USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Reading > Honor to the brave : a discourse delivered in the Old South Church, Reading, Mass., August 23, 1863, on the return of Company D, Fiftieth reg., Mass. vols. > Part 2
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night watches over companions by the dim hospital light - of all this we know nothing, abiding here in our quiet homes and regular manner of life. They have returned to tell us of it, but we shall never comprehend it, in the midst of our conven- iences and comforts and luxuries. This we comprehend and will remember, whenever we see a returning soldier, that if our army had not gone forth, no American home, as it was, would have remained for us or them. This we comprehend and will remember, that these men, with their companions in arms, made it possible for them in mid-summer, 1863, to travel for fourteen conscentive days and nights by boat and car, through the heart of the country, from the extreme South to the far North, with- out let or hindrance from a rebel. We welcome our neighbors back as a part of the army that has run the separating knife the entire length of the carcass of secession.
Nobly have these men done their work, and with honor can they on the morrow surrender to the government they have de- fended the trust reposed in them. They have known the agony of delay and the stimulus and patriotic ardor of the onset. If not frequently in personal struggle and on bloody ground, they have covered posts equally important, and have discharged with honor the duties of every hour and station. They may return to civil life with the public praise and gratitude as a part of the army that captured Vicksburg and Port Hudson, cut in twain the Confederacy, and re-opened the Mississippi River to the traffic and travel of the nation, and to the commerce of the world.
But while we welcome the returning and remember with deep gratitude the living, we do not forget the unreturning and the dead. We remember the solitary grave at quarantine ground. those significant mounds at Baton Rouge, the graves of those who fell by the way returning, and the burial of others at home and with kindred dust. The first and the last, as yet, whom death has stricken from Company D, of the 50th Regiment of Mass. Volunteers, have ended their march where they began it, at home. The flowers of spring opened on the new grave of
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the first, and the dews have fallen but twice on the fresh earth of the last. The departed have done what they could. Ever green and honored be their graves. They gave themselves to the country in its need, and scaled their loyalty with their death. The most of them sleep by the river they reopened for the nation at the price of their lives - graves more honored than Mount Auburn could give them, though affection would place them nearer home. So De Soto, the discoverer of this river, has one of the noblest graves that the wide earth could furnish -the bed of the river that his own discovery gave to world. Fitting it is, since they must fall, that the defenders of the Father of Waters should sleep there together with the dis- coverer. Those graves are the nation's sentinels forever set to watch and warn against any obstruction of that national high- way. That these men fell carly will soon be overlooked in the general fact that they died for the country. History makes little account of the age of patriot soldiers who fall. None of them died from wounds of the enemy. They were killed by- the campaign, wounded all over. Let it not be said that they fell afar off. They fell by the altars and firesides of their coun- try. Let it not be said that they rest solitary, outside any proper burial enclosure, as in some potter's field. They sleep in the broadest, noblest of cemeteries, whose utmost bounds, sacriligiously defaced and removed, they reset ; whose borders they ornamented, whose proudest and most historic monuments themselves erected. They sleep with their one hundred thou- sand companions in arms in the Union Cemetery. Its fencings, its running outlines, that they looked well to before they feil, are the Great Lakes, the two Oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. Let it not be said that they sleep with no monument to their memory. The country with its rich treasure of institutions saved, the government reestablished, the high and honorable place for our name on the roll of living nations preserved against expunging hands - this is their monument. The world! shall look at it, on its castern and western and northern and southern faces, and wonder and admire. Our unbroken domain
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is their monument. Its ancient bounds of decaying oak and Hickory they have reset in granite. Let it not be said that their solitary graves are without an epitaph. At every mound where a soldier rests, the American citizen and the historian of the pre- served Union shall read this inscription : HE SAVED THE REPUBLIC. Let them rest in their beds of honor. Their names -and their memory are safe.
So much of the debt of gratitude and of honor to our re- turning soldiers, doubly due and but poorly paid, I have deemed it eminently proper to discharge on this occasion. And so, according to my poor ability have I deemed it my duty, as it is my mournful pleasure, to lay the laurel wreath on the graves of our fallen.
Nor these now returning do we alone honor, nor those fallen from their ranks do we alone crown. Others have returned, the strong and the wasted, the wounded and mutilated. Others have fallen. Our fields of honor border on many rivers and plains and mountains. But we have only one country, one army, and so only one welcome, one requiem and one crown. When I speak of one, welcome one, mourn for one, I mean all.
Our God increase, as we believe he will, the names of the mighty mnen whom our David has. And may that final battle in the wood of Ephraim be hastened on and the Absaloms, who have led off in this atrocious rebellion, be caught up in the oaks thereof, and the people they have ridden go out from under them. The darts of Joab, we trust, will be at hand and unerring. And if, after the battle, any do raise the question, so tender toward criminals, " Is the young man Absalom safe?" may there be many a Cushi to answer : "The enemies of my lord the king, and all that rise up against him to do him hurt, be as that young man is." Then the tribes in our revolted Israel will say : " Absalom whom we anointed over us is dead in battle. Now therefore why speak ye not a word of bringing the king back, even David?" And all the people shall say, Amen. Then shall our David be made to dwell again in peace at our Jerusa- lem, and all the people shall say, Amen.
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The Town of Reading has furnished for the war 21 three months' men, 55 nine months' men, and 150 three years' men ; making a total of 226 men. The following Tables are believed to be perfect as to the numbers of the deceased and wounded, so far as reported to this date, Sept. 15. The items pertaining to each person it is hoped will be found accurate.
TABLE I. KILLED IN BATTLE.
Name.
| Reg. |
Where Killed.
