The past is a bucket of ashes - Carl Sandburg

I never made a mistake in grammar but one in my life and as soon as I done it I seen it.

"One of the great Confederate combat leaders, General John B. Gordon, had sat at his horse and spoken farewell to his men. Some he had seen weeping as they folded burnt and shot-pierced battle flags and laid them on the stacked arms of surrender. As he told his troops his own grief he tried to give them hope to rebuild out of the poverty and ashes to which many would return. Gordon would never forget a Kentucky father who lost two sons, one dying for the North, the other for the South. Over the two graves of his soldier boys the father set up a joint monument inscribed "God knows which was right.

The single clenched fist lifted and ready,
Or the open asking hand held out and waiting.
Choose:
For we meet by one or the other.