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 8
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 8
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 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
99
Oration of General Cogswell.
of duty, wherever put; if, at Averasboro or Bentonville, they performed their part with gallantry and satisfaction ; or did any thing worthy of brave soldiers, and true American soldiers, it was because they were united in purpose, sympathy, and respect, under a well chosen leader, brave and cool, faithful and impartial, Henry W. Slocum, and because they felt that they would be bravely supported on every hand by their associates and comrades of the armies of the Cumberland, the Ohio, and the Tennessee ; conscious that each of these armies would perform its full share, and more ; and because they felt and knew that they were a part of a well-regulated and "one stupendous whole," and that " whole " under the commanding eye of that great military genius of his day and generation, William Tecumseh Sherman.
When I call to mind the Georgia and Carolina marches, starting out that bright November morning, Atlanta in black ruins behind us, with its "pillar of cloud by day," and "its pillar of fire by night ;" when I remember the foragers, with their useful, if not ornamental, teams and accompaniments ; the pioneers, building the bridges and corduroying the roads almost as fast as we could march; the terrified gaze of the "chivalry" along our line of march; the friendly negro ; the sweet potatoes, and corn, and sorghum, and chickens ; the deep swamps; the occasional news and gossip from some neighboring column ; the well-timed concentration of the columns ; the different opinions we used to have as to our final destination, all of them doubtful enough to make us anxious to learn all we could, to study well the maps, and keep on guessing, and just about certain enough to make us feel every night that, at least, we were one day nearer our journey's end - a day's march just sufficing for a day's subsistence-the bummers always hungry, and, therefore, always efficient ; how, if one mule gave out, we were sure to find two to take his
100
Army Reunion.
place before the day was over; the strange and ludicrous contrabands, tumbling into our line of march, just in time to keep a joke or a laugh always passing down the line; the regular reveille an hour before morn, the low lands and causeways at the approaches of Savannah ; not forgetting those railroads, nor the cotton destroyed, nor the houses vacated by their occupants, and how, after that, sometimes, the ground would seem to be vacated by the houses themselves; nor the stores buried in the earth, and unearthed by the foragers ; when · I remember all these, and the many, many other incidents of those two marches, grand and ludicrous, grave and gay, sad and joyous, the bitter and the sweet, the sunshine and the rain, the labor and the pleasure, the novelty and the complete success, and the great place in history which these two campaigns already take as wonderful and useful military achievements, and they all pass in review before my mind, as they do to-night, I stand in wondering admiration at the view, and, for one, I thank God that I was permitted to take a part in such great events.
But I look back to the waste and destruction which inevitably followed the track of our armies, and to the desolation which we caused with no feelings of exultation or boasting. Look at it as we will, it is no pleasant thing to see a people and a fair country visited with such heavy and severe punishments ; to see a people, old and young, driven from their homes, as at Atlanta ; burned from their shelter, but not by us, as at Columbia ; stripped of their stores, their implements of husbandry and all their means of support; it was a sad sight to behold ; it is a sad thought to dwell upon; but I solemnly believe that all the'acts done by orders on those two marches were just and necessary, and that by reason of them, full as much as by any thing else, the war was ended, the shedding of fraternal blood was stopped, and the deluded people of the South made readier to accept the issue of the contest. And I venture to say that,
IOI
Oration of General Cogswell.
when peace came, it was no where welcomed more gladly, or earnestly, or sincerely, than by the people whose lot it was to fall in the track of Sherman's army, in its march from the' mountains to the sea, and through the Carolinas. So, too, is sad the recollection of prison pens, and their starving victims-starved, too, in the heart of a country in which we found the richest supplies. So, too, is sad the sight of Union graves all over the land, of youth no generation could afford to lose, fallen in defence of their Government and their flag, which the bad passions of bad men had determined should be overthrown by a civil war, as unjustifiable and without cause as it was cruel, bloody, and unholy.