1
When.
1
How.
1
Grace.
I Age. |
Family.
July 21, 1861
Bullet
Battlefield
20
None
THOMAS HETLER,
22
Gaines's Mills
June 27. 1862
SIDNEY COPELAND,
.
.
19
HENRY WILLIAM KUMMER,
12
Antietam
Sept. 17, 1862
25
HENRY DAMON, .
16
Chancellorsville
May 3, 1863
LEONARD PETERSON,
33
Gettysburg
July 2, 1863
Shell
JULES ROMLO ALLEN,
TABLE HI. DECEASED.
Vame.
| Reg.
1
When.
1
Where.
Grave.
! Age
Family.
DANIEL BERRY, . .
14
Consumption
Oct. 7, 1862
Alexandria, Va.
Alexandria
4-1
Wife
MATTHIAS GAMBELL, .
33
Diptheria
Oct. 19, 1862
Alexandria, Va.
Reading
25
None
HARRISON TIRRETS, .
33
Fever and Dysentery
Oct. 22, 1862
Alexandria, Va.
Reading
21
None
OTIS SCOTT SANBORN,
·
Diarrhea
Oct. 27, 1862
Annapolis
Annapolis
65
Wife, 4 chil.
ADAM HETLER, .
.
.
18
None
ROBERT H. WESTON, .
50
Fever
Feb. 18, 1863
Quarantine, N.O.
Quarantine
MOSES F. EATON, .
2.2
Fever
Feb. 19, 1863
Washington
Reading
24
None
BENJ. CARTER SANBORN
50
Consumption
March 21, 1863
Reading
Reading
24
None
JOHN A. BARNES,
50
Chron. Diarrhea
April 19, 1863
Baton Rouge
Baton R'ge
28
Wife
.
50
Diptheria
May 28, 1863
Baton Rouge
Baton R'ge
33
Wife
TOBIAS FINKHAM, . ·
50
Dis. of Kidneys
June 8, 1863
Baton Rouge
Baton R'ge
40
Wife
ASA PARKER TIRBITS, .
50
Fever
July 2, 1863
Baton Rouge
Baton I'ge
36
Wife
GEORGE J. BARTLETT,
50
Chron. Diarrhea
Aug. 9, 1863
Mattoon, Il.
Mattoon
29
Wife, 1 child
CHARLES HOLT, . .
Mound City, Ill.
Mound City
None
JEREMIAH DELAY,
50
Debility
Ang. 10, 1863
ED. EVERETT NICHOLS,
50
Diptheria
Aug. 20, 1863
Reading
Reading
29
Wife. 3 chil.
SUMNER NELSON WESTON,
50
Debility
Sept. 3, 1863
Reading
Reading
344
12
Fever and Dysentery
Sept. 8, 1863
Bolton Sta., Va.
Bolton Sta'n
31
Wife, 3 chil.
.
20
Lung Fever
Feb. 15, 1863
Falmouth, Va.
Falmouth
17
None
33
Fever
Jan. 4, 1863
Washington
Washington
GEORGE BIRNLY WINN, . HENRY FRANCIS WARDWELL,
33
Infl. of Lungs
Feb. 15, 1863
Washington
Reading
43
Wife, 5 chil.
18
Jan 26, 1862
Reading
Reading
20
..
21
33
Gettysburg
July 3, 1863
Bullet, heart
20
Disease.
Wife
Wife, 3 chil.
ASA CLEAVELAND Віск,
·
·
Wife, 2 chil.
CHARLES OTIS YOUNG,
12
16
Bull Run
-
TABLE III. WOUNDED.
Name.
1
Reg.
1
Where.
-
When.
How.
JAMES H. GRIGGS,
5
Bull Run Near Richmond
June 26,1862
Bullet, leg
ELIAB COBURN JONES,
22
Gaines's Mills
June 27, 1862
Bullet, back
NATHAN D. PARKER,
5
Near Richmond
1862
Shell, side
EDWARD ALANSON FOSS,
22
Gaines's Mills
July 27, 1862
--
Shoulder
HENRY C. GERRITSON,
12
Culpepper
Sept. 1, 1862
Minnie, leg
ORANGE SCOTT COOK,
21
Chantilly
Sept. 17, 1862
Bullet, thigh
GEORGE P. BOYCE,
13
Antietam
Sept. 17, 1862
Minnie, thigh
HENRY MARTYN FOSS,
13
Antietam
Sept. 17, 1862
Buckshot, hand
GEORGE H. PARKER, . " ..
Fredericksburg
May 3, 1863
Minnie, shoulder
JAMES WARREN COOK,
50
Port Hudson
June 13, 1863
Sharpshooter, both legs
WILLIAM BUCK,
13
Gettysburg
July 1, 1863
Bullet, wrist
WILLIAM WALLACE DAVIS,
33
Gettysburg
July 2, 1863
Bullet, arm
SYLVANUS BLANCHARD,
16
Gettysburg
July 2, 1863
Minnie, leg
BENJAMIN MCALISTER,
.
.
.
.
13
Gettysburg
July 4, 1863
Check, leg, minie, buckshot
JOHN FRANCIS COOK,
21
Near Newburn
WILLIAM BEATTIE,
·
·
.
.
·
11
Gettysburg
July 2, 1863
Both shoulders and toe
Shot, shoulder
·
13
Antietam
Dec. 14, 1862
Ball, finger
2
Chancellorsville
July 1, 1861
Arm
ALBERT B. EMERSON,
22
Bullet, leg
Aug. 9, 1862
19
FORREST JENKINS,
F8349.4759
5676
حله
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