USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Brighton > Oration delivered at the dedication of the soldiers' monument : in Evergreen Cemetery, Brighton, Mass., on Thursday afternoon, July 26, 1866 > Part 2
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The monument, erected in 1790, on Beacon Hill, Boston, and which was taken down on the grading of the hill in 1811, must be distinctly remembered by the elder portion of this audience. It was a Doric column, four feet in diameter, raised on a pedestal of eight feet, and was surmounted by a gilded eagle carved, not as yonder enduring effigy, from granite, but from wood. The entire height of this monument was sixty feet. It took the place of the earlier ""bea- con," or flag-staff, of about the same height, that gave name to the hill, and which was blown down No- vember 26, 1789. On stone slabs, inserted in the four faces of the monument, were inscribed impor- tant events in the history of the Revolution. These
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tablets have been carefully preserved at the State House, and hope is entertained that they may again be restored to the rebuilded monument# in the vi- cinity of its early site, on Boston Common.
Few monuments more beautiful, I am sure, have been raised by private munificence, to commemorate the events or the heroes of the Revolution, than that erected at Worcester, five years since, by Mr. Timothy Bigelow Lawrence, in honor of his great- grandfather, the sturdy patriot, Col. Timothy Bige- low, who led his company of minute-men so bravely, on the 19th of April, 1775, from Worcester to Con- cord. A neat monument in freestone to Josiah Quincy, Jr., the patriot, who toiled for his country which he so loved, and died for her, though not on her battle-fields, April 26, 1775, stands in the ancient burying-ground at Quincy, the seat of the family, bearing an appropriate inscription to the memory of the noble martyr and his wife, from the pen of Pres- ident John Quincy Adams. And in the First Church, adjacent, may be seen mural monuments in memory of the two Presidents Adams and their wives, sur- mounted with the busts, by Greenough our sculptor, of President John Adams and of his son the Presi- dent, whose lives and eminent services were so closely identified with the history and fortunes of their country.
* Exact engravings of this carlier monument and of the beacon may be seen in Snow's History of Boston.
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The imposing monument, and the statue of Henry Clay, by Crawford, at Louisville, the statue of Com- modore Hull, by the same American sculptor, the monument of Brigadier-General Stark, the hero of Bennington, and of General Ethan Allen, the hero of Ticonderoga, wrought for the Capitol of Vermont,- these, with many similar, may be classed under the period we are considering. The character and ser- vices, as well as the peerless fame, of Washington, called forth early the best art, native and foreign, of painter and sculptor, in portraits, busts and statues of various designs. The colossal statue of Washing- ton by Greenough, in front of the National Capitol ; the beautiful statue in white marble, in quiet repose, the costume a military cloak, in our State House at Boston, by Sir Francis Chantrey, of England; the large statue in sitting posture, by Canova the Ital- ian, at Raleigh, North Carolina; the erect statue, probably the best extant, clad in the uniform of an American Revolutionary officer, in the Capitol of Virginia, by Houdon, the French sculptor, who, in October, 1785, in company with Franklin, spent three weeks at Mount Vernon with the illustrious subject, preparing his model; and the grand equestrian stat- ue in bronze, by our American sculptor Brown, stand- ing on that favorable site, Union Square, New York, may be cited, a few among the many memorials of our revered chief. And specially should we notice the colossal equestrian statue of Washington, in
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bronze, twenty-five feet in height, executed by Craw- ford for the State of Virginia. Cast in Munich, Ger- many, under the personal oversight of our sculptor, it arrived in Richmond early in 1858. So great, we are told, was the enthusiasm of the people at the sight of the grand spectacle, that with their own hands they drew the massive casting to its chosen site on Capitol Hill. Would that the noble lessons of union and justice and liberty which Washington ever taught, and which those bronze lips seem still speaking, had been so planted in the hearts of that misguided people that no enthusiasm and excitement less c commendable than this had since swept as a besom of destruction over their beautiful city.
Monuments in like manner, of manifold patterns, have been erected to the Father of his Country, from the simplest shaft to the impressive Washington Mon- ument at Baltimore, and the magnificent National Monument at the capital, that, receiving contribu- tions of curiously wrought stone from every State in the Union, and designed to reach the dizzy height of six hundred feet, started from its corner-stone on the 4th of July, 1848, on which occasion Mr. Winthrop pronounced his patriotic oration.
And yet a third period of special interest in monu- mental art in our country may be defined from the consecration in 1832, of Mount Auburn, in date the first, and may I not add, in beauty and attractiveness still, the quiet queen of all our rural cemeteries.
