IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 
 A TRIBUTE OF RESPECT 
 
 TO THE MEMORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Deceased Soldiers ofAdams 
 County, Ohio. 
 
 AA T ADDRESS 
 
 BY CAPTAIN N. W. EVANS. 
 
 Delivered at the Methodist Episcopal Church, West Union, Ohio, 
 September 2nd, 1865. 
 
 ( KEPUULISHED I 
 
 PORTSMOUTH, O. 
 
 I'OKTSMOUTH TRIBUNE PRINT. TMO. as GALLIA ST. 
 
 
 1902 
 

 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST 
 
 AM) 
 
 RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 
 
 TO 
 
 THE RETURNED SOLDIERS 
 
 OP 
 
 ADAMS COUNTY. OHIO. 
 
IX MEMORIAM. 
 
 The French are a Godless people. They pay no regard to 
 the Sabbath* On that day they visit their cemeteries: they 
 make them neat and beautiful, and they deck the graves of their 
 friends with flowers. We Americans are a Christian people. 
 We respect the Sabbath. Our cemeteries are too often grown 
 up with weeds and briers. The graves are neglected, dilapi¬ 
 dated, forgotten. Let us imitate the good and beautiful where- 
 ever we see them. Let us, on this occasion, scatter a few flowers 
 over the graves of our dead heroes. 
 
 The war has been finished honorably, successfully, gloriously. 
 Our running account with the war god has been closed, and we 
 can now compute the financial debt we have accumulated for 
 ourselves and posterity. But we owe still another debt—a 
 greater debt—to the soldiers who have fought for us. It is a 
 debt of gratitude. Let us, for a little while, lay aside the in¬ 
 cessant topic of dollars and cents, and talk of this other debt. 
 We owe much to Grant and Sherman, but let them rest for a 
 short space from the persecutions of a hero worshiping people, 
 and let us pay our respects to those lesser lights, the common 
 soldiery, who bore the brunt of our campaigns and battles, and 
 who won our victories for us. Let it not be said the Americans 
 are ungrateful. The debt of gratitude we owe the survivors 
 we can, in a great measure, pay them and their posterity. But 
 of the dead? De mortuis »'ihil nisi bonum. Let us scatter 
 flowers on their graves. 
 
4 
 
 The Romans, in speaking of the demise of their friends 
 never permitted it to be said, “oberunt,” or “pevicrunt,” 
 “they are dead,” “they have perished;” but they whisper sol¬ 
 emnly to each other; “Non sunt,” “they are not;” thus in two 
 words declaring their belief in the immortality of the soul and 
 a future existence. They said: “Our friends exis-t no longer 
 here,” implying, more strongly than an express declaration, that 
 they did exist elsewhere and under other conditions. A sa¬ 
 credness and dignity invest the character and life when once 
 the angel of death has set his seal on them. Let us respect that 
 sacredness and dignity as much as the ancient pagans did. Let 
 it not be said of our fallen heroes, “they have died,” “they have 
 perished,” but let us whisper reverentially, “They are not.” 
 
 Our unreturning heroes are not dead ! They have not per¬ 
 ished, become annihilated. They live as truly and as veritably 
 today as that instant before the angel of the sepulchre claimed 
 them as his own. 
 
 ‘•There are no dead ! The stars go down 
 .* To rise upon some fairer shore, 
 
 And bright in Heaven’s jeweled crown 
 They shine forever more. 
 
 And ever near us, though unseen, 
 
 The dear immortal spirits tread. 
 
 For all the boundless universe 
 Is life. There are no dead.” 
 
 They live in our memories, and they dwell in the elysium of 
 heroes. Our brothers fell in the Vigor of manhood. To us, 
 they will ever flourish in immortal vigor. They will never pass 
 through the different phases of mortality, grow old, and lapse to 
 the grave by reason of the decay of their faculties, but will ever 
 remain to us as they fell—noble, manly souls—immortal men. 
 