And here, my friends and comrades, I bring to a close my assigned part of this evening's entertainment-it is for the historian, in after years, to give our armies their just places in history. It was not expected of me that I should more than glance here and there, within the brief limit of my time, and I have but referred hastily and most generally to that army which was, for a time, the left wing of that command which, under Sherman, commencing at Chattanooga, marched over one thousand miles, fought over fifteen battles, besieged . and captured two great cities from the enemy, took three State capitals, forced the evacuation of Charleston, destroyed more than two hundred miles of the enemy's railroads, over- coming large mountains and difficult rivers almost without number, smashing the shell of the Rebellion, and compelling the surrender of its old and hard-fought enemy-Johnston's army-and thus closing the last campaign of our great civil war; a war which called forth resources unknown to our- selves and surprising to the world. It came upon us when our Government was unfamiliar with large armies, and was not realizing the necessities of the hour; when our people were ignorant of arms and warlike ways; but a Government
IO2
Army Reunion.
8
honest and loyal, and a people brave and patriotic, soon made themselves equal to the occasion, and before the war was over, we saw a million and a half of men, armed and in the field, fighting for the country they loved, and defending the flag which they adored ; with supplies in quantity and quality unequaled by any government, or in any war; while the noble women of the land, to every sick and wounded soldier, provided the sweet comforts of kind nursing, together with the choicest delicacies, in abundance, their hands could make. No defeats dampening the ardor of the people; no disasters weakening their faith ; bearing the losses of their sons without a murmur and without a waver in their purpose; each new sacrifice but adding new zeal and vigor to their determina- tion ; suffering the blunders of their Government, and the incompetency and inexperience of their officers without dis- couragement, ever and always strong and inflexible in their determination that their Government should live-" a Gov- ernment of the people, by the people, and for the people." And when the contest was over, we beheld the nation com- ing out of the civil war, unimpaired, and in all its former majesty and beauty, "with not a star erased," and bearing in its arms the lives and freedom of four millions of a new-born people. Its sacrifices had been great, but its credit had been strengthened, while the results of the war had proved that a republican form of government could outlive the greatest peril ; commanding the respect of all the nations of the earth, and proving, at last, that America was in fact, as well as in song, " the land of the free, and the home of the brave "-with its large armies disbanding, and pursuing the avocations of indus- try and peace at their homes ; loving peace better than war, and only loving war as a means of peace. Who can look for a moment upon the teachings of that war without having his faith strengthened, and his hopes brightened in the future
103
Oration of General Cogswell.
of our country? The nation is strong enough to be mag- nanimous to its conquered foe, while our people are earnest and sincere enough, as they have so recently shown, to be just to the demands of the future, and true to the lessons of the past. And let us hope that by the experience of war we have all learned to value the great blessings of peace. Though the lesson has been stern, yet it has taught us to be pure and high-minded as a nation, honorable and chaste as citizens.
Let us never forget those who fell fighting bravely at our sides, nor those they left to mourn and feel their loss. And let us all, "with malice towards none, with charity for all (but), with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right," so act in the present, and teach our children to act in the future, that never again shall a free and enlightened American people be found divided against itself.
.
1
THE BANQUET.
IN preparing for the grand reunion banquet of the evening of December 16th, it was inevitable that the soldiers of the Reunion Executive Committee should remember what the scenes of soldier communion had been during the long service of the Western armies in the field. How many times had the hard crust been broken, the insufficient and unpalatable meal been partaken, and wasted strength been but poorly replenished, because of the stern necessities, the cruel cost of martial duty ! Of the two thousand men who might gather for festive commemoration in the reunion banqueting hall, how large a proportion had known the closest communion with hunger, disease, destruction, and death ! Almost daily incidents of army life, had been the depressing burial dirge, the harrowing . spectacle of mangled corses, or of comrades emaciated under burdens greater than flesh could bear, and the incessant recur- rence of privations and hardships incident to all loss of the precious comforts, and sacred consolations of home. Not that there had been no cheer, and no festival in the camp, or on the march, or under the heavy shadows of dreadful battle. These men had kept the camp cheerful with an ingenious and persistent fortitude unknown before in the annals of military service. They had made every weary march with hopeful patience, from victory to reverse, as well as from reverse to victory, always seeing before the advancing and behind the retreating host the bright presence of justice, and with grand
106
Army Reunion.
