Today in 2004 we are again reminded that, freedom has never been free,

September 07, 2004 | Ursus arctos horribilis

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Letter to the editor:

The loss of American lives in Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terror is a grim reminder of the cost for freedom. America's military members are once again fighting and dying, even one death is a tragedy, the loss of over one thousand is ever so harder to bear. Their deaths strike at the hearts of all loved ones, family members, friends, and to the very soul of America. It has always been so in the fight to protect not only our nation's freedoms, but the protection of freedoms for nations of strangers and different cultures.

Today at 9:46 A.M. EST, September 08, 2004 the US population is "two hundred ninety four million, two hundred seventeen thousand, three hundred ninety three." When the American civil war began, the population of both North and South was just over thirty four million, and the death causalities for both were horrendous. In forty eight months for the North, 3,868,000 enrolled, 360,222 deaths, 412,175 wounded. In the South records are not as complete, but in the same forty eight months, 750,000-1,250,000 enrolled, 258,000 deaths, wounded unknown. North and South deaths in 48 months of conflict were, 618,222, or 12,880 a month, or 423 a day. Today we are a united and free America, but as shown, it is not so without a very high cost.

We all know from our history the horrors of, Shiloh, Cold Harbor, Fredericksburg, the two Wilderness battles, and Gettysburg.

But the other day I was reading The National Historical Society published 1897 compilation of monthly issues from the "Confederate Veteran" magazine. On page 459 I was struck by the September, 1897 issue. There was an article written by "B.L. Ridley" of Murfreesboro, Tenn. concerning "The Battle Of New Hope Church" during the Dalton-Atlanta, Georgia campaign. It was fought thru May 25th - 27th, 1864. The battle of New Hope Church was just another bloody chapter in a long line of similar desperate battles fought in that conflict. I will give a couple of excerpts from the narrative.

Snip:.."Gen. Stewart's division never gave an inch, but stood there from 5 P.M. for three hours, and fought Hooker's entire corps three lines deep." Snip:.."Soon Gen. Hooker rushed upon us. He must have lost heavily, for the mortality from our point of view was frightful. He reported his loss that evening (Sept. 25th) of killed and wounded at sixteen hundred and sixty five, and that he had not been able to recover the dead between the lines."

Snip:.."On Friday evening, the 27th, at New Hope, after our fight of the 25th, when the enemy tried to flank us on the right, another heartrending scene of death and destruction took place. Granbery and Lowry of Cleburne's division, met the flanking movement, and in one volley, left seven hundred and seventy Yankees to be buried in one pit. Had a Tamerlane been there a pyramid of human skulls could have been erected at New Hope. Lieut. R.C. Stewart and I went the next evening to see the dead in front of Granbery and Lowry's line. Had Ahmed, the Turkish butcher, seen it, he would have been appalled at the sacrifice. Sherman himself winched when he said it was "all a failure," while the name of Joe Johnston still loomed up a tower of strength to his army. This was part of the fourteen hundred that Gen. O.O. Howard says Wood's division alone lost.

I have often thought of two little boys that we saw among the dead Federals. They appeared to be about fourteen years old, and were exactly alike. Their hands were clasped in death, with "feet to the guns and face to the sky." Although they were enemies, my heart melted at the idea that the little boys must have been twin brothers, and in death's embrace their spirits had taken flight away from mother and home in the forefront of battle."...Snip

Today in 2004 we are again reminded that, freedom has never been free, but is paid for with a terrible price by our military of, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters.

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Thank you moderator for correcting my goof up.