 Those men, dead and living, who fought so gallantly at Shi¬ 
 loh, Perryville, Stone river, Chickamauga, Atlanta, Nashville and 
 
o 
 
 on other fields, east as well as west, let us consider characters. 
 Let us view impartially what they did, and then let the infer¬ 
 ences follow of themselves. A word introductory. We have 
 to consider only their acts. We have nothing to do with their 
 motives. We have no authority, either human or divine, to 
 challenge the motives that caused any man to enter the army. 
 We have neither the right, nor the ability to tear away the veil 
 before the penetralia of the immortal spirit, and to disclose its 
 mysterious workings. That is the province of its author. He 
 alone is judge of the hidden springs of human action. Motives 
 belong only to Him. Actions, res factae, things r past and done 
 are onrs to interpret, to judge, to approve or condemn. To such 
 we confine ourselves. 
 
 Many of our heroes were young men. They were inspired 
 with noble hopes, lofty desires, and grand ambitions. The 
 Canaan of the new world was their heritage. Time was theirs 
 in which to achieve, in which to accomplish. All things were 
 before them. The paths of glory opened on every side. The 
 dazzling crowns of honors, dignities, and riches waited to be 
 claimed. In the luminous vistas of the future they saw their 
 aspirations realized. Youth stole into the studio of Time, 
 seized the pencil of Fancy, and on the virgin canvas of the 
 future, depicted scenes not unworthy of its ardent and impetu¬ 
 ous genius. Here the young man had attained the acme of his 
 hopes. Lovely women were smiling on him and crowning him 
 with wreaths of immortelles. His fellow citizens stood around, 
 proud to honor him. There he was in gladsome home. A 
 charming ideal, a womanly divinity, radiant with the approving 
 glances of affection, was by his side. Little cherubs clustered 
 about his knees. The sky was the purest cerulean; the air 
 was odorous with rich perfume and intoxicating with delight: 
 the birds warbled divinely, and the sunlight itself was elixir. 
 He had stolen the joys of paradise and brought them back to 
 earth. But hark! the booming of cannon waked the dreamer 
 
from his reverie. It was the cannon of Sumter. Destiny 
 rushed in. and. with the brush of Prophesy, obliterated the fair 
 scenes in the lire and smoke >f bittle. There, in the deep 
 solitude of a southern forest, under the weeping cypress, she 
 painted a neglected tumulus, a nameless grave. Oh, the cruel 
 mockery of ambition! the bitter draught of fate! But our 
 youthful heroes were not appalled. The blood of revolutionary 
 fathers coursed in their veins. They saw the storm approaching, 
 and bared their bosoms to meet it. The crisis demanded sac¬ 
 rifices. They plucked from their hearts each fond hope, each 
 cherished ambition. It wa« not enough. They tore those 
 bleeding hearts from their breasts, and laid them warm and 
 reeking on the altar of country. They bestowed one last lin¬ 
 gering thought on those bright visions of beauty and of glory 
 that had so lately spread out before them and invited them on. 
 and turned away and died; died w ithout a tear, a murmur, or 
 a regret. What for? To give us and our descendants a united, 
 a happy, an illustrons country. They left no progency to per¬ 
 petuate their glorious names and more glorious deeds. The 
 Republic shall be their child ! She shall embalm their memory 
 and their heroism and hand them down to her latest hour. The 
 walls of Thebes sprang up to the sound of the lyre of Amphion. 
 When our country shall chant the funeral dirge of her fallen^ 
 sons, walls shall spring up about her which the tyrants of the 
 combined world shall not he able, to breach. 
 
 Others fell in the meridian of manhood. Their hopes in life, 
 had. in some measure, been realized. They had pleasant homes, 
 cheerful firesides, loving wives, affectionate children. They 
 were endeared to community by all that makes life agreeable 
 and happy. Their country called them. T.iey sundered the 
 silken cords of affection; they staked human interests, social 
 ties, and life itself, on the single throw of a die—and lost; lost 
 for themselves, hut won for posterity. They left their homes 
 and sought and found a soldier’s sepulchre in a hostile land. 
 
