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After 20 years -- April 21, 1881
On April 21, 1881 -- twenty years
after the Forty-eighth Regiment first took form in
the brain and heart of its organizers, -- a notable
meeting of its survivors was held at Brooklyn, N.
Y. The most historic of the flags which
the noble regiment had borne in many battles were on
that night presented to the Long Island Historical
Society of Brooklyn, and entrusted to their care for
permanent preservation. The
circumstances that convened the survivors of the
regiment on this memorable occasion were: After
the lamentable death of Colonel WIlliam B. Coan, at
Lawrence, Mass., Captain D. C. Knowles (then a pastor
in that city) received from Colonel Coan's sister,
Mrs. Simpson, a flag which was found among the
Colonel's effects, and he at once communicated with
Captain W. J. Carlton, at whose suggestion he had
recovered the flag, who called a meeting of a few of
the former members of the regiment, the result of
which was the determination to deposit the flag with
the Long Island Historical Society. Circulars
were sent out everywhere to all surviving members of
the regiment whose addresses could be obtained, and
ample arrangements made for a reunion on the
occasion. The veterans of twenty years before
gladly seized the opportunity to meet their old
comrades again, and they came together from all parts
of the country, 120 in number, and spent an evening
which will be long remembered in recounting the deeds
of the past. Many came from great distances,
notably Lieutenant-Colonel D. W. Strickland, from
Cincinnati, Ohio. An ample collation was
prepared, after which the comrades, arm in arm,
marched to the new and handsome hall of the Long
Island Historical Society, on Clinton and Pierrepont
streets, and occupied the front seats which had been
reserved for them. The remainder of the hall
was crowded with a brilliant audience, which included
many of the first citizens of Brooklyn. The
following gentlemen were seated on the
platform: The Rev. Richard S. Storrs, D. D.,
President of the Society; Major-General Quincy
A. Gillmore, formerly commander of the Tenth Corps
; the Rev. Daniel C. Knowles, formerly captain
of Company D ; the Rev. W. P. Strickland, D. D.,
formerly chaplain of the Forty-eighth New York ; the
Rev. A. J. Palmer, formerly private of Company D, and
orderly to the colonel ; the Rev. Frederick O.
Farley, D. D. : the Rev. A. P. Putnam, the Rev. J. O.
Peck, D. D. ; David M. Stone ; A. A. Low, City Works
Commissioner John French ; ex-Mayor Samuel Booth ;
ex-Judge J. Greenwood ; the Hon. S. P. Chittenden,
Alden J. Spooner, Henry E. Pierrepont, ex-Mayor
Hunter, and others. A fine portrait of
Colonel Perry was suspended from the wall at the back
of the platform. The hall was suitable
decorated, and the entrance of the survivors of the
famous regiment was greeted with prolonged cheers and
the greatest enthusiasm. The exercises were of
the most impressive character, and will never be
forgotten by those who were so fortunate as to be
present.
Salutation by Rev.
A. J. Palmer
Gentlemen of the Long Island
Historical Society ; My old comrades ; Ladies and
Gentlemen:
Twenty years ago this coming summer a thousand men
stood shoulder to shoulder yonder at Fort Hamilton,
and with uplifted hands and loyal hearts swore to
defend this Republic. They became known in the
war as the Forty-eighth Regiment, New York State
Volunteers. They were recruited and commanded
by an eminent minister of this city, the Rev. Dr.
James H. Perry (loud applause), at that time the
pastor of the Pacific Street Methodist Episcopal
Church in Brooklyn. Three or four of the
companies came from Brooklyn, two came from New
Jersey ; but individuals came from everywhere, drawn
hither, I suppose, largely by the desire to serve
their country under the leadership of that great and
blessed man of GOd who was our first commander, and
whose memory is precious to us this very hour.