gayety almost of faith trusting that Divinity to shape the issues of conflict, while they rough-hewed them as they could. And even in the hours of great darkness, when the fiery lines of doubtful battle were joined, and the soldier only knew to do his duty, if possibly the wide and varied struggle might conclude in victory, there had been no lack of readiness to "put a cheerful courage on." The banquets of the camp, of the dusty or the muddy highway, and of fields that ran with blood, when constant courage had to make the best of war rations, and a brave spirit found high festival in what was really lean distress, could not but be brought vividly to mind when the reunion table was to be spread. It should be set, therefore, generously, in token of a long sacrifice ended, and it should be expected that the company to be gathered would be swayed by the old feelings with which, as soldiers, they had snatched hilarity on the hurried and toilsome march, and, for great courage's sake, had made jovial the frequent bivouac with death.
The large hall in which the reunion banquet was held was, in one or two respects, deficient in the requirements of the occasion,-the speeches could not be heard, and, at the supper, the available doors were found wholly insufficient for the ingress and egress of the waiters, -but its wide room, decorated as it was with familiar and famous battle-flags, admirably furnished what was most required-the space and scenery of a festive camp. Though the large company could not be served according to expectation, either with the rich viands of the ample feast, or with the after feast of reason and flow of soul, yet here were the associations of the never-to- be-forgotten war days, memories of the march, the camp and the battle wherever the eye turned, and these were men who had long known how to turn every occasion into good cheer, and to stir among themselves an enthusiasm of good fellow- ship. It was from these circumstances that the banquet was
-
.
The Banquet. 107
more successful as a grand good time, such as the actual camps had witnessed often, and the old, sacred banners had before looked down upon, than as an occasion of speech- making. Cut off, unavoidably, from hearing the responses to the toasts of the evening, and thrown, to some extent, upon their own resources, the great body of these men of our West- ern Armies made such high festival as they could, in the fashion, somewhat, of the real days of the war. In other cir- cumstances it might have been otherwise, and some harsh, and mainly unjust reflections upon the occasion might have been saved. But no one who rightly considers this scene, and how these men had so many times made merry amid the des- perate circumstances of war, compelling jollity to do service with courage, will have any other reflection than that these were our soldiers, over whom all the storms of the war had swept, and in whose breasts had burned all the great passions of the struggle against rebellion. Under such banners and battle-flags as they had followed through the long course of the war, hung now around these spacious walls, and amid the thick-clustering memories of all the old days of heroism, let the soldier have his brief hour of reunion enthusiasm. Elo- . quent speeches will survive the hour, and none will turn to them with more interest than those who failed to hear them when delivered. The occasion was worthy of eloquence, and the responses made to the sentiments of the evening, will be preserved by the soldiers of the Army Societies gathered at the Banquet as an invaluable memorial.
108
Army Reunion.
Lieutenant-General WILLIAM T. SHERMAN presiding, the Banquet programme, after the feast, was as follows:
POEM: BY COLONEL GILBERT N. PIERCE.
I.
Halt the column, rest a moment, Stack the guns, the fires light, Here is foraging in plenty, Let us bivouac here to-night.
II.
We have marched in separate columns, But have striven nerve and joint That we all might meet together At this grand objective point.
III.
And we're truly grateful, thankful, That detachments all appear Anxious for the work before them, Ready for the service here.
IV.
Georgia, Cumberland, Ohio, And the grim old Tennessee, Answer to the call of Sherman, Father of the Family.
109
Poem.
v.
So you keep your reputation, First in love, at feast or fray, Siege of hearts or siege of fortress, Both were carried gallantly.
VI.
So said they, when at his bidding, Through the South the army went, Sweeping like a whirlwind onward, Marching through the continent.
VII.
Oh ! 'twas giorious, grand, heroic ! Rushing over hill and plain ; With its mighty recollections, How the heart leaps up again,
VIII.
How they checred, and how they rallied, How they charged 'mid shot and shell, How they bore aloft the banner, How they conquered ! how they fell !
IX.
Fell ! Ah, who shall tell their story, Those among the brave and best, Who went down amidst the battle, Lyon, Ransom, and the rest.
x.
This the grateful pen hath written : Nations in their homage bow,
IIO
Army Reunion.
Myrtle weeps the fallen heroes, Laurel crowns the living brow.
XI.
Wreathed with immortelles forever, Men shall in the future tell, Standing where he nobly perished, How the brave McPherson fell.
