Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas County, Texas. Page: 226 of 1,110
vii, 9-1011 p. incl. ill., ports. : ports. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this book.
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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.
is published with this history. Also, in this
same connection, is published an address delivered
by Colonel W. D. Wylie, formerly of
the Second Iowa, and afterward of the regular
army, the first Department Commander
of the Grand Army of the Republic in Texas;
and also an address by Colonel W. L. Crawford,
a gallant soldier who wore the gray; and
it is hoped that this history of this great
county, showing as it does the complete history
of our reconciliation, will do something
toward cementing the fraternal feeling now
existing, and in doing good for our common
country. Tie words "memorial day" cause a
feeling of rest and peace to come into our
hearts, but it is so graphically and politically
expressed in the memorial discourse by Rev.
E. M. Wheelock, it is published in full:
" Greater love hath no man than this, that
he lay down his life for his friend.-JoHN
xv, 13.
"Through all past time, among all past
peoples, the memory of the soldier dead has
been sacredly cherished. For conquering
kings pyramids were built; for chiefs, warriors,
heroes, triumphal arches reared their
stately fronts. Pillars pierced the sky to
point the victories of nations, while the monument
and the mausoleum testify to the grief
for the fallen. The chiseled marble, the
sculptured vase and urn, the cenotaph of
brass are the enduring monuments of grief,
the tributes of a nation's sorrow to her most
gallant and deserving sons.
" But the American republic year by yearnot in sorrow, not in mourning, not with the
cold symbols of metal and stone, but rather
with the high gladness of a solemn festival.
So, in the springtime of nature, from every
city and town and hamlet of this broad continent,
gather the people of this, the proudest of
all nations, to commemorate the valor and the
victory of their soldier dead. They strew their
last resting place with the most fitting decoration
that can be brought to a true man's grave
-flowers, fresh as the remembrance we carry
in our hearts for the departed brave; flowers
as fragrant as the full-blossomed glory of
their deeds in the annals of the age; flowers
perishable like the bodies of kindred dust, but
like the immortal soul of man to be renewed
year by year forever. Their true symbol is
the starry flag which they carried to enduring
victory from sea to sea; their true arch of
triumph, the government of free and equal
laws which they made to span the continent
like the bow of promise, giving assurance of
equality of duties and of rights under lav s
founded on the will of the people alone.
"( Thus arises a grander and more imperishable
memorial than ever the pomp of kingdoms
or the wealth of selfish conquest have
raised to commemorate their warriors and
their chiefs; a national purpose which has the
dignity and solemnity of funeral rites without
their sadness. We celebrate not a new bereavement,
but an old one; not around a
freshly made grave, but remembering those
already clothed with grass and blooms. To
Nature's signs of tenderness we but add ourdecorates the graves of its citizen soldiers, I own. Not ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but
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Lewis Publishing Company. Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas County, Texas., book, 1892; Chicago, Illinois. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth20932/m1/226/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Public Library.