| OCR Text |
Show I JUST STORIES ABOUT THE WAi I 1 .ll. is said that the exact placo of ' h hnri.il of tlie remains of John Wilkes y iooth. the assassin of Prositlcnt Lin- f,','f -oln, is not. known. 3n fact, it has j hecn assiTterl tliat the real slay or of 1 i (he president never was apprehended, , ll and that ho lived, oven in recent '. 't years, in difforent parts of the coun-f coun-f j 'try. ' However, tho -authorities never ; l:tocd any crcdcnco in theso reports, ' t and they were )roliably Iho wander-I wander-I . I inss of an ovcr-ininjpnative mind. I Ar'lor the death of Booth his remains were taken on hoard tho monitor Mon-i Mon-i t..i5k and there a post-mortem examination examina-tion was made. The body was placed on a carpenter's bench between the si i'ni and tho turret, and tho oxam-' oxam-' utation showed that rhc murderer had ivc o:cd -a bullet wound on tho left t sile and at tho back of tho neck, the f location and character of the wound ! ii bei-! very similar to the ono lie had so iicnohcrously inflicted on Mr. Liu-i Liu-i coin. On the 27th of April tho remains re-mains were placed in a rowbont, in charge of two men, sworn, it is said, , in irrevocable sccrocv, and nono but , t.'icse two know the place or manner ot ' the sepulchre of the assassin. M At the same time as President Lin- j coin was shot an attempt vas also j made on the Jivos of the vice-president. " Iho secretary of state, the secrotary of ( war and Lieutcnant-General Grant, the 1 idea of the conspirators beinjj to do away with tho heads of the govorn-; govorn-; ment in tho hope that the country i would be thrown into panic and tur- j moil. Their plans miscarried, however, and though the country had never known such grief as it did when the fact of the president's death became known, the administrafion at Washing ton continued its duties in due form. ''our people were hanged for complicity complic-ity in tho plot. Iv -Tolin Burns was tho only citi7.cn of t dcttvsburg who fought in the famous hattfc of that name. Thus ho had a ' double interest at heart the welfare f of his country and the protection of H? home and property. History tells r that he fought hiird, "too. ;' "Rven the geographical and geological J formations and characteristics of the j Tnitcd States arc conducive to a per-j per-j I'oct union, There arc no natural bar-i bar-i rtrs between north and south, the-gen j rnl conformation of th.c country be-J be-J ing ns though it were specially do- vigucd for one people. This fact ap-j-l pealed to tho immortal Lincoln, w.ho, i V: oitching on tho subject in his inaugu-'j inaugu-'j kJ ndures3, naid: , 'Wc cannot separate, tvc cannot re- ti move our respective sections from each other. Wc cannot, build an impassable wtII between lliem. A husband and a j wife lriay be divorced and go out of j the presence and boj'ond the reach of '3 eich othor, but tho different parts of ; , cur country cannot do this. They cannot can-not but remain face to face, and'intor-i and'intor-i , courso. either amicable or hostile, must continue between them." I ' Ir I . Though a large porporlioa of the 1 "' soldiers who saw servi'-o in the war , Tor tho union were volunteers, thero (, wero fitill a largo number of regular I .', army men who did sbrvico for thoir country, and many .-joined tho silent inaiori'ty for the "sake of the Great' Caudc. To hec men. the regulars jf who fell in the civil war, there was unveiled on Inst Memorial day, an imposing im-posing monument at Gettysburg. This nionaincnt. erected by congress, stands close bv the spot where President Lincoln Lin-coln delivered his "Gettysburg Address," Ad-dress," and was unveiled by Miss Helen Tnft. daughter of the president. President Tnft dedicated tho shaft, and in his address sketched tho history of tho regular army, pointing out the fact that at the battle of Gettysburg there were engaged half tho regulars at that time enrolled. Tho president also recounted tho disasters that befell be-fell the country in the War of 1S12, owing to tho fact that tho government govern-ment was without a regular army, and he dwelt upon tho splendid work of tbe regulars in tho Mexican war and the Indian uprisings. In closing ho said: "All honor to tho regular urmy of the United States. Never in its history has it had a stain upon its escutcheon. With no one to blow its l.mmpcts. with no local feeling or pride to biing forth its merits, it has gone on dt.iug the duty that was its fo do." Thero is no north or south today, nor will there over be again. None wero so happy at the cessation of hostilities hos-tilities as were Iho soldiers themselves, and no sooner had