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How within those peaceful shades, in monumental designs the simplest and most touching, in designs elaborate and magnificent, has Art vindicated for herself a high place in our people's regard. The noble statues of our early statesmen in her Chapel there, Adams and Otis and Winthrop, of Story, our jurist, -of Bowditch, our great mathematician and navigator, in her grounds, and of others, many, in the various departments of high renown, attest this regard. The chaste, appropriate, and elegant fune- real monuments, erected by affection, from that over the grave of Hannah Adams, one of the earliest of our American female writers and among the first interred at Mount Auburn, to that of Spurzheim, the eminent and beloved philosopher, who followed her so soon, of the classic Kirkland and Buckminster and Channing, and of the many that throng those hal- lowed pathways, all assure us of those worthy in- stincts of our nature which prompt us, as here to-day, to adorn and honor the grave.
The establishment of Mount Auburn, as you well know, has diffused through our land the most com- mendable interest in rural cemeteries. As these have been consecrated in and about our cities and within our country towns, they have multiplied and origi- nated approved and tasteful monuments. So that everywhere such structures now meet the eye and move the heart, from the renewed New England burial ground to the mausoleums and mural tablets
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that within churches commemorate beloved minis- ters whose voices death has hushed, as of Whitefield, in the Second Church of Newburyport; of Freeman, Greenwood, Peabody, in the Stone Chapel, Boston ; of Whitney and Lunt, in the First Church, Quincy ; and of Clarke, in the First Church of Uxbridge. These structures everywhere plead with us for dear memories of the departed, from the simplest shaft that love has reared and inscribed, to the elaborate statues, in enduring bronze or granite, that stand in our public places, as of DeWitte Clinton, statesman and philanthropist, in Greenwood Cemetery, N. Y .; and those in Boston of Franklin, our earliest and most renowned philosopher; of Webster, our gifted statesman ; of Mann, our wise educator, friend of the slave and of the oppressed; and of Hamilton, our unrivalled financier, who bore the nation so success- fully through her early financial struggles.
Still a fourth period of monumental art in our country dates from the war of which this Monument and these dedication services tell us. This war, so utterly without justification, as I have before de- clared, on the part of the assailants, who struck the first wild blow at .Sumter, has really inaugurated a new era in monumental art, -art funereal, tri- umphal. On every side are rising, or have already been erected, appropriate memorials to the memory of our soldiers who were slain in the field, or who fell by rapid or lingering disease, or from the final
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issue of wounds contracted in that war. To two of our Massachusetts soldiers, Luther C. Ladd and Addi- son Otis Whitney, of the glorious Sixth, who fell, the first martyrs, in Baltimore, on the memorable 19th of April, 1861, our State has erected, by an enactment before the close of the war, at Lowell, their place of residence, a most expressive and beautiful monu- ment. Placed in one of the public squares of the city, it was dedicated, by the moving eloquence of our great-hearted Governor Andrew, on the 17th of June, 1865. His untiring devotion to the good of his country, as well as of the Commonwealth, over which he presided so ably through all that troubled war, his special regard, by day and night, for the comfort and welfare of our troops, evinced-soldiers, do you recall it ? - in that telegram, despatched at once to Baltimore in the bloody fray, that the bodies of those slain Massachusetts soldiers be tenderly cared for and borne home at the expense of the State, will never be forgotten by a grateful people.
Of this admirable monument at Lowell it cannot be out of place to say, that it was designed by the same enterprising architects, Messrs. Woodcock and Meacham, one of whom has presented in our own Monument here, and in similar memorials, erected and in process of completion in several other towns and cities, such ample evidence of true taste and skill. While this gentleman, Mr. Meacham, was an undergraduate at our university, it was my lot, as a
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member of the examining committee, to sit in criti- cal judgment on his attainments in certain academic studies. But let me say, friends, that now, in the department of monumental architecture, at least, how I should shrink from criticism on his acquisitions, and how, the rather, it would be for me to sit a most humble pupil at his feet.
Time would fail to enumerate the many places in our own State where patriotism and gratitude tow- ards our devoted soldiers have inaugurated similar movements with our own. Mount Auburn and our various rural cemeteries are already dotted with such memorials to the fallen brave. Forest Hills Ceme- tery, in the beautifully simple and appropriate mon- ument just reared to one of the noblest of our young scholar soldiers, his father a native of this town, Theodore Parkman, color-bearer of the Massachusetts Forty-fifth, who fell in battle, presents a most happy design. Books, which he so loved; but second to his country, appear, and over them the national flag and the laurel wreath. Our squares, our places of public resort, as well as retired spots, if less obtrusive, perhaps more favorable for meditation, already tell to the passing age, as they will speak to coming generations, the story of the mighty sacrifice for union and freedom. And throughout the loyal States each day brings us tidings that the graves of our patriotic soldiers, no more than the service of their lives, shall not be forgotten. Each
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newspaper tells you that somewhere else through these States United, cemented anew in the costly ransom of blood and tