USA > Georgia > The army reunion : with reports of the meetings of the societies of the Army of the Cumberland; the Army of the Tennessee; the Army of the Ohio: and the Army of Georgia > Part 12
USA > Ohio > The army reunion : with reports of the meetings of the societies of the Army of the Cumberland; the Army of the Tennessee; the Army of the Ohio: and the Army of Georgia > Part 12
USA > Tennessee > The army reunion : with reports of the meetings of the societies of the Army of the Cumberland; the Army of the Tennessee; the Army of the Ohio: and the Army of Georgia > Part 12
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24
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Speech of Governor Oglesby.
will smile their pictures brave and bright. They made historic the hills, and prairies, and fords, where they met the enemy, at Cane Hill, Prairie Grove, Bentonville ; and in numberless engagements they bore the flag in triumph, kept over twenty- five thousand of the enemy constantly employed, and made continued marches, the rapidity and heroism of which were not exceeded in the war. The gallant little army went in its greatest proportions, like its distinguished leaders, Schofield, Herron, and Blunt, to win new glory on other fields, in other army organiza- tions, and to join the swelling tide that, under Providence, was directed by Grant and Sherman in the course that swept away the Confederacy.
SONG by the Glee Club ; - " America."
FOURTEENTHI TOAST ; - The Loyal Citizens who sustained us at Home while we fought the Enemy at the Front.
Speech of GOVERNOR OGLESBY :
SOLDIERS : "The loyal citizens who supported you at home while you fought the enemy at the front," are listening with silent but attentive ear to what shall be said here to-night. In the pres- ence of this august assemblage of our national patriotic brother- hood ; in the presence of the soldiers of the Republic, the loyal people have no report to make, except to say, God bless the noble soldiers who fought for and saved the nation. Outside of these walls, to-night, there is peace. A cautious, patriotic, and appreciative people know who to thank and to honor for this priceless boon. Quiet and dignified in the hour of victory, they calmly survey the field, and place the laurel where only it belongs, upon the brow of the brave. How proud the loyal citizens are of the good men assembled here-men who have
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Army Reunion.
offered their lives for their country. The tattered and battle- worn flags hanging about this hall to-night, shield and protect you now, and bear witness to your heroism and devotion in the days of the fearful strife of battle. In the name of the loyal people, who wish to be silent when the soldiers are about to speak, I will say that one and all of you, from the honored private to the commander-in-chief, are borne forever, and affec- tionately, in their hearts. Thus responding for the loyal masses ; thus speaking for every man, woman and child in the grand old Republic, I bid you welcome, and in their names, hail with delight your presence here to-night."
FIFTEENTH TOAST ; - The Loyal Women of the United States.
Speech of Colonel J. M. BROWN :
MR. CHAIRMAN, AND COMRADES OF THE GRAND ARMIES : The toast just proposed deserves an abler respondent than I can hope to be. It is our recognition of the heroism, the loyalty, and the self-sacrifice of the women of America, who gave to the country all that they hold dearest. If absolute loyalty is to be honored; if the love of country and abne- gation of self is to be approved and reverenced by us; if disinterested labor and sacrifice, that counted not the cost, is worthy the gratitude of truly grateful hearts, then are the women-the loyal mothers, wives and sisters of our common country - those whom we, the soldiers of the Republic, in our hour of reunion, should honor with the truest, the sin- cerest gratitude of soldiers' hearts.
What sacrifice on the country's altar was more dearly pur- chased than the life of the husband who left his widow desolate? What can comfort the heart of her, whose only boy
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Speech of Colonel Brown.
