heaven of invention. A kingdom for a stage, princes to act And monarchs to behold the swelling scene."
Then indeed should our departed friends be paid a tribute in keeping with our love for them, and we who mourn their loss should learn a lesson from this service here, the ennobling precepts of which would urge us on from humbler to higher things. We should go forth with our strength renewed ; to mount up with wings as eagles; to run and not to weary ; to walk and not to faint. * *
On one day in every year we gather here to extol the virtues of our departed; to culogize the characteristics of charity, justice, brotherly love and fidelity as exemplified in the daily lives of our brothers who have gone before us to dwell in that great empire of the dead.
As members of an order whose mission is one of love, and whose object is to dispense charity to all mankind, we come together this day to testify that these brothers lived up to the full measure of their fraternal obligations, both in spirit and in truth. They never closed their eyes to the miseries of the down-trodden or distressed ; they never turned a deafened car to the wailing ery of those in want and woe ; they never, like the Levite, passed by on the other side.
Only a little while ago every brother whose name is written on that tablet was with us in the full strength of man- hood, endowed with joyous life and peace and sweet content. and thus, wealthier than sceptered sovereign ; richer far than fancy ever feigned. Only yesterday they mingled with us on the streets and in the busy marts of trade. - it seems but an hour ago that their merry peals of laughter filled the air, and the melody of their voices thrilled our hearts like the wild,
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weird strains of seductive music, such as the Sirens once did sing. But now we call their names in vain. There is no answer to our cry. In the hush that pervades the sanctuary of our dead, we realize that all these faithful friends have em- barked on that sad and solemn sea that separates the narrow shores of time from the boundless kingdom of eternity. They have passed beyond the limits of earthly vision. Their shad- owy forms cannot be seen through the telescopes of science or the tears of grief.
Sometimes we are haunted by the demon of skepticism and despair, and we ask anew the world-old question, pro- pounded by the man of Uz: "If a man die, shall he live again?" But unlike the afflicted patriarch, we seek no refuge either in silence or submission. We simply turn from this perplexing question of the old testament to find it answered in the new, by him who came fifteen centuries after Job, and said. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life."
In this moment of melancholy our hearts are filled with grief and our eyes are dimmed with tears; thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over our spirits : but even now, when earthly help and sympathy seem vain, we look beyond the cloud that hangs above us like a pall and there. through faith, we see the star of hope still shining on. In the lustrous light of that constant star, we read the assuring promise of the Savior of the world: "I am the resurrection and the life, whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die." In this promise, the members of our order put their trust. In spite of perishing dogmas and crumbling creeds ; in spite of the absurdities of atheism and the fallacies of infi- delity. we shall continue to lean upon the everlasting arm, believing that the twilight here is but the dawn of a grander day upon some other shore ; believing that the feeble flame that flickers here for a little while, will at last leap into a bright and shining light when the spirit of man has winged its flight back to Him that gave it birth. God pity the man who doubts the existence of another life in another land :
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"Who hopeless lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marble play ; Who hath not learned in hours of faith The truth, to flesh and sense unknown,
That life is ever lord of Death.
And love can never lose its own."
Fortunately for us an unbeliever such as this, if such there be, is precluded by the terms of our obligation from ever entering into a lodge of Elks.
It is possible that some uncharitable one is saying to him- self, I knew this one or that one in his lifetime. He did those things which he ought not to have done, and left undone those things which he ought to have done. On a certain day he yielded to a temptation, and on another day he trod the path of sin. To this, we answer that we do not know. We know nothing of another's sins. But, being made of the same base material and cast in the same imperfect mould as all the rest of the human race, we may well admit that all our brothers. past and present, are a part of that innumerable throng the Master had in mind when he said: "There is none good but one, that is God." No doubt each one whose name is written there had his frailties and his faults. No doubt each one was scarred and seamed and rifted with the imperfections that go hand in hand with human life.
Although this one or that one's sins may have been many ; his transgressions many, and his offenses manifold, yet finite man is not called upon to make apologies for, or to pass judg- ment on, one who has stood trial before an infinite God. We simply trust that all of our departed ones have long since received the blessings of the promise: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow : though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Aside from the fact of their fate. whatever it may be, can you whose lips are full of life, presume to censure one whose lips are closed in death ? Will you dare disparage the name of one who has heroically passed the ordeal of death before which you stand trembling with fear, begging for the respite even of an hour? "Thou
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hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pluck out the mote that is in thy brother's eye."
No one knows, nor would it be well to know, what takes place between the great Creator and his insignificant creature in the last sad moment of life on earth. But we do know be- yond the peradventure of a doubt that the dying thief, while suffering on the cross, received absolution from his sins and was promised a triumphant entrance into paradise with the Savior of the world. We trust that the same unfailing mercy, the same loving kindness and the same boundless charity that gave to the malefactor a heritage in that house not made with hands, will extend to all the members of our order, and give them an abundant admission into the Kingdom of Heaven. Let us
"No farther seek their merits to disclose, Nor draw their frailties from their dread abode. There they alike in trembling hope repose, The bosom of their Father, and their God."
To-day let us, with sacred symbolism, strew the graves of our dead with flowers. Let us lay with loving hands, upon the bier of every friend, the imperishable amarynth, the fade- less emblem of immortality ; let us wreathe the ivy, the floral metaphor of devoted friendship, the token of brotherly love, above the silent dust. And thus, so far as in our power lies, through sacred service, discharge our duty to our dead.
From this memorial exercise, the living should learn anew a lesson that is as old as sacred history. The lesson is this: "It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting! for that is the end of all men ; and the living will lay it to his heart."
