The North has gathered up the bones of the greater part of her vast armies of the dead, commencing the task immediately after the war, and interred them in her vast national cemeteries. At the head of each is an imperishable head-stone, on which is inscribed the name of the dead soldier, where a record has been kept, otherwise it is simply marked "unknown." The North was the victor; she was great, powerful, and rolling in wealth; she could do this, as was right and just.
But where are the South's dead? Echo answers from every hill and dale, from every home where orphan and widow weep and mourn, "Where?" The South was the vanquished, stricken in spirits, and ruined in possessions; her dead lie scattered along every battle ground from Cemetery Ridge and the Round Top at Gettysburg, to the Gulf and far beyond the Father of Waters. One inscription on the head-stones would answer for nearly all, and marked "unknown." One monument would suffice for all the army of the dead, and an appropriate inscription would be a slight paraphrase of old Simonides on the shaft erected to the memory of the heroes of Thermopylae—
"Go, stranger, and to Southland tell
That here, obeying her behest, we fell."
The names of the great majority have already been forgotten, only within a circumscribed circle are they remembered, and even from this they will soon have passed into oblivion. But their deeds are recorded in the hearts of their countrymen in letters everlasting, and their fame as brave and untarnished soldiers will be remembered as long as civilization admires and glories in the great deeds of a great people. Even some of the great battle grounds upon which the South immortalized itself and made the American people great will soon be lost to memory, and will live only in song and story. Yet there are others which, through the magnificent tribute the North has paid to her dead, will be remembered for all time.
Looking backwards through the lapse of years since 1861, over some of the great battlefields of the Civil War, we see striking contrasts. On some, where once went carnage and death hand in hand, we now see blooming fields of growing grain, broad acres of briar and brush, while others, a magnificent "city of the dead." Under the shadow of the Round Top at Gettysburg, where the earth trembled beneath the shock of six hundred belching cannon, where trampling legions spread themselves along the base, over crest and through the gorges of the mountain, are now costly parks, with towering monuments—records of the wonderful deeds of the dead giants, friend and foe.
Around the Capital of the "Lost Cause," where once stood forts and battlements, with frowning cannon at each salient, great rows of bristling bayonets capping the walls of the long winding ramparts, with men on either side standing grim and silent, equally ready and willing to consecrate the ground with the blood of his enemy or his own, are now level fields of grain, with here and there patches of undergrowth and briars. Nothing now remains to conjure the passer-by that here was once encamped two of the mightiest armies of earth, and battles fought that astounded civilization.
On the plains of Manassas, where on two different occasions the opposing armies met, where the tide of battle surged and rolled back, where the banners of the now vanquished waved in triumph from every section of the field, the now victors fleeing in wild confusion, [542] beaten, routed, their colors trailing in the dust of shame and defeat, now all to mark this historic battle ground is a broken slab or column, erected to individuals, defaced by time and relic seekers, and hidden among the briars and brush.
From the crest and along the sides of Missionary Ridge, and from the cloud-kissed top of Lookout Mountain, to Chickamauga, where the flash of cannon lit up the valley and plain below, where swept the armies of the blue and the gray in alternate victory and defeat, where the battle-cry of the victorious mingled with the defiant shouts of the vanquished, where the cold steel of bayonets met, and where brother's gun flashed in the face of brother, where the tread of contending armies shook the sides and gorges of the mountain passes, are now costly granite roadways leading to God's Acre, where are buried the dead of the then two nations, and around whose border runs the "River of Death" of legend, Chickamauga. Over this hallowed ground floats the flag of a reunited country, where the brother wearing the uniform of the victor sleeps by the side of the one wearing the uniform of the vanquished. Along the broad avenues stand lofty monuments or delicately chiseled marble, erected by the members of the sisterhood of States, each representing the loyalty and courage of her respective sons, and where annually meet the representatives of the Frozen North with those of the Sunny South, and in one grand chorus rehearse the death chants of her fallen braves, whose heroism made the name of the nation great. To-day there stands a monument crowned with laurels and immortelles, erected by the State to the fallen sons of the "Dark and Bloody Ground," who died facing each other, one wearing the blue, the other the gray, and on its sides are inscribed: "As we are united in life, and they in death, let one monument perpetuate their deeds, and one people, forgetful of all aspirations, forever hold in grateful remembrance all the glories of that terrible conflict, which made all men free and retaining every star in the Nation's flag."
The great conflict was unavoidable; under the conditions, it was irresistable. It was but the accomplishment, by human agencies, the will of the Divine. Its causes were like paths running on converging lines, that eventually must meet and cross at the angle, notwithstanding their distances apart or length. From the foundation [543] of the government these two converging lines commenced. Two conflicting civilizations came into existence with the establishment of the American Union—the one founded on the sovereignty of the States and the continuance of slavery was espoused by the hot-blooded citizens of the South; the other, upon the literal construction of the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created free and equal," and the supremacy of the general government over States Rights, and this was the slogan of the cool, calculating, but equally brave people of the North. The converging lines commenced in antagonism and increased in bitterness as they neared the vertex. The vertex was 1861. At this point it was too late to make concessions. There was no room for conciliation or compromise, then the only recourse left is what all brave people accepts—the arbitrament of the sword.