Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Story of the 116th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion: The Record of a Gallant Command
In every century, since the arts became a part of civilization, the sculptor and painter have plied the chisel and brush to perpetuate in marble and bronze, and depict on the less enduring canvas, the deeds of the heroes who, in the ?ame and tempest of battle, have stood, sword in hand, to defend the national honor or contend for a principle which they believed to be just.
The record of a warrior is too often but that of a fearless man or unscrupulous conqueror, and often, whilst we would fain admire the dauntless bravery that made the soldier distinguished among his fellows, we are forced to condemn the cause for which he fought. But in the case of the men who, during the War of the Rebellion, formed the grand army that fought for, and preserved us, a nation, we can both applaud the hero and endorse the motive. The soldiers who gathered around our ?ag in this great war were not only heroes but patriots and saints as well. Theirs was the holiest, noblest, purest and best cause that ever summoned men to arms. Moses and Joshua fought to destroy and annihilate, that theymight found a nation. Our army fought to preserve and secure - even to those whom they strived to conquer the rights and liberties that they themselves hoped to enjoy. Our soldiers fought to preserve that great legacy - more dear and valuable than all else gained by the sword on earth - the first real Republic that has ever existed; to demonstrate that human freedom was not a myth and a dream, but a splendid reality; to preserve intact, for all men who love liberty, that vast territory over which our ?ag ?oats, the glorious land that stretches from the storm-swept coasts of the Atlantic to the golden shores of the Pacific, that reaches from the frozen lands of Alaska to the orange groves of sunny Florida - the land that will, in the boundless future, shelter in its bosom so many happy homes and countless millions of freemen.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