died that the nation might live? Who can count the tears of her whose hope in the coming years poured out his blood that the tree of our liberties might be watered therewith? If we who survive feel the moistening eye and the thickening throat as we recall the names and features of our comrades who have gone before, how ever present the sorrow of those whose staff and hope have departed, whose joys and whose loves lie buried in a bloody grave ! Sir, we made our sacrifices. We marched and bivouacked. We fought. We triumphed. For us there is the consolation of victory gloriously earned. We who survive find in these reunions, and in our country's approval, the reward of our trials, our dangers, and of our hardships. But the loyal women of the United States have no rewards that find their expression in occasions like this. Theirs was for each an indi- vidual devotion ; the sorrow of each is her own burden of grief. We who have fought this fight well know the power that woman's aid lent to the fallen Confederacy. We have seen too often how female resolution supported the failing spirit of the disheartened Confederates. We have seen how woman's power was potent against the right, and how inen, in a wrong cause, were nerved by it. But we have all of us seen, as well, the . power of the loyal woman's influence. All of us have felt the animating spirit of the wives, and mothers, and sisters, who gave their dear ones to the country, and whose zeal flagged not while the country was imperiled. Who is there here of all the great armies, who does not recall with tenderest niemories the blessing of her who sent him forth to do battle for the right? Have we not abundant cause to thank "the loyal women of the United States," that we entered the conflict strong in heart, and perse. vered to the glorious end? But the loyal woman's mission did not end with the gift of husband, or son, or brother, to the Republic. Her care and prayer were constant and efficacious. The whole world stood amazed at the prodigies of benevolence
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wrought, through woman's hands, by our unparalleled Sanitary Commission. The blessings distributed by that benign charity are only known to us, fellow-soldiers, who saw and shared, in the hospital, the bounties which our loyal women, with laboring hearts and open hands, so freely furnished. To the loyal women of our country, then, let us give the praise which every soldier's heart feels to be so justly their due. Their patriotism first sent husbands, sons and brothers to the national armies-their love and devotion followed us in our campaigns, and in battle ; their care was ever vigilant for us when sick and wounded; their prayers ever ascended to heaven for our safety and for the right.
Music by the Band ; - " Home, Sweet Home."
SIXTEENTH TOAST ; - The Armies of the Republic in War and in Peace ;- The Rebellion called them into existence-its overthrow converted their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. By quietly disbanding and returning to the avocations of peace, they have astonished the world no less than by their prowess in the field.
Speech of General M. F. FORCE :
COMRADES : "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than those of war." Those tattered colors thickly clustered around these walls speak to us with mute eloquence. They are whispering from every fold the story of our four years' toil. Our pulses beat fast as they recall these campaigns, battles, sieges. But the proudest achievement they call to mind, is the army's quiet muster out, and return to the pursuits of peace.
They who bore these colors were no army of mercenary troops, or of subjects fighting only for their monarch's glory, or their own. They were born a host of citizens, with homes to leave, and
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Speech of General Force.
homes to return to, taking up arms only from profoundest impulse of duty, and glad to lay them aside when the occasion was over. Those citizens, independent men who looked the world in the face, and acknowledged no man a superior, self- reliant men who pushed through the world with their own wits and their own strong arms, men accustomed to have a voice in the control of public affairs, seemed at first unruly material out of which to make an army. Yet, in a few months, swarms of such citizens were transformed into a vast, smoothly working machine ; or rather one great living being, with one central brain, and moving in every part responsive to the will of the commander as the very muscles of his body.
The very trait which makes the American an independent. citizen, made him an obedient soldier. He yields respect to law, not as a power which can enforce obedience, but as an authority to which reverence is due. So when he learned that military discipline is a part of the law, that military command is a function given by law, and military obedience is a duty prescribed by law, that moment he became a soldier, yielding implicit and prompt compliance to orders, not with the mechanical obedience of routine, but with an intelligent instinct which often anticipated. orders.
So citizens learned the arts of war without forgetting the ways of peace, and when the time for disbanding came, it was easy to lay aside the musket and return to the plow. When that time came, some even in the field doubted the results of sudden emancipation from discipline. Many at home who had only heard of the desolations of war, were apprehensive. When the fields of war disgorged a million men, and the roads leading north shook with the tread of discharged soldiers, some at home seemed to see a cloud sweeping up to scatter disorder through the land. The cloud came. It spread over the whole country, but only to dissolve into gentle rain, permeating, enriching
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the land. A million soldiers disappeared. In their' place appeared a milllion busy citizens, on every farm, in every work- shop, and office, as if they had never known war. These men, keeping the promise many made at the muster out, "we will now go home, and in our own lives give an example of that obedience to law which we have enforced in others," present a rarer spectacle than any shock of arms. Each one thus faith- fully doing the duty that he has before him, no matter how humble the sphere of his daily toil, no matter how secluded the hamlet in which he lives, is, in his own place, as truly noble as Wash- ington at Valley Forge, or Grant at Appomattox.
