The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Religion
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 71, September, 1863: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
slopes of Manassas or the bluffs of Edwards' Ferry. When the war is
ended, and the best guardian of our internal commerce is the loyalty of
the returning citizens to their old allegiance, we shall do wisely to
level the earthworks of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. In the city where
mob-violence is crushed under the force of armed law, no one cares to
keep for a day the crumbling walls and the shattered barricade, though
they may have witnessed heroism as splendid as Arcola or Wagram, for
they witness also to a wickedness and a terror which all would gladly
forget. The only memorial that a wise and high-souled nation _can_ erect
after this war will be the single monument which shall commemorate the
hour of peace restored.
But while we are debarred from thus recording upon tablets more lasting
than brass the story of our mournful triumphs over erring brethren, we
are doubly bound in gratitude to keep green the memory of the men who
have deserved well of their country in the hour of utmost need. We ought
to do this also in that temper which shall look most singly to the noble
end of forming heroic traditions for the youth of our future land. I
know no place where this can be more fitly carried out than in
New-England's foremost university. Coeval with the commonwealth itself,
the starry roll of its heroes links it with all the fortunes of our
history. Men who sat in the Long Parliament, and who may have seen the
Battles of Worcester and Dunbar, took their early degrees upon Harvard's
first Commencement-stage. Her sons fought against King Philip, were
colonels and captains in the "old French War," went forth in the days of
Wolfe and Amherst, and exchanged the lexicon for the musket in the eight
years' struggle which gave to the Thirteen Colonies their independence.
Alumni still survive who did military duty in the second war with
England. The men of Harvard were with Taylor at Buena Vista, and helped
Scott in his victorious march upon the Aztec capital. Of these the only
record is in the annual necrology and the quaint Latin of the
"Triennial."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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