Remarks by General Force
This is the title of an address delivered at the first reunion of the veterans of the Twentieth Ohio Infantry, who gathered at Mt. Vernon, Ohio, on April 6, 1876. Delivered by Brig. Gen. Manning Ferguson Force (1824-1899) in the waning days of Reconstruction and on the eve of our Centennial, his eloquent conclusion caught my attention:
"War is essentially cruel. Its purpose is destruction. Like the surgeon practicing his profession, the soldier, in the progress of the war, finds his sensibility grow dull to inevitable suffering. War grows more relentless the longer it lasts. It is simply horrible if not undertaken for some worthy end. But when begun from principle, and carried on from duty to enforce a sacred right, war is consecrated; it calls into action all that is noblest and best in man, and affords some compensation for its calamities.
"Who can count the hearts that bled? Who can number the homes that mourned? Yet every man who gave his life a willing sacrifice for us and for his country, by showing us how to die instructed us how we should live. And every woman who, in her errand of mercy, gave her life to save the lives of others, blessed the earth like an angel visitant from higher spheres. And while the war strode across the land like a tornado, scattering havoc and devastation, yet, like a tornado, it dispelled the miasma that was poisoning our system. We were one nation living under one government; but the two sections, opposed in their institutions, were continually growing asunder, divergent and alienated. The war swept away the cause of difference, and left us not only one in nationality and one in government, but one in institutions. This generation must bear the suffering and wear the scars, but posterity will reap the benefit.
"Comrades, we no more camp and march and battle side by side. Our homes are widely scattered; we follow diverse pursuits; we worship in various churches; we vote in different parties; but we still are one in declaring that the war must not be in vain; its results shall stand; this nation shall be forever one; its laws shall be obeyed, and the government saved at so great cost, shall be administered with such honor and purity as to justify the cost of saving it. But we cannot ask of others what we ourselves fail to do. It is the duty of every man, above all it is the duty of every soldier who served in the war, to show in his own life an example of that obedience to law and purity of character that we demand of others. See to it that this great land is the home of a nation truly great; and when the next centennial year rolls around, posterity, while honoring the founders of the Republic, may have some kind words for those who saved it in its sorest peril.
(Wood, David W. History of the 20th O.V.V.I. Regiment, and Proceedings of the First Reunion. Columbus, Ohio: Paul & Thrall, 1876.)
"War is essentially cruel. Its purpose is destruction. Like the surgeon practicing his profession, the soldier, in the progress of the war, finds his sensibility grow dull to inevitable suffering. War grows more relentless the longer it lasts. It is simply horrible if not undertaken for some worthy end. But when begun from principle, and carried on from duty to enforce a sacred right, war is consecrated; it calls into action all that is noblest and best in man, and affords some compensation for its calamities.
"Who can count the hearts that bled? Who can number the homes that mourned? Yet every man who gave his life a willing sacrifice for us and for his country, by showing us how to die instructed us how we should live. And every woman who, in her errand of mercy, gave her life to save the lives of others, blessed the earth like an angel visitant from higher spheres. And while the war strode across the land like a tornado, scattering havoc and devastation, yet, like a tornado, it dispelled the miasma that was poisoning our system. We were one nation living under one government; but the two sections, opposed in their institutions, were continually growing asunder, divergent and alienated. The war swept away the cause of difference, and left us not only one in nationality and one in government, but one in institutions. This generation must bear the suffering and wear the scars, but posterity will reap the benefit.
"Comrades, we no more camp and march and battle side by side. Our homes are widely scattered; we follow diverse pursuits; we worship in various churches; we vote in different parties; but we still are one in declaring that the war must not be in vain; its results shall stand; this nation shall be forever one; its laws shall be obeyed, and the government saved at so great cost, shall be administered with such honor and purity as to justify the cost of saving it. But we cannot ask of others what we ourselves fail to do. It is the duty of every man, above all it is the duty of every soldier who served in the war, to show in his own life an example of that obedience to law and purity of character that we demand of others. See to it that this great land is the home of a nation truly great; and when the next centennial year rolls around, posterity, while honoring the founders of the Republic, may have some kind words for those who saved it in its sorest peril.
(Wood, David W. History of the 20th O.V.V.I. Regiment, and Proceedings of the First Reunion. Columbus, Ohio: Paul & Thrall, 1876.)
posted by Ron Coddington at 7:04 AM
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