SEVENTEENTHI TOAST ; - The Loyal and Patriotic Press.
Speech of General CARL SCHIURZ :
SOLDIERS : I think I shall confer a favor upon this assem- bly if I refrain from making a long speech. I can not, like our Commander-in-Chief, the President elect, plead that I am entirely unaccustomed to public speaking, but I can hardly find fault with you if, on an occasion like this, you can not accustom yourselves, very easily, to quiet listening. The toast I have to respond to is: "The Loyal and Patriotic Press!" I think I can improve upon the sentiment : The union of the men of the pen and the men of the sword! The men of the sword have valiantly and gloriously carried out and enforced the ideas and principles for long years advocated by the loyal and patriotic men of the pen. That is their highest glory. The men of the pen will never become tired of sounding the praise of the patriotic men of the sword. And now they are battering, with the formidable artillery of printed letters, the citadels of ignorance, prejudice and disloyalty which the men of the sword have still left standing. The union, then,
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Speech of Governor Salomon.
of the men of the sword and the men of the pen; of the men of action and the men of thought, of intelligence and power. As long as that union lasts, the Republic of the United States will be safe.
EIGHTEENTH TOAST ;- Our Invited Guests.
Speech of Governor EDWARD SALOMON, of Wisconsin :
MR. PRESIDENT, AND GENTLEMEN OF THIS ARMY REUNION : With diffidence I rise before this assemblage of laurel-crowned soldiers. I see before me the great and world-renowned com- mander of those armies, whose brave and distinguished officers are united upon this festive occasion. Gracefully he wears upon his brows his high, well-earned honors. Here, too, is the old brave commander of the Army of the Cumberland, all covered with glory and renown, whose equestrian figure will grace the National Lincoln Monument at Washington, if the voice of his old command and that of the nation is heeded, but whose fame will outlive all monuments of stone or metal. Then I behold that distinguished and energetic commander of the Army of the Ohio, who now so ably wields the power of the War Office ; and hosts of others of great distinction, whose names are well known to fame, are here assembled. On all sides, indeed, I find myself, surrounded by men upon whose daring, valor and fortitude, a few short years ago, depended the fate of this great American Republic, and who, with their comrades in arms, on land and water, saved it from destruction. It is an impressive scene, and one which crowds the memories of our great national struggle so thick and fast upon me that language fails me aptly to express my feelings. And then, foremost among your invited guests (for such I take him to be, although most emphatically one of your number) there is that man who, above all others, is the idol
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of the American people; on whom rested the supreme command of all the Union armies during the last years of that fearful war, so happily brought to a successful close by liis indomitable energy and great generalship, and who, chosen soon to assume the highest position in the gift of this free people, stands before them as their second Washington. You have assembled here, Mr. President and gentlemen, to renew the memories of the past, the recollection of your deeds, and of the scenes through which you passed when battling for the preservation of the Union ; and we, your invited guests, have gladly come liere to enjoy with you the pleasures of this reunion, and to do honor and homage to you and to those bright deeds of valor indelibly written by you upon the pages of American history. In one sense, the guests which you have invited represent the people of this nation outside of your organization. With pride and interest that people look upon this reunion, and follow your proceedings here.
" Either with the shield or upon the shield return," was the last word of the Spartan mother to her son when he went forth to do battle for his country. You, gentlemen of the army, returned " with the shield;" returned victors, and your mother- country is proud of you, and glad to see you rejoice in your deeds ! In behalf of your invited guests, and of all the loyal people of this land; nay, in the name of all lovers of liberty every where, I would fain take each one of you by the hand, and in one warm. pressure renew what my tongue fails to express -- the gratitude of this free people for all you did and suffered for your country's cause. That integral and substantive part of the Union forces known as "Sherman's Army," has quite a history of its own, a glorious record of brave deeds and able generalship, which will be handed down from generation to generation. " Sherman's March to the Sea," will be a phrase whose signifi- cance will be known to every American school-boy, and at the Christmas table the very children will know what a splendid
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Speech of Governor Salomon.