li . !i- - -A.. . ■ 
 
 Those homes are now desolate; their light has been extinguished; 
 Those wives are draped in mourning; those children are in tears. 
 The agony of despair has seized the bereaved ones; their 
 bright world has £j$en turned to a bleak and gloomy waste. 
 Henceforth they will pass solemnly and mournfully among us. 
 The human soul has its tendrils as well as the vine. It will 
 cling to the nearest and noblest thing it can make its own. Let 
 the oak be riven by the thunder blast; the vine will fall to the 
 ground; its life will thenceforth be imperfect, dwarfed, stunted. 
 It shrinks from observation, and withers away. The cypress 
 mahung at almost every door. Wnile w r e honor the fallen, 
 let ,u« uncover ourselves in the presence of the mourners. 
 
 'Others were hoary-headed sires, aged and reverend fathers. 
 The sun of their lives had arisen in peace; it set in blood. They 
 had lived for their country ; there remained but for them to die: 
 they died for it. They had seen and known the compatriots of 
 Washington, LaFayette, Adams, Hamilton, Jefferson. They 
 had caughi the inspiration of these men. The divine afflatus 
 had descended on them. Their lives had been one long tes¬ 
 timonial in favor of their fatherland. That testimonial 
 was almost complete. It lacked but the seal. They sealed it 
 with their blood, and “they are not.” Let us believe their pure 
 spirits rest in the bosom of God. O, blessed souls of our white- 
 haired martyrs, look down from your thrones in bliss, and let 
 your unction descend on your unworthy children! 
 
 These young, middle aged, and hoary martyrs for liberty faced 
 death for us. They placed their bodies, a living barrier, be¬ 
 tween us and the bullets and bayonets of a cruel foe. What is 
 death? We can readily comprehend its physical phenomena, 
 but what is that terrible, solemn mystery which appals human¬ 
 ity? from which the boldest involuntarily shrinks? 
 
 “Dying is nothing ; ’tis this we fear, 
 
 To be we know not what, we know not where.” 
 
 Death is the door which opens into another w orld—-a world 
 
8 
 
 which the strongest ray of human light has not yet been able 
 to penetrate. No Columbus can discover it to us. God holds- 
 the impenetrable curtain. When he lifts it we shall see. Not 
 before. Tell me not that the gra ve does not suggest horrors in¬ 
 stinctively. What mean the thousands of medicines, nostrums, 
 and panaceas, for preserving and for continuing life? Why 
 are the doors and blinds on our watercrafts hung on open 
 hinges? What mean the life preserver? Why did Ponce de 
 Leon seek the fountain of youth? Why is every medicinal 
 spring in the country crowded with healthseekers? Why do 
 you shudder at that “dry, slight c'imgh?” Why do you scan 
 the heavens, examine the grounds, gauge the atmosphere, before 
 going abroad? Ah! that trifling cold, the insidious harbinge 1 ' 
 of pulmonary consumption! Why do you involuntarily tremble 
 in the presence of that livid face, those glassy eyes, those pale 
 lips? You perceive your own fate written in unmistakable 
 characters in those melancholy features. You recognize the 
 mark of death. You know that seal is yours also. 
 
 The consciousness th at we are inevitably to grapple, singly 
 and hopelessl} 7 , with the “king of terrorsthat, without pilot* 
 compass, or even friendly star, we must embark on a pathless, 
 shoreless ocean, from whose bosom no traveler has ever returned, 
 from over whose waters no “angel whispers” have ever told us 
 aught of the fate of former voyagers; that we must meet an 
 unknown God, face to face, and account for the “deeds done in 
 the body the solemn and awful thought that we must stand 
 revealed in the presence of the Sovereign who guides the uni¬ 
 verse, who is, “a consuming tire,” who holds the lightning in 
 His hands, who controls the devastating hurricane, the raging 
 ocean, the heaving earthquake, the burning mountain, in whose 
 power wo are “like clay in the hands of the potter,” and by the 
 single breath of whose nostrils we might be annihilated—this 
 is the “sting of death;” this is the invisible spectre which is ever 
 following, chasing, and pursuing us. and from which we are 
 
