[484]
considered imperative.
No nation so barbarous as to neglect the ashes of its patriots,—no family so divested of social affection as not to desire to recover the earthly relics of one of their number who died away from home.
That mysterious chain which binds the heart of the survivor to the dust of the departed is now binding the hearts of an innumerable company of our people to the graves of our fallen soldiers.
To recover the ashes of the loved one is the first thought that occurs; and the uncertainty of the spot where the body is reposing intensifies the grief.
Promiscuous burial the human soul abhors.
This feeling is natural, and it cannot be repressed.
Virgil has beaufully expressed it in the line we have quoted above.
With his back to the earth and his eyes on heaven, the dying soldier thinks of his beloved home.
It is generally among the very last wishes of those dying among strangers, that they could die at home.
Our fancies will visit the red fields of valor which have been sanctified by the baptism of patriotic blood; they will haunt the halls of our hospitals, filled with the suffering, and steal into the countless chambers of the bereaved, where Rachels are ‘weeping for their children, and will not be comforted, because they are not.’
The duties of Governments to their fallen soldiers apply with peculiar force to the soldiers and families of republics.
Our grand army of a million men is a fair, full, and honorable representation of the great body of the people.
There are whole regiments and brigades where there is not a man who did not leave home and kindred for the war,— kindred who watch with tenderness and apprehension the news of every battle, and whose affection spreads its drooping wings over the camp where the soldier sleeps.
How many of our rank and file would not have Christian burial if they died at home, and some plain stone, at least, in memoriam, placed to mark the last couch of the sleeper?
How many of our army, fallen already, have not left friends who would part with some treasure to recover the bodies of those they loved, or at least to know the spot of sepulture?
Hundreds of instances—yes, thousands—are known of attempts, often fruitless, to find, identify, mark, the spot, or make inquiries about
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