Christmas gift was made by General Sherman to President Lincoln, in 1864. That march, and that Christmas gift, were " the beginning of the end " of the war! But, Mr. President, it is not for me, here, further to dilate upon the glories of Sherman's army. They are better known to you than me, and have been spoken of by eloquent lips. In the world's history there have been many wars, but none more sacred, none whose purpose was purer and holier than this great war for the preservation of the Union ; and well may you, gentlemen of the army, be proud of the memories of that war, and commemorate them on occasions like this. You have also assembled here, however, to renew the friendships formed in those trying struggles and scenes, when, side by side, you suffered, and fought, and bled to uphold our country's flag. Thomas Moore somewhere most truly says that
'The love born of sorrow, Like sorrow, is true."
So it is with your friendships of the war. They were born in the nation's greatest agony and trials, amid the carnage of battle and the sorrows and deprivations of the field, and they have been sealed by the death of three hundred thousand of our country's youth and manhood. Such friendships must live ; they can not die but with their possessors. Permit me, Mr. President, and gentlemen of the army, in conclusion of these few remarks, to express to you this sentiment :
" May friendship die, And hatred live, Never in your hearts.'
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Army Reunion.
NINETEENTH TOAST ; - The South - Let us have Peace.
Speech of General DURBIN WARD :
MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW-CITIZENS: We are here in peace, recalling to mind the friendships and the glories of an era of war. Around me are the heroes of a hundred fields. In the bivouac, the march, and the battle we lived, struggled and triumphed together. Many of our comrades in the long and weary "tramp, tramp, tramp," perished by the wayside ; many pined to death in the prison or the hospital, and many went down gloriously on the gory field, while the din of battle chanted their requiem in the "diapason of the cannonade ;" while we, some bullet-riddled, scarred and maimed, some developed and strengthened in every fibre of physical and moral manhood, have emerged from the deadly clouds of war into the glad sunshine of peace, and meet to-day as brothers to feed anew in the altars of our hearts the holy fires of an undying patriotism. And now, my comrades, when "grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front," and even the re-echoes of the conflict are fading from our ears, let us not forget the significance of the struggle, or the grandeur of the achievement. Remember not merely the feats of valor, or of military genius - these are in no danger of passing out of mind ; they are already blazoned forever upon the illumined page of history. But, grand as they were, the great cause for which we fought was grander still. The splendor of our victories are surpassed by nothing before in the history of the world; but their glory is enhanced by the nobleness of the cause in which they were gained. They fought for a nation's life ; they achieved a nation's peace and grandeur. It is this peace and grandeur-it is this peace and this glorious destiny which patriotism enjoins us to
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Speech of General Ward.
constantly remember, and transmit with grateful hearts to the keeping of our children.
It is a severe but just commentary on the dominion of passion and prejudice over reason, that great and revolutionary changes in political organizations are rarely made except through blood- shed. The internal convulsions of Rome, the overthrow of feudalism, and the consolidation of monarchy in Europe, the Reformation, the era of Cromwell, and the French Revolution are notable examples in other countries. Nor are we an excep- tion. Our national independence was baptized in blood, and our Federal Union consolidated in the fiery furnace of war. Political theorists had doubted or denied the perpetual obligation of our national compact, and asserted the freedom of the States to withdraw at pleasure; and, sad as was the ordeal, our institutions, like those of other nations, had to be tried by the dread arbitrament of force, and their perpetual covenant scaled in blood. The political growth of our nationality was stunted, and crippled by the heresy of secession, and our national escutcheon was stained by the sin of slavery; from the heresy and the stain alike the triumph of our arms has forever relieved our national future.