It is, therefore, with conspicuous appropriateness
that at the first reunion of this regiment another
clergyman, still more eminent in this city of
Brooklyn should preside, and still another clergyman,
who was a captain in the regiment in those days,
should be the chief orator. I am sure, boys, we
ought to have been a deal better than we were --
there was always such an ecclesiastical air about
us. Of those thousand men it was my high honor
to have been one, and the least one, -- as the
youngest one, -- a little fellow away down at the end
of the company in the rear rank, out of sight, merely
a private soldier; and I remained a private
soldier for three years and more, and was never
promoted, because I presume I never deserved
it. (Laughter) We all got what we deserved in
those days, you know. Those of you who have
memories will recall that fact ,; and why I, who was
the last and least of those thousand men should have
been called upon to break this long silence of twenty
years and speak first here to-night, I do not
know, unless it be that the scripture may be
fulfilled which saith, " The last shall be
first." At any rate, here I am, with a
voice such as it is from the bottom of those thousand
men to salute you, my comrades ; and so I do,
heartily. In the old days the gladiators used
to enter the arena, and crossing to the seat of the
emperor, bow themselves and say, "O Caesar! we
who are about to die salute you -- morituri
salutamus." But I tonight reverse
their greeting, and say to these my comrades -- all
that can be gathered of the survivors of the thousand
men : "You who have lived these twenty years, I
salute you." And yet you will pardon me, I
know, and hear me out if I say to this audience we
are not the worthiest spirits of our noble
regiment. The worthiest were they who paid the
full price and died for their country. And
to-night, as we stand here and think of them, they
seem to throng about us. Memory grown vivid
quickens the imagination, and in our fancy, they are
all here to-night -- or, rather, we are there with
them again. Once more the ranks are full.
Once more we all answer to our names when the orderly
calls the roll. Once more dear Colonel Perry
calls, "Attention, battalion!" and we all
fall in line again, just as we used to do so long
ago. Again we sleep together in the same old
tents, take ship together, march shoulder to shoulder
as we did of yore ; deploy and wheel, and charge and
fire ; sit together around the campfires singing
songs and telling stories -- lips that have been
silent so long. Once more we dig entrenchments,
and carry logs for corduroy roads, and build
mud-forts on the Savannah, and garrison Pulaski, and
strut upon the stage of mimic theatres, and skirmish
at Port Royal Ferry and Bluffton and Coosawhatchie ;
and at last together, in column by company, at close
order on the double-quick, in the dark and the death,
we start on that fatal charge upon Fort Wagner.
Sheeted about with fire, shot through with canister
and grape and shrapnel, in the most desperate
struggle and on the deadliest spot of the war ;
with incapacity behind us, and death before us ; amid
all the dangers, but without dismay -- this brave
regiment of a thousand men, upon that spot, in that
single immortal hour, perished from off the earth and
left but a shadowy remnant behind it to remind the
world that it had ever been. (Applause) History
has declared that they were defeated, but History has
spoken falsely. They took the great bastion of
that fort and held it for four mortal hours ; and at
last, at midnight, -- a little group of them still
clinging to that bank, denied reinforcement and
forsaken, but holding tenaciously to what they had
won at such cost, without an officer to command them,
with a solid mass of their comrades, dead and dying,
heaped about them three and four feet deep, amid
their cries of pain and passion, without ammunition,
without orders, without hope, without everything but
courage -- at last at midnight they were surrounded
and overpowered, and the rebels had retaken their
fort. The next morning when they were marched
through Charleston, amid the jeers of the populace,
and counted in the prison, it was found that
twenty-eight of them belonged to the Forty-eighth
Regiment -- private soldiers to a man.
(Applause) Nine months later six of them
escaped from the prison; but twenty-two were
left behind, and they are here to-night! They
died of hunger and cold and privation on Belle Island
and at Andersonville. When the history of this
regiment is fully written, it will be unjust if it
only chronicles the deeds of colonels and captains
and men who held office by the accident of rank in
those days, and it gives no place to those nameless
private soldiers who held Fort Wagner for four hours,
after every officer was shot or disheartened, and who
died in foul prisons alone, without a word of pity or
a breath of prayer. Pardon me for thus
precipitately speaking of them, but I have thought
that I might be the only private soldier who should
have voice here to-night, or the only one who was
with the men in those fiery days ; and I have
been jealous lest they should be forgotten. The
FOrty-eighth Regiment won other honors at Olustee,
Drewry's Bluff, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and FOrt
Fisher, and in the final struggles of the war.
(Applause) I am not to give its history.
I am only to speak a salutation ; and so I do : from
the humblest place in the ranks of those thousand
men, I salute these my comrades who are here to-night
in mortal flesh. And -- will you pardon the
fancy? --- may I not salute those other and nobler of
my comrades who gave their lives for the Republic,
and who, I love to think, are here also to-night in
immortal spirit? For there have been dreamers
who have fancied that the veil which interposes
between this life and the other, and which is so
impenetrable and opaque from this side, may be
transparent from that ; and if that is true, may not
our old companions be crowding about us here
to-night, though "unperceived among the
throng"? If it is a fancy, will you not
pardon the fancy, and permit me to salute them as
they pass in the viewless air? For they pass by
us in our memory like a procession -0- empty sleeves
and vacant chairs, but robed in imperishable glory
and laurelled with the fadeless renown -- with
noiseless tread they pass. The cemeteries are
their camping ground, the white stones are their
tents. Their camp-fires that went out in ashes
are rekindled in the grateful hearts of their
countrymen, and the roll of their victories is writ
upon the skies. "On Fame's
eternal camping-ground
Their silent tents are spread;
And glory guards with solemn mound
The bivouac of the dead."
But to us to-night
they live. They are with us, and they throng
above us in the air. Brave old Colonel Perry,
about whose person we gathered twenty years ago, if
in immortal spirit you are here with us tonight, I,
the little boy that was your orderly, salute you in
the air. (Applause) Captain Lent, who
died, the first man, on Morris Island :
Lieutenant-Colonel Green, who died right at my very
side on that bank at Fort Wagner ; Swartwout, shot at
Petersburg : McDougall, Tantum, Richman, Duffle,
Depuy, Carman, Dandy, -- names heroic of
forms that were lost in the smoke of battle long ago
-- of men who loved not their own lives when the life
of their country was in peril, but who died
cheerfully, unhesitatingly, sublimely, to defend
those flags which are to be presented here tonight --
I salute you all, my old comrades, in the air.
For you know we have liberty as we have salvation --
only by the blood of saviors ; and those humble names
which I have spoken are the names of real redeemers,
by whose self-sacrifice this nation to-night is free.
(Applause) I wonder how many of you remember
John Wilgus? He was a private in Company
D. He was taken prisoner that night in the
rifle-pits before Fort Wagner, and was with us in the
prisons of Charleston, Columbia, in Libby, and Belle
Island ; and at last he came to die in the
prison hospital in Richmond, where I was
convalescing. I remember how, day after day, I
used to visit his bed, and he sank day by day --
starved, frozen, exhausted, trying hard to hold on to
life ; deprived of life's necessities, fire and fuel,
and food and clothing and shelter ; but at last, at
the end of a hard winter, died -- only one of
thousands, victims of cruelty unequaled in the
records of civilized warfare. Shot if in the
delirium of fever they passed an imaginary
line; pursued pitilessly and mercilessly by
hate and scorn, and dying at last of slow starvation
in the prisons -- Oh John Wilgus, and other of my old
companions that died there on Belle Island and at
Andersonville, if you are with us here to-night, I
salute you, also, in the air.
I belonged to
a company that had a strange nickname.
Everybody called us in those days the
"Die-no-mores." (Great applause) You
remember the "Die-no-mores." You will
pardon me for saying a word about them. You see
we had been, some of us, students in a seminary when
the war broke out, and we had enlisted under our
teacher (your orator here to-night) ; and as we were
the sons of Christian people we used to sing
Christian songs we had been taught at home, and one
of them had this refrain:
"We're going
home,
We're going home,
We're going home,
To die no more!"
And so in fun at our hymn-singing everybody called us
the "Die-no-mores." Sometimes a name
that has been given a man, or a group of men, or a
cause, in sport or in derision, has become immortal ;
and this name was one of them. For, that
night of greatest glory in the history of this
regiment, Captain Paxson of Company D (Applause) was
shot on that bank at Fort Wagner, and lay there
bleeding to death in that gorge of dead men that were
heaped about him four feet deep. Amid cries of
pain and hate, in that last frenzy of a desperate
hour, with the sound of musketry in the air and
cannon belching forth their fiery death from Fort
Sumpter above us and the casements about us, when the
living heard and the dying moaned, when some cursed
and some prayed, amid cries for help and cries for
pity, but not a cry for quarter -- there was one cry
that rang clear over all. It was the call of
Captain Paxson to his men ; and it grew fainter and
fainter as the moments passed, and he grew weak from
the loss of blood. It was in these very words :
"Die-no-mores, follow me! follow me,
Die-no-mores!" And they did follow him,
brave fellows, to where, if the noblest spirits are
immortal, they
"die-no-more." And to-night I
salute you, my brave old captain, my brave old
comrades, in the air. There is one other name
before the memory which I will bow, and then I will
take my seat. THere was one flag in our
regiment that is not here to-night. You
remember that. It was lost in battle. Do
you remember the man who bore it and was lost with
it? His name was William H. Porch. He was
the color-sergeant from Fort Wagner to Cold
Harbor. Now, do you recall that charge at Cold
Harbor? Everybody knew it was useless.
The great soldier who commanded it has since
acknowledged it was a mistake. But then and
there --
"Was
there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier
knew
Some one had
blundered.
Theirs not to make
reply,
Theirs not to reason
why,
Theirs but to do and
die."
And so they did. You remember
now how the flag was in advance that day, and how, as
that bank was reached, Tantum shouted to Porch to
"mount it" ; and Porch, white to his lips,
but faithful to the core of his heart -- Porch, who
bore the flag, without hesitancy and without a word,
leaped up to the bank alone, and was shot down by a
score of bullets, and throwing his arms around his
flag, fell with it among his foes. Seventeen
years have passed since then ; but standing here
to-night I seem to see him again, the first and last
and only man that dared to mount that bank, and the
free wind blows that free flag around him for a
shroud as they fall together onto the bayonets that
pierced them both, -- standard and standard-bearer,
Freedom's emblem and her hero, -- the starry flag and
Color-Sergeant "Billy" Porch.
(Applause) To-night, dear old fellow, I salute
you also in the air. (Applause) Now i will
venture to take my seat, having done, the best I
could, my part on this occasion. I have spoken
a few names, mostly private soldiers who were dear to
me, lest they from being so humble might be forgot.
I welcome you
all to this reunion, and I pray you make of it not
only a helper to memory, but also and
inspiration to patriotism ; for this Republic has
need of heroes in the future as she has had heroes in
the past, and I pray you to hold up your hands, my
comrades, in a new oath to be forever loyal to their
memory and forever faithful to their cause.
"To the clouds
and the mountains we breathe it,
To the freedom of planet and star;
Let the tempests of oceans unwreathe
it,
Let the winds of the night bear it far
--
Our oath, that, till manhood shall
perish,
And honor and virtue are sped,
We are true to the cause that they
cherish,
And eternally true to the dead !"
Comrades, good-night
! (Loud applause)
Captain Knowles' Presentation Address
( given at the reunion of
the Regiment in 1884 to receive it's captured battle
flag)
Dr Storrs, in the name of my comrades of the
Forty-eighth Regiment I come to present to the Long
Island Historical Society, through you, its honored
President, these sacred relics of our civil war.
If you have
never been a soldier, sir, and followed the fortunes
of your country's flag on the bloody field, it will
be difficult for you to understand the feelings that
rise in our hearts to-night as we look again on these
tattered banners. To us, who have seen them
them waving in line of battle, they have a value that
cannot be expressed in words.