9 
 
 •sever fleeing, but never escaping. Our heroes met and submitted 
 lo this terrible affair of death for us. They said: “It is neces¬ 
 sary for us to do our duty; it is not necessary that we should 
 live. v They not only met death for us; they not only endured 
 it camly, stoically, heroically; but they sought it, they courted 
 it, they caressed it, they toyed with it, they despised its pangs 
 and mocked its terrors. They did not ask its “tender mercies.” 
 They sought it in all its forms; withering, scorching, blighting 
 diseases; the horrible mangling of cannon balls, the excruciating 
 laceration of grape, the speedy death of the bullet, putrefaction 
 •of wounds, thirst on the battle field, starvation in prison, famine 
 and pestilence. This is for country. Men of former times have 
 •attained such heights of heroism. They could not have attained 
 higher. The Athenian patriot needed but to display his shat¬ 
 tered arm to electrify all Attica; the deeds of these men need 
 but to be mentioned to set the country in one conflagration of 
 patriotism. • 
 
 We might institute comparisons ; we might cite examples of 
 ancient heroes and patriots; we might draw parallels between 
 our heroes and those of former times. We could do nothing- 
 more. We could not show anything in excess, on the part of 
 former generations. If there be any difference it is in our favor. 
 
 The Dutch republicans, the English roundheads, the French 
 revolutionists, fought by the aid of a light that “shone through 
 a glass darkly.” The day of liberty was but dawning for them. 
 Light had not yet dispelled the dark clouds of fanaticism, big¬ 
 otry, hatred, and intolerance. They caught the gleams of reason 
 but occasionally, but fitfully. They fought in the dark. The 
 natural instinct for liberty implanted in the human soul was 
 their guide, their prompter. Our heroes fought in the light of 
 at full blaze of a meridian sun. Their patriotism was not 
 hatred, bigotry, fanaticism; it was reason, conscience. They 
 saw the end from the beginning; they had calculated the cost; 
 they admitted no doubtful issue. 
 
10 - 
 
 In the spring of 1863 there was a lull in the contest. The 
 champions of truth and error paused for breath. The army had 
 met the shock of the enemy, had received it, but had not re¬ 
 pelled it. They had not faltered or wavered; they had held 
 their ground. Some of the people of the North began to hesi¬ 
 tate, to doubt, to waver. The Medusa of disaffection reared her 
 horrid head, covered with snaky tresses; the timid began to be 
 petrified; it was an hour of despondency, of darkness and gloom. 
 
 Then Company D, Twenty-fourth Ohio, spake forth from the 
 gloom. It seemed the voice of men about to die. Their tones 
 partook of that fearful solemnity and terrible earnestness of 
 those who speak from the portals of the tomb. It was 
 
 “Resolved, That though we deeply regret the existence of the 
 stern necessity that called us from the fond pursuits and happy as¬ 
 sociations of civil life, we will not exchange the military for the 
 civil until we have conquered a peace, and the stars and stripes 
 are permitted to float from the dome of every capitol in the South.’* 
 
 This resolution was sublime. Every man of the company 
 subscribed it. It was one of many. The example will serve 
 for the whole army. Dryden, Ogle, Guthridge, Adamson’ 
 Tolle, Thompson, Thomas, Shultz, Crawford and Pointer died 
 that this resolution might be accomplished. This same spirit 
 animated these men when they enlisted; it sustained and sup¬ 
 ported them in the hour of battle; it was the terrible death 
 dealing energy of their powder; it was the force of their bullets, 
 the power of their bayonets; it made the death of those that 
 died glorious, the lives of those that lived sublime. 
 
 Adams county honors all her soldier sons. When they tri¬ 
 umphed she felt a thrill of joy; when they fell she experienced a 
 pang of grief. But she felt a peculiar interest in Company D, 
 They were her offering of first fruits, her earliest sacrifice for 
 country. The echoes of Sumter had not died aw ay till that com¬ 
 pany was in the field. They w r ere our first ebullition of patriotism. 
 Their dead were the first-born of liberty. They were the van- 
 gaurd of Adams county’s little army of heroes. Honor them! 
 Honor the whole army! Their laurels will never fade. They 
 
11 
 
 will ever remain perfect green, unfaded as if newly plucked, 
 fresh as if wet with the morning dew. Their deeds, acts of 
 immortality, can not die. The fields where they fought and 
 fell will be the theme of song and story. 
 