But these are not the only great achievements of the war. The political thinker and the humane enthusiast may have made one or the other of these the load-star of his action. But higher, and deeper, and holier than all else in the popular heart, was that mysterious, half-religious sentiment of patriotism, worth more to a nation than all the dogmatic catechisms of the politi- cians. Our country ! our flag ! fired the heart and nerved the arm of the American soldier, as his faith and its symbol, the cross, inspired the heroic crusader. The chief good of the war, then, was the lofty, the sublime patriotism it cultivated. The Constitution of the National Government, the rights of the states, and the balance of power between them, are the adaman-
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Army Reunion.
tine walls of our political structure. But the people make and unmake ; they are the Government itself, and on their wisdom and patriotism alone the whole superstructure finally rests. Should the mightiest nation on earth menace the rights, or seek to overthrow our Government, would not millions of soldiers equally from the North and the South rush eagerly to the front in the nation's defence? The South ! Let us be friends ! We have conquered the South, but we have not vanquished them to servitude. We have only redeemed them from secession and war to union and peace. Who that took part in the strife does not know that even in its darkest hours, a love for the old flag lingered in the breasts of the rebels themselves? When most defiant, did they not model their national and state governments mainly on ours? In their maddest moments they remembered with love the old forms of institution, and copied their very flag from our own. Like lovers parted by a sudden quarrel, the old affection between the sections was secretly cherished by each, and was stronger than either knew. In returning again to the open arms of the Union, the defeated South has nothing to conquer but its wounded pride, and our own magnanimity ought to make that no difficult task. We have gloriously proved we knew how . to make war; let us now magnanimously show we know how to make peace. The victory of arms is ours. All that stood in the way of peace and union is buried in the grave of the past. Let its only epitaph be, "To err is human ; 'tis Divine to forgive." The victors can afford to be generous, and the truly brave are always magnanimous to the disarmed. The merciful terms of Grant and Sherman to their conquered foes do them as much honor as their grandest victories. Nay, they are their grandest victories.
Fellow-soldiers, in the heat of conflict we may have felt the animosities of civil war, but we ever stanched the wounds of a foe, or cooled the dying lips of even an enemy. And now, in
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Speech of General Ward.
he hour of victory and peace, we are called on to bind up the wounds of a conquered section, and teach them to cultivate friendship by cultivating it ourselves, to reciprocate the esteem and confidence cherished by our common ancestors. As the ocean which has been tossed by the storms of a season, but then returns to its accustomed tides, so the passions of sectional strife do not at once subside with the storm, but will, ere long, be called to sleep in the quiet ocean of national peace, whose only sectional uses shall be the emulation of brothers in the service of a common country. Sprung from the same noble ancestry, nur- tured to love the same free institutions, speaking the same language, inspired by the same religious faith, and heirs to the same glorious national heritage, who can doubt that a few years will make us all, of every section, proud alike of our free institu- tions and national glory, and equally fired by the loftiest national patriotism? The impetuous Southerner, goaded by imaginary wrongs which a false theory had taught him were real ones, struck for what his mistaken zeal clothed with the dignity of " rights," and gallantly he fought for them while resistance was possible, and the same ardor will nerve his arm in the national service, now that the elements of national strife are buried forever in the grave of the " Lost Cause." Men of the South, if we are but true to ourselves, how gloriously looms up the national future ! The graves of your Revolutionary sires are sacred soil, no less in our affections than in yours. The services of your great men in,times past, in peace and in war, are as dearly cher- ished by us as by you. Your ancestors and ours went hand in hand to the council-boards, and stood shoulder to shoulder on the battle-fields of the Revolution. You and we were once friends in peace and war. Your valor and ours were the common price of our vast dominion and of our common glory. Once more "let us be friends." The great future is ours and yours, and with it the hopes and the destinies of a common country. If we
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would make that future peaceful and grand, let us, as soon as possible, bury the animosities of the late war, and vie with each other in developing to the utmost the spirit of brotherly love and national patriotism. We have the finest institutions, the richest sources of national wealth, of any people on earth, and we need but peace, fraternal confidence, and wise counsels to be the ruling power in the family of nations, and at the same time the home of the freest and happiest people the world ever saw. Counseled by the lessons of our Divine Master, let us bury the " dead past." Nerved to the arduous duties of the " living pres- ent," and inspired by the stirring hopes of a magnificent future, let us strike hands with all of every section who " keep step to the music of the Union," and, in the spirit of a catholic patriot- ism, send greeting to the whole country, universal amnesty and perpetual friendship.
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