XII.
Fell, amid the storm of battle ; Fell, while millions mourned his name ; Writing on a field historic Epitaph of endless fame.
XIII.
Fell, ah soldier and civilian. All of us fell down that day, Weeping prostrate round the coffin, Where the martial figure lay.
.
XIV.
This the cost of human freedom, Weary hearts that long and wait, Shadows, on a thousand households, Sanctified, but desolate.
xv.
Ah! sometimes the friends who've left us, Joined the army gone before ; Almost seem to bridge the river 'Twixt the near and further shore.
III
Poem.
XVI.
But there came an end of fighting, Then was your employment done ; What became of those battalions When the victory was won?
XVII
Let me point you to a picture - See a million soldiers there, Flushed with triumph, and with weapons Flashing keen, and bright, and bare.
XVIII.
Vanished ! Wondrous transformation ! Where is now that mighty band ? Do they roam a vast banditti, Pillaging their native land?
XIX.
Ah! we point to field and workshop ; Let the world the moral see ; There, beneath the dust of labor, Toil our veteran soldiery.
XX.
Ye were mighty in the battle, On the mountain and the plain ; But you wrought your greatest triumph When you sought your homes again.
XXI.
Sought your homes in peace and quiet, Grasping with your strong right hand
II2
Army Reunion.
Implements of honest labor, Toiling to upbuild the land.
XXII.
He the noblest, truest soldier, Who, when sounds of battle cease, Mounts from war's uncultured desert Upward to the plains of peace.
XXIII.
Chieftains who have saved a nation Gain the gratitude of men, But the mightiest of warriors Smiled in Peace at Bethlehem.
XXIV.
Peace, you see, hath then her triumphs, And, I hold, that we may reap From the seed that we have scattered, Thistles, tares, or golden wheat.
XXV.
We have still a work before us ; Let cach one his portion take ; We must serve a while as sailors, Standing on the Ship of State.
XXVI.
Not to fight, but more to brighten, Polish smooth the good ship o'er, Keeping taut and trim the rigging Of our grand old seventy-four.
113
Poem.
XXVII.
Veterans of a hundred battles Clothed with honors, decked with scars, Step aboard the good old vessel, Spread the canvas, man the spars.
XXVIII. ,
You have kept the ship from sinking, Carried her past thundering fort ; Take the helm, until you guide her Surely, safely into port.
XXIX.
When our old commanders lead us Who was there to say "I can't?" That expression left the service- Mustered out, discharged by Grant
XXX
Let the silent man of Shiloh Still the factions angry roar, Till the mighty wave of Freedom Rolls unvexed from shore to shore.
XXXI.
Till our brothers, though they wander North or South, can safely stand, Writing, speaking, preaching, praying, What they will throughout the land.
XXXII.
"Long live Liberty and Justice," Crush the fetters, break the chain ! 8
II4
Army Reunion.
Let this watchword, if it need be, Echo through the land again.
XXXIII.
Not in malice, but in mercy, Not in anger, but in love, Asking what we grant, and only Granting what our hearts approve.
XXXIV.
Then the North and South, united With the East and West, shall be Friends, in peace or war together, Children of one family.
XXXV
Then "our country," God preserve it! With its beauteous flag unfurled,
Reaching out, shall raise the helpless- Be the Mecca of the world.
XXXVI.
Comrades ! Ye who in the battle Stood together, firm and true, At the shrine of this Reunion Dedicate your loves anew.
XXXVII.
Ye are like the trees left standing When the fierce tornado's past ; Let the boughs of those remaining Twine together firm and fast.
1
E
115
.
Poem.
XXXVIII.
Thus combined 'gainst wind and weather, Ye will have the strength of all, And united brave the tempest, Or together nobly fall.
XXXIX.
Grand old army ! Brave commanders ! Grim survivors of the fight, Warm your hearts at memory's altar, Press each other's hands to-night.
XL.
And when sounds the last assembly, When the guard has gone his round, May you pitch your tents together, On some happier camping ground.
116
Army Reunion.
SONG by the Glee Club ; - " The Star Spangled Banner."
FIRST TOAST ; - Our Country.