It is not
difficult to ask for a man of trade to tell their
value in this world's currency. It is a simple
problem. So many square yards of silk, so much
skilled labor in embroidery, and the problem of
production is solved.
But, sir, we
ignore in our essential estimate all this elementary
calculation. We judge by other standards.
Our data for valuation come from the imperishable
sentiments of the heart. These old, faded flags
represent to us everything that is worth prizing in
this life. When face to face with the armies of
the rebellion, they proudly flung out their folds
over the heads as symbols of law, constitution,
order, equity, property, honor, civilization, even
life itself.
It is but an
impulse of worldly wisdom that leads all civilized
governments to seek every possible expedient to
attach its soldiers to their respective
standards. To this end army regulations require
that they be brought forth and with almost religious
ceremonies, and presented to the keeping of the
troops. At dress-parade an imposing escort
proceeds to the Colonel's tent, and with various
salutations receives the colors at his hands, and
then gayly marches away, with martial music, to
present them to the regiment, to be preserved at the
cost of life itself. Thus every sentiment of
pride and honor is appealed to by the imposing ritual
of parade to kindle in the soldier's breast respect
and love for these symbols of his country's
glory. And my comrades will attest to the truth
of this assertation, that a strange enthusiasm is
thus created in the midst of the varied duties of the
camp, that settles at last into permanent veneration
for the flags we carry - a veneration that lifts the
soul to the highest possibilities of self-sacrifice
for their preservation.
Sir, we have
felt all this - we feel it now. Those
sentiments of profound regard for these symbols of
the cause for which we fought are fresh and full in
our hearts to-night as when we stood marshalled for
the battle of constitutional liberty and unity under
their flaunting folds.
May I not be
indulged, sir, for a few moments in some some sacred
reminiscences? It was one of the darkest hours
of our country's history when these men who stand
around me for the first time at Camp Wyman, a few
miles away from this hall. Most of us were
strangers to each other, but we came together in the
friendly band of common cause.
You doubtless
remember, when the first call was made for
volunteers, how jubilantly our young soldiers started
for the field. It seemed to the North like a
vast military picnic at the Governor's expense.
Very few saw with prophetic eye the fierceness of the
storm that was gathering in the political
heavens. Even great statesmen told us it would
dissipate the rebellion if we sent a few thousands of
our soldiers South, and waved the stars and stripes
valiantly in the face of the foe. But, sir, you
remember also how delusive were such dreams.
Our panic-stricken army, broken and dispirited at
Bull Run, poured into Washington a disorganized mob,
dispelled those false theories of the war, and awoke
the nation to the real bitterness of the coming
contest. The North then began to measure the
magnitude of the task it had undertaken. For
the first time we perceived that nothing short of a
stern and stubborn war, bloody and terrible, could
save the Republic from dismemberment. The idle
dream of speedy peace gave way to deep dejection in
many, and a great gloom fell like midnight darkness
on the North. Enlistments were checked for a
time, and men held back shuddering at the fearful
sacrifices of blood and treasure that loomed up
before them as the price of unity.