 If there be an elysium for heroes, McFerren is there! Ellis 
 is there! Summers, Clark, Dryuen, Thomas, Bailey, Potter, 
 Pttntenney, Parrish, Shultz, Crawford and their comrades in 
 arms are there! They wear crowns of victory. Arm-in-arm 
 they walk there in glory. When the spirits of these men went 
 up, the angels folded their wings and dropped their harps to 
 listen to their story. Farewell, shades of departed heroes! Rest 
 in the isles of the happy! Farewell, fallen brothers! When 
 “life’s fitful fever shall be o’er,” there, in that celestial country, 
 we shall meet you once more. 
 
 And the survivors? What of them? They have returned, 
 bronzed by the fierce heat and fire of many battles. They have 
 brought their honorable credentials—their scars—many of them 
 disabled for life. They constitute ihe glorious church of heroes. 
 They have received the baptism of blood on a score of battle 
 fields. They have returned to us from the jaws of destruction, 
 from the “mouth of hell.” They danced at the high carnival 
 of Death; they sat at his banquet; they drank his health and 
 dashed their goblets in his face. They have fought the demons 
 of darkness, and the deadly arrows have hurtled harmlessly 
 from their armor. They have entered the “valley of the shadow 
 of death,” plucked the “olive branch of peace,” and brought it 
 back to us. They have earned the gratitude of unborn millions; 
 they have crowned themselves with eternal honors. Since they 
 have passed through the ordeal of fire, and blood, and leaden 
 death, privation and pestilence, they seem to belong to a higher 
 ord *r of beings. Since their return from the Sinais of the Re¬ 
 public, where the Lord of hosts spake great truths amid the 
 thunders of battle, their faces seem to shine with a sacred light. 
 We would do well to heed their teachings. 
 
 There are some wearing the guise of men, who, throughout 
 
12 
 
 the course of the war, watched the bleeding agonies of their 
 country with indifference and contempt. Since the return of 
 the soldiers, the human jackals have attempted to defame and 
 villify their characters. We have not words of indignation 
 strong enough for such men. Paris Spinello. the great Tuscan 
 painter, once painted Lucifer in so hideous a manner that the 
 contemplation of the picture rendered him a maniac. If the 
 character of these harpies of mankind could be depicted in all 
 its revolting features, indignation and wrath would make us 
 insane. Such men would have plucked the spears from the 
 Roman soldiers that they might have pierced the body of our 
 crucified Lord. They would erase the epitaphs on the monu¬ 
 ments of our fallen heroes, and would write their own blas¬ 
 phemy thereon. They would unearth those sacred ashes and 
 scatter them to the four winds. They would dance in baccha¬ 
 nalian orgies on the grave of Liberty. They would shame the 
 prince of devils, usurp his throne, and drive him to hide his 
 blushes in the deepest and darkest hell in the universe. 
 
 Soldiers! Comrades in arms! Repose on your hard earned 
 laurels. Enjoy the peace you have won so nobly. Your friends 
 are legion. Time is a great arbiter. It will do you justice. 
 These calumnies will die. Another generation will not repeat 
 them. You will be loved and revered when these calumniators 
 shall have filled drunkards’ and felons’ graves. When you 
 shall have become grey haired and venerable fathers and shall 
 walk with tottering limbs on the brink of life, the children, 
 and young men and maidens will cluster around you to listen 
 to your wonderful story. All men will honor you. They will 
 rise up before you. As you pass along the street they will point 
 you out and say : “That man was at Stone river.” “This man 
 fought at Gettysburg ” “He was at Mission Ridge.” “lie was 
 with Sherman.” “He was a soldier for the Union.” And when 
 you shall have been gathered to your fathers in peace, full of 
 years and of honors, the sons of God shall unite with the sons of 
 men in singing your requium.