A Life, Character, and Public Services of General George B. McClellan; An Address Delivered December 4, 1886, at the Academy of Music in Philadelphi - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887. Excerpt: ... ADDRESS. Monumental commemoration of the distinguished dead has been in all the ages of civilization the durable sign by which a contemporary generation has sought to transmit its estimate of high character to the recognition of posterity. The marble and the bronze, whether shaft or statue, tablet or inscription, preceded printed records of noble lives; and even now they answer a purpose which biographies or histories cannot answer. They speak as books cannot speak, for they speak to multitudes whom books do not reach, even in an age of reading and among a nation of readers. There have been three epochs in this our America, when there have arisen many eminent men whose memories we have perpetuated by structures designed to stand as lasting visible tokens of our admiration and of our gratitude for lives of transcendent importance. One of these epochs was that of our Revolution, which produced more illustrious statesmen than great soldiers.-The next age was marked by few extraordinary achievements in war, 5 but it brought forth statesmen of unimperishable renown, jurists of the highest rank, and inventors whose productions have carried forward the material condition of the world by enormous strides. The third period is that of our civil war, which developed few very eminent statesmen, but it gave rise to a larger number of great soldiers than any other period in modern times, save that which comprehended the European wars that followed and were caused by the French Revolution. Perhaps the reason, or one reason, why our civil war was more prolific in the highest form of the military than the civil character, was because, from the long pending discussion of the public question that was finally put to the arbitrament of arms, there was but little to be discove...