In that hour,
sir, we volunteered : not through the impulse of
youthful excitement -- the times had disenchanted war
of its holiday attire; not for high bounties --
the days had not yet come when patriotism could only
be induced to volunteer for gold ; not for idle
love of adventure, or piratical hope of plunder --
but from an intelligent love of country, and a
settled purpose to lay life and all on its altar for
constitutional unity. We came when it looked
like a hopeless task, and freely gave ourselves to
all the bloody possibilities of war to secure for
ourselves and posterity the union of these
States. Was it a foolish venture, a price not
worth the sacrifices? No, never ; for we
saw just before us the terrible chasm of
disunion. We saw the disastrous consequences of
such a fate. We saw more clearly than the the
outlines of any fancy picture the pernicious
certainties of such a calamity. We saw rivers
that God made to run from our northern boundaries to
our southern gulf -- those natural highways of
commerce and brotherhood -- crossed by an imaginary
line, that must prove a barrier through all ages to
the free interchange of trade and travel, subjecting
the coming millions to the exactions of rival
governments, and the annoyance of passport and
servile espionage. We saw these great mountain
ranges, that bind the North and South together with
their cables of solid stone, cut in twain by that
same invisible boundary, and from every lofty
elevation frowning batteries facing each other with a
perpetual challenge to the fight ; we saw
paternal estates divided asunder by landmarks that
were only symbols of hate and strife, while from
Atlantic slope to Pacific shore we saw the bivouac
fires of armed hosts, casting their lurid colorings
on burnished bayonets that were every ready to be wet
in the blood of brothers. We saw all this, and
more too. For we saw, as the natural and
inevitable outcome of all this, posterity crushed
under the grinding budgets of taxation to keep those
standing armies in the field, and the laboring
classes of America rivalling in poverty and
degradation in the war-cursed peasantry of Europe
; and as a final consequence, the man on
horseback coming to rivet the chain of despotic rule
on the limbs of freemen, and the sunset hour of
constitutional liberty giving place once more to the
hopeless dark absolutism and dispair ; and all
this to gratify the insensate greed and godless
ambitions of a little combination of slave
drivers! We saw it all, sir, at a glance, as
clearly as the immortal Webster saw it when he drew
back from the visions of disunion, shuddering in
every fibre of his loyal heart.
It was to
shield our nation from this fate, sir, that we came
together n those gloomy hours, some twenty years
ago. Some of us came from the plough, some from
the counting-room, some from our schools of learning,
and others even from the sacred desk. We met
around one manly form, whose commanding presence
inspired respect and confidence, and whose imperial
figure on horseback was and inspiration then, as it
is a sacred memory to-night. No regiment could
boast a better leader than ours. Under his
earnest tuition we gained a drill and discipline that
served us well in the supreme hour of trial in the
field.
It would have
been a pleasure to us to have had here to-night all
our banners ; but events forbid.
One National flag is in
the keeping of the State at Albany, and one is
not. You have already had an allusion to its
history. It was the flag under whose starry
folds we marched southward. At Cold Harbor it
was lost to us forever -- not through cowardice, but
sheer bravery. Its color-bearer, who had drawn
patriotic inspirations from the phillipics of Cicero
under my personal tuition, and who was the
first man to enlist in my company, was shot dead with
the flag in his hand. Another seized the fallen
standard, and was shot down ; and another took
it up only to perish under its crimson stripes.
Then a fourth man lifted its proud challenge to the
foe, and planted it on the parapet in the very midst
of the rebel host, when he too died, pierced with
bullets, and flag and flagmen fell together into the
very arms of the enemy. It was never
recovered. But, sir, I am proud to say, on
account of the heroic efforts of the regiment that
day, a special order was passed immediately replacing
the lost banner. This flag, whose substance is
almost all gone, is the one presented to us by the
Hanson Place Church. Its appearance tells its
history better than any words of mine. You have
heard from our historian the heroism of its bearer on
that eventful night at Wagner, where so many of our
comrades fell.
Permit me to
speak now of this large banner. One day at
Hilton Head, while we were sturdily preparing for the
conflict, there was brought into our camp this
splendid flag. It was brilliant then in its new
rich blue and lustrous gold. We were drawn up
in a hollow square on beautiful Sabbath-day to
receive it. We were told it was a gift of our
Brooklyn friends. It was then thrown to the
breeze, and on its broad ground of silken blue we saw
the resplendent coat of arms of the Empire
State. Our Colonel called for "Home, Sweet
Home" from the band ; and with the
memories of our dear ones far away, and the unbidden
tears stealing to our eyes as we thought of our
northern homes, we lifted our swords, presented our
arms, and vowed that flag would never be dishonored.