the last great battle bat-tle of tho war boon fought than those men who had been engaged in deadly I warfare for three years were on the host of terms. Tho union soldiers divided di-vided their rations with the Confederates, Confed-erates, pressing upon them, in fact, tho choice of al they had, and soon they r'cil to cracking merry ,-josts with each other nnd rejoiced i'u tho uicl that onco again they wero brother, Americans, Ameri-cans, willing to fight sido by side, if necessary, for tho protection of their conntr w When Major Audcrson left Port Moultrie he carried with him. his JIntr. and it was this banner that floated uVer Fort Sumter during its bombardment bombard-ment of thirty-four hours. The flag was raised on Sumter at noon on December De-cember 27. 18G0, while tho band played "Hail Columbia." and great enthusiasm enthusi-asm prevailed. After tho surrender of Major Anderson, a saint o of fifty guns was fired to the llag of his g.irrisou. and 51 was during this salute, on the last gun, in fact, that a premature explosion ex-plosion occurred, one man being killed and several wounded. As no casualties casual-ties had happened during tho actual bombardment, this was the only bloodshed blood-shed in the opening hours of tho war. 4 N Members-of tho party who captured Booth, tho assassin, have written that as ho stood in the burning barn, after he had been shot b- Sergeant J3oston Corbett. he bore a marked resemblance to his illustrious brother, JCdwin Booth, the actor. Booth, as he jumped from the box to the stage, after' having fired tho shot that ended the president's life, injured his foot soyorely. and when captured cap-tured ho had with him a crutch, which he had to use in order to walk. When called upon to surrender he rofused to do so, and accusing his pursuers of being be-ing "cowards," he offered to fight them, one and all, single handed. After ; Corbett 's hullot had felled him, tho door was broken in and Booth was dragged out to die. Before the end camo he begged to bo killed, and he asked (hose aboul him to hold up his hands that ho might look" at them. II is request was granted and as he gazed at them he muttered "useless; useless." His mustacho had been cut off, nppnr- cntly with a pair of scissors, and he had allowed his beard to grow, his appear-anco appear-anco being thus very materially altered. Ho lived four hours after being shor, and it was elovon davs after tho death of Lincoln th.it Booth breathed his last. Sergeant Boston Corbett, tho man who shot Booth, fired through a chink in the walls of the barn, and fired without orders. As the barn filled with smoke, Booth made a lungo toward the door, and Corbett, fearing that tho assassin would get away, determined to "take no chances." 41 1 Not the least interesting features of tho "grand review" in Washington at the close of the war, was presented by Sherman's men. TI103' had with them in tho procession, sonic of the characteristics charac-teristics which had made them already famous. Each brigade was followed by its forngers. or "bummers," with their spoils of war game cocks, donkeys, goats and other odd things which they liad picked up on thoir famous "march through Georgia" and the Carolinns. Besides the grent G. A. Ii. organization, organiza-tion, there were formed after the disbanding dis-banding of tlio army in lSfiH. numerous associations of the men of tho difforent armies, regiments, corps and even companies com-panies which had participated in tho war. These wore an indivdunl part of the larger veteran associations. i The rations for one day at Anderson-villo Anderson-villo prison were: two ounces of bacon, or two o.unces of boiled beef, with tho water in which it had been boiled; ono sweet potato; a piece of bread, two and one-half inches square and thick, composed of corn and peas ground into meal but not sifted. If one of a squad of prisoners were missing, the rest were deprived of rations for that day. w Iii his annual report, I860, Secretary of "War Stanton made the following statement concerning the national cemeteries. ceme-teries. "Forty-ono national military cemeteries have been established, and into these there have already boon gathered the remains of J 01,520 Union soldiers. Tt is estimated that our national na-tional cemeteries will bo required to re-coivo re-coivo and protect tho remains of 249,307 patriotic soldiers whose lives were sacrificed sac-rificed in defenso of our national existence. exist-ence. It is proposed, instead of the wooden headboards heretoforo used, to erect on tho graves small monuments of cast irou, suitably protected b- zinc coating against rust. " |