Speech of GENERAL A. H. TERRY :
COMRADES : To speak fitly on the theme of our country's greatness would require the gift of tongues. Were the great story of her progress fitly told, assembled nations should be the audience, and Time himself should stay his course to listen to the tale.
That in the lapse of but two and a half centuries, a few feeble colonies, planted on the very verge of the continent, struggling against privation and famine, and scarcely able to maintain themselves against the attacks of hostile savages, should have expanded into a nation of forty millions of people ; that the vast wilderness should have been subdued, and in its midst stately cities, the home of commerce and the arts, should have arisen ; that the untrodden primeval forest should have yielded to fields white with harvests which feed the hungry millions of the lands from which our forefathers came ; that great highways, unparalleled in extent and in number, linking together even the two oceans, should have been con- structed ; that broad rivers, thousands of miles from the sea, then nameless and unbroken save by the solitary canoe of the red man, should bear upon their bosoms countless fleets; that the great deep itself should have become white with sails bringing to our ports the productions of every clime ; that the whole land should have become dotted with institutions of charity and learning, and with the temples of religion ; that here should have been founded the first great empire, based on the acknowledgment of man's equality with man, seems
II7
Speech of General Terry.
more like the fabled work of the slaves of the lamp in the Arabian tale, than a sober chapter in the history of mankind.
·
Well may the Old World, cramped and fettered by the tra- ditions and institutions of the past, stand amazed at the gigantic progress of the New. No where is this stupendous progress more plainly visible than in the region in which we are met together-the illimitable West, a land of majestic streams, of boundless prairies, bordering on vast inland seas, blessed with a kindly climate and unsurpassed fertility of soil. Ifere the energy of our people has produced its most aston- ishing results. Less than half a century ago, where now stands this imperial city, stood a lonely frontier post, beyond the outermost verge of civilization. Now look around- churches, schools, costly mansions, huge warehouses and busy factories arise on every hand. An hundred avenues of com- merce, stretching out on every side, bring us the harvests of ten thousand fields to be exchanged for the products of Europe, water-borne to this great mart. Soon the great national high- way, overleaping alike the desert and the mountain range, promises to bring the riches of the oldest of the continents a tribute to the feet of this young giant of the West. And yet . this city is but the type and the embodiment of the spirit of that vast region of which it is the centre and the beating heart.
How shall I fitly characterize the people of the West, their frankness, their generosity, their hospitality, and their kindly warmth, -how describe their devotion to their duty and to their country ! Let the thousands of nameless graves which lie scattered from the Ohio to the Gulf, and from the Arkan- sas to the Potomac, answer the latter question. Do not think that I intend to do injustice to other portions of our country: or that I seek to exalt one section at the expense of others, for I know full well that in all this unparalleled achievement
I18
Army Reunion.
those others have borne their part. They have sent forth their best, their bravest, and their strongest, to these Western plains, and it is they and their children who have done this work. It is the blood of the East that courses through West- ern veins, and here, in the two greatest and best who sit among us, are the living proofs of what that blood, under genial Western influences, can produce.
There is, alas! one stain in the fair picture of our coun- try's prosperity and happiness. The South sits in sackcloth, mourning and refusing to be comforted ; but, purified by her suffering, and regenerated through sorrow, she will yet arise, and, hand in hand with those whom she has deemed her enemies, she will press forward with no unequal steps in the great march of civilization.
But why should we speak of sections or of parts? Hence- forward there shall be no sections and no parts, but, bound together by ties which shall never be sundered, welded together by the fierce heat of war's dreadful furnace, the nation starts forward with renewed strength in her majestic course-one homogeneous whole. Hereafter no man will say, I am of the West, or of the East, of the South, or of the North -all such distinctions will be merged in the common title of American citizen. Great name! Greater than that of Roman citizen in Rome's most triumphant days. In other lands men strive to segregate themselves from the mass, and groping backward among the dusty and worm-eaten records of the past, seek for ancestral honors and dignities wherewith to deck themselves and establish a fancied superiority over their fellow-men. Here, standing on the broad platform of equality and fraternity, and surveying the glittering record of the high achievements of our race, each gathers to himself a share in them all, and proclaims it his birthright in the single phrase, I, too, am an American citizen.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.