A sanctuary of sorrow is a crucible in which to purify the soul. May our coming to this service not have been in vain. May the fate of our departed be a constant reminder to us of the serious meaning of that irrevocable decree: "Man is born to die."
While we are busily engaged in weaving our names into
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the tapestry of private fortune and public fame; and whik. we are eagerly endeavoring to lay up for ourselves treasures upon earth. let us also make timely preparation for the coming of the inevitable hour in which every man must surrender his own soul. May we not be unmindful of the fact that death comes nearer to every one with every fleeting breath ; that it comes indifferently as a thief in the dead of night or as a royal guest at the blaze of noon. Let us bear this well in mind, not that our lives may be shrouded in gloom, or our hours consumed with impotent grief, but rather that we may be alive to the inspiration of the universal prayer :
"God, give us men.
The time demands strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands. Men whom the lust of office does not kill ;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy. Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog In public duty and in private thinking : for while the rabble. with their thumb-worn creeds.
Their large professions and their little deeds.
Mingle in selfish strife : lo! freedom weeps; Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps ; I say again, again, God give us men."
Let our order heed this prayer, and let us strive to make its member a better citizen, a better man and a better Christian. and thus contribute to the welfare of the world that which is more valuable than the choicest silver and more desirable than the finest gold.
With an abiding faith that everything in this universe was designed by an unerring architect for some ultimate good. with an abiding faith that all who seriously strive shall eventually wear perfection's crown. let us go forth, with hope in our hearts and courage in our breasts, to fight the good fight, to finish our course and unqualifiedly to keep the faith.
"And when earth's last picture is painted. And the tubes are twisted and dried.
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And the oldest colors have faded,
And the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and faith we shall need it. Lie down for an aeon or two, Until the Master of all good painters Shall set us to work anew.
And those who were good shall be happy, They shall sit in a golden chair,
They shall splash at a ten league canvas With brushes of camel's hair,
They shall have real saints to draw from, Magdalen, Peter and Paul.
They shall paint for an age at a sitting, And never get tired of it all.
And only the Master shall praise us, And only the Master shall blame,
And no one shall work for money, And no one shall work for fame, But each for the joy of the doing, And each in his separate star
Shall paint the thing as he sees it
For the God of things as they are."
Address of Governor A. B. Fleming at the Capitol, at Charleston, West Virginia, March 10, 1891, Presenting Sword to Lieutenant R. M. G. Brown, U. S. N.
"It is my pleasant duty, Senators and Gentlemen of the House of Delegates, under a joint resolution of your respect- ive bodies, to formally present to a citizen of West Virginia this handsome and suitably inscribed sword as a testimonial of the State's recognition of gallant and heroic services.
"I need not recount in detail the graphic story of the disaster at Samoa in March, 1889. The most violent and de- structive hurricane ever known in the South Pacific Ocean swept over that small group of islands, and a fleet of six war- ships were ground to pieces on the coral reefs in the Samoan Harbor or thrown on the beach fronting the little city of Apia, and one hundred and forty-two officers and men of the
History of West Virginia
American and German navies went down to death. The United States frigate Trenton, flagship of the Pacific squadron, was among the storm-tossed vessels in the fateful harbor. Rudderless, sailless and propellerless, in the height of the storm she was drifting on to her doom upon the recis. At this critical moment the nerve and ready invention of one man, in rank only a lieutenant, but by virtue of superior ability in that time of danger the recognized leader and real commander of the Trenton, proved equal to the supreme occasion. Order- ing his crew of four hundred men into the rigging, he secured in the form of massed humanity just the requisite sail to drive his ship clear of the reefs and back into the open water, saving the Trenton from destruction and her four hundred and fifty souls from death, by a method as novel as it was daring.
"In all the heroic and brilliant achievements that brighten the annals of our navy, there is none more resplendent than this clever and daring icat of seamanship. But it was not by this conspicuous performance alone that the navigating officer. R. M. G. Brown, of the Trenton, won distinction in the awful disaster at Samoa. After the Trenton struck the steamer Vandalia, he alone of all the officers of the Trenton, remained on the bridge during the height of the storm, giving orders that rescued the Vandalia's crew from the sunken steamer's masts. Indeed, throughout the whole of that terrible disaster the deeds of Lieutenant Brown were characterized by a hero ism and gallantry that added real glory to the American navy and challenge the plaudits of the nation.
"It has been well said that the glory of a State is in its men. Not in its broad aeres, its fertile soils, its rich mines, but in its men. And in honoring a citizen whose conspicuous genius, courage and gallantry have achieved distinction, we simply pay tribute to our nobler manhood and renew our devo- tion to our common American pride our common American glory."
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Speech of Oliver Gallahue of Wetzel County at the Opera House, Fairmont, in 189 ?.
Before proceeding to record the speech, we will here say that Mr. Gallahue is a native of Wetzel County, having been born and reared on his father's farm, near Mobley P. O., about 1865, where he still resides. He was a son of William T. Gallahue, who, during his lifetime, was one of Wetzel's lead- ing farmers and foremost citizens.
When quite a young man, Oliver attended the Fairmont Normal School and later on studied law, in which profession he has since become quite proficient, but has no higher aspira- tions in the legal profession than that of practicing before justices' courts in the rural districts in the county, where he has been very successful. He possesses a wonderfully re- tentive memory, and in speaking never uses notes. Ile is by nature a rough and ready talker, but when occasion offers he can spill out sugar-coated words that charm the most fastidi- ous listener. He has great command of "big words" and knows where and when to use them, and as an extemporaneous speaker he has but few equals. " As to his personal appear- ance, he is very well described by the Fairmont West Vir- ginian, in which Mr. Gallahue's speech was reported.
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