We were young
and strong then. Our battle was warm with the
impulse of hopeful life. We are aware that time
has left its impress on us ; for, strange to
say, we find ourselves quietly taking on the colors
of our enemies ; we are beginning to wear the
gray. One and all of us are insensibly growing
white with the hoar-frosts of accumulating
years. But, sir, we stand here to-night and
salute this dear old flag with the same heroic ardor
we felt when for the first time we saw it given to
the winds. We salute it now, tattered and torn
with the storms of heaven, and rent and ragged with
the flying missiles of the fiercer storms of battle.
But, sir, I
am proud to say our early vows were never broken; it
has never been dishonored. In Georgia marshes,
in Florida's tangled jungles, on the blazing parapet
of Wagner, in the deadly charge of the enemy's lines
at Cold Harbor, in the trenches that compassed
Petersburg, in a score of bloody battles, it lifted
up its challenge to every foe to our nation's
unity. Inspired by its proud defiance in the
face of rebel hosts, many a wounded soldier has found
a solace for his sufferings, and under its witnessing
folds many a hero has laid down to die and many a
manly heart ceased to beat forever.
Passing over
its history during the active service of the
regiment, permit me briefly to state a few facts
concerning its recent discovery.
By some
strange freak of fortune, this flag was left, when
the regiment was disbanded in 1865, in the possession
of its commanding officer, Colonel Coan. It was
taken by him to Lawrence, Mass. Six years ago
he died.
In the order
of providence my ministry had fallen in that
city. A few months since I was requested by
Captain Carlton to make inquiries for the lost
banner.
In my search
for the relatives of Colonel Coan I was informed that
the mayor of the city was a brother-in-law, and
hastening to his residence I was told the old flag
had there been safely housed through all these
intervening years. The COlonel's sister led me
to the room where she h ad so sacredly preserved
it; and with hands trembling for very joy, I
took the standard up, unrolled the outer covering
that encased it, and flung out its faded fringes once
again, while the hot tears started in my eyes over
memories that came up as fresh as the events of
yesterday.
Sir, those
were not unmanly tears. Some of us have
suffered too much from half-healed wounds and
merciless diseases through these twenty years to
blush with shame at tears that start out of memory's
treasures at the sight of these dear old flags.
Why, sir,
these flags are proof of our loyalty. They are
the demonstrations of proud patriotism. Our
hearts cling to them as such. We are as loyal
to these symbols to-night as in '61. Do you
doubt it, sir? Would you put us to the proof?
We are here
to-night to tell you frankly, that after all we know
of war, its horrors and its loathsome beastliness,
after all the imperishable hatred we feel toward it,
the product of bitter personal experience, yet if a
rebel host should rise in the South and march on
Washington, we would rally once again around these
tattered banners and go to the front as we did twenty
years ago.
No, sir, I am
not ashamed to tell you that tears came as a tribute
to the symbol of law and liberty when I clasped this
banner in my arms and took it home.
There in my
hall it stood for weeks, while scores of our
patriotic citizens came in to look upon it and hear
me rehearse the story of those dreadful days.
Then I sent it to your city; and here it is
to-night, to be deposited with this other flag for
safe keeping with your society.
Sir, we all
belong to the color-guard to-night. We are but
a remnant of that long line that filed down by Fort
Hamilton that midnight hour twenty years ago to take
the steamer for the South and destiny. Many of
those noble hearts, sons of this great city, are
sleeping in southern graves.
Providence
has left us the sweet privilege of rallying once
again around these standards, to lay them away, we
trust, forever. I am deputed by my comrades to
say to your Society through you: Take these
sacred symbols of our loyalty : preserve them
carefully ; hang them where our children and
children's children to latest posterity may come and
look upon them, and drink in patriotic inspiration,
and sentiments of right and truth and unity, as
flowers drink in the dew.
And may God
grant that they may here learn to cherish the
institutions we have helped to save, and value those
principles of liberty, righteousness, and human
brotherhood -- principles born of the Gospel of the
Son of God -- which were rescued from impending peril
by the blood of the heroes who fell beneath their
folds, and who now lie sleeping in honored sepulchers
! (Loud and prolonged applause)
A note to the descendants:
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