Addresses: by John A. Martin. Delivered in Kansas.

by John Alexander Martin

This is the lesson of Memorial Day. It is yesterday teaching to-day. It brings the peaceful present, reverently uncovered, to the grass-grown grave of the war-worn past. It teaches the living to honor the memory of those who cheerfully died for a good cause. It tells the children that, in a war for human freedom, the level of a soldier is the pinnacle of glory. And so long as heroism is thus revered and patriotism honored; so long as men and women teach their children to honor and to emulate the example of the heroes and patriots who, a quarter of a century ago, rallied around the flag of their imperiled country with such unparalleled enthusiasm, fought for it, suffered for it, died for it, lifted it into the very heavens, stainless and triumphant, and made all men free before the Constitution and the laws—so long as this is the lesson and the inspiration of the rising generations of Americans, there need be no fear that the dead have died in vain, or that the Republic they loved will perish from the earth.

In speaking to you to-day, I shall talk of some heroes and martyrs who were my comrades and my friends. They were not “born to fame.” None of them were known beyond the narrow limits of the neighborhoods in which they lived, or of the regiment they glorified by the simple manhood of their lives. Country boys, some of them, they had grown up from infancy, surrounded by calm and gracious scenes and sounds; town boys, others, they had dreamed only of business or professional pursuits, and of those triumphs and successes which, in civil life, insure a quiet and prosperous old age.

Suddenly the flash of a gun in Charleston harbor startled the land like an electric shock, and in a moment all the currents of its life were changed. The air throbbed with the roll of drums and the blare of bugles; flags fluttered in the sky, like shipwrecked rainbows; and for the first time in their lives millions of people realized what the old flag stood for. Men walked about with an unwonted flame in their eyes, and women, quick to comprehend the agony and bitter sacrifices of the years to come, and hiding in their hearts the never-lifting shadow of their fears, wept and prayed, in the silence of their rooms, that this cup might pass away.

Then came the calls for men, swiftly following one after another, and sweeping away, in successive surges, the very blossom and flower of the youth and manhood of the land. Seventy-five thousand first; then three hundred thousand, and three hundred thousand more, until the total exceeded two million seven hundred and seventy-two thousand; and in almost every home throughout the length and breadth of the land there were vacant places by the hearthstone and aching voids in the heart, that, in hundreds of thousands of cases, would nevermore be filled.

Many of you, perhaps, have seen Rogers’s statuette, “One More Shot.” Some time ago, while looking at a copy of it in a shop window, a soldier friend said: “Two of the finest types of our volunteers are represented in that group.” The martial pose of the central figure is superb; the boyish grace of his kneeling comrade is no less striking. The one represents a young man of twenty-five or thirty; his companion is a mere boy. The elder, tall, alert, resolute, looks intently forward. His broken left arm is held deftly in the folds of his coat; his gun rests against his body, and his right hand is seeking his cartridge-box. Martial, masterful, manly—there were dozens of men in every regiment who might have stood for the model of this figure. The younger, sitting on a knapsack engaged in binding up a wounded leg, and placidly indifferent to everything else, fairly represents a still larger class of our volunteers—the laughing, joking, rollicking boys, who were heroes without heroic feeling, and equal to martyrdom without one spark of a martyr’s fire.

I have, at home, a picture representing General Thomas studying a map by the light of a camp-fire, on the evening after the first day’s fight at Chicamauga. There is no artistic merit in the picture. But I bought it and have kept it because it represents, though indifferently, several other types of American soldiers. The painter has caught something of the masterful figure of Thomas. Near the great General, seated on a stump and gazing fixedly at the camp-fire, is a middle-aged Lieutenant. With his elbow on his knee and his chin on his hand, his grave, thoughtful, dreamy expression indicates that his mind has drifted far away from the sights and sounds about him, and is with his wife and children in the dear old home. Lazily watching the two officers is a young soldier on duty as a sentinel, with his gun resting carelessly in the hollow of his left arm. These three figures represent other types of soldiers, and are as characteristic as, though less skillfully drawn than, those of the Rogers group.

The dead soldiers I am going to speak of, like those of the Rogers group and the Thomas picture, were only types of hundreds of other volunteers. I have no doubt that, if I merely sketched them, giving no names, every soldier here present would say that I was describing men of his own regiment.

I first met one of them in the winter of 1861–2. There was a reorganization of Kansas regiments, and he was transferred to mine, with his company. Born in a small village in New York, he was country-bred, and had a fair education. Square-shouldered, strong-limbed, graceful in movement, and with every muscle and fibre of his body vigorous and healthy, his was a handsome figure. Whether some remote ancestor had transmitted to him the blood of a soldier, I do not know, but I doubt if he had ever thought of war, or of a soldier’s life, before the flash of the gun at Sumter startled the slumbering Nation. He was as modest as he was manly. If he was corrected or reproved for mistakes such as young officers frequently made in the early days of their service, he would blush like a school-girl. But he was a born soldier. His blue-gray eyes were alike steady, quick, and fearless. After three months drill he walked with the erect and martial bearing of a regular; his prompt military salute, never forgotten or omitted on any occasion, was given or responded to with a grace that was at once easy and natural; and his voice, clear as the tones of a silver bugle, had in it the ring of a true commander. He was a Captain, and his company was made up, as most volunteer companies were, of young men and boys who had been the school-mates and friends of their officers. His affection for his boys deepened and strengthened during every day of his service, and they idolized him. But not one of them ever for a moment forgot that he was their Captain, nor did he forget it. The willing respect, the cheerful and prompt obedience he gave to his superior officers, he expected from his men, and they gave it, not so much because it was enforced, as because it was deserved.

I don’t think I ever heard him utter a complaint concerning any feature of a soldier’s life, however hard or perilous it might be. The dusty marches along Southern pikes beneath the blazing heat of a summer sun; the cold and dreary tramps of midwinter; the lonely vigils of picket duty; the weary monotony of camp-life—none of these ever extorted from him a murmur. He was always and everywhere the same cheerful, patient, willing soldier; the same kindly, brave and manly gentleman.

On the morning of the 19th of September, 1863, our division moved from near Crawfish Springs to the battle-field of Chicamauga. The march was rapid, dusty and exhausting. The thunder of artillery smote the air, and the crackle of musketry at the distant fords told of a closer conflict. The troops that had passed along the road during the night had fired the fences on either side, and they were still smouldering, filling the atmosphere with stifling smoke. When we reached a point near General Rosecrans’s headquarters, we were ordered into the woods to the right, and I halted to give instructions to my regiment as it passed by. Near its center marched the young soldier of whom I have been speaking. As he came up, and halted for a moment to talk, I noted his striking appearance. His clothing was so dusty that it looked more like Confederate gray than Union blue; his face was stained with smoke; he had tied a white handkerchief about his neck, and its loose folds fell down his back; but in his walk and bearing there was no trace of either fatigue or lassitude. His step was even firmer, his bearing more erect, than usual, and his brave eyes sparkled with the excitement of the near-approaching fight.