Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1886 — The Silence of Peace. [ARTICLE]

The Silence of Peace.

Ah! If they could only speak. There is a marble slab at the head of every grave in the National Cemetery to tell of war. If there is do name tfie word “Unknown” signifies that a soldier who was killed in a certain battle lies buried there. It is the guns which are silent—which have nothing to' speak for them. Here and there one has been saved as a relic, but the vast majority Jiave disappeared in the melting furnaces, to come out in more peaceful form. What of the great barbette guns at Fort Sumter, the black-mouthed monsters which roared defiance at Beauregard as he struck his first blow at the Union? What of the grim muzzles which belched flame from the many port holes as brave Anderson fought to delay the inevitable? A hundred cannon, manned by Confederates, hurled death and destruction at the fort for fateful hours, and nearly everyone of them was called into use in later years. Can one single piece of that ordnance be found to-day ? Great siege guns hurled shot and shell into Yorktown, Charleston, Petersburg. Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Island No. 10, and a half score of other places. Who can point out the spot where one of those monsters lies resting to-day?

In the rank weeds at Fort Pillow lies a disabled cannon. It may Le spoken of as dead- A great shell from a Federal gun-boat inflicted mortal injury. If that old cannon could only speak, what a story it could relate of the fierce fights in The bend of the great river. It helped drive the gunboats back again and again; it thundered at them as they finally ran the gauntlet; it fell into Federal hands; it was retaken by the Confederates; it saw all the horribleness of war before it was thrown down to sink away in the soft soil and be half hidden by the weeds. On the ridgo above Vicksburg—the ridge from which a hundred guns hurled shot at the Federal craft —one may find two old cannon, defaced, crippled, useless. They will never thunder again. If they could speak! Just think of the story they would tell, beginning with Sherman’s attack, and. ending on that glorious Fourth of July which witnessed Pemberton’s surrender! Between those dates were hundreds of days and nights—days of battle—nights of alarm—weeks of starvation—months of suspense and horror. These cannon could tell us all, but they are forever silent. And what of the hundreds of field batteries. Each gun came to have its name and history. Each one came to have its friends anl admirers in the brigade. Each new scar added to its Jist of friends —each battle proved it more worthy of confidence. Think of the battles one of those rusty, defaced and useless pieces could name! Think of the trifling incidents it could relate. In the roadside Mitch between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsvillo one lies dead, and so buried out of sight that few eyes rest upon it. On the field of Antietam—over in the woods where Hooker rushed at Stonewall Jackson and could not drive him —lies another. No man can say that a third can be found, thqugh he look over every field of battle known to history. What of the pieces which flamed and roared at Bull Bun, Williamsburg, Carnifex and the Seven Days. What of those which thundered up and down the Shenandoah and the Luray ? What of J;he hundreds which belched shot and shell at Fredericksburg, Chaneellorsvjlle, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Appomattox? Of the hundreds not one single dozen have been preserved through these twenty years of peace. The burden of silence is upon them. They may exhibit their scars and rust, but the secrets of the battle lie safely hidden in their black depths. They could tell of fathers, brothers, and sons —of heroes and cowards —of advance ambretreat —of gallant charges and bloody repulse, but they are silent forever.— Detroit Free Press.