Thought may the minds of men divide,
Love makes the heart of nations one,
And so, thy soldier grave beside,
We honor thee, Virginia’s son.
Robert E. Lee.
OLD GLORY ON THE ISLAND
MEN who have had grave differences and looked at each other coldly and passed with unsmiling faces have, when some calamity threatened, sprang shoulder to shoulder and spent their united strength in defense of a common cause.
Thus in the Spanish-American spurt of war,—serious enough, too serious, alas, in some aspects; but great in some of its beneficent results. In that call, “To Arms!” was laid to rest—forever forgotten—the old enmity between the North and the South, engendered by the Civil Strife.
On the island of Cuba, the trenches of the United States Army were five miles in extent and in shape of a horseshoe. Above the trenches, five curving miles of Stars and Stripes gleamed.
To the United States prisoners, confined in the prison, within sight of these flags, but under the flag of Spain, the waving emblems before their eyes brought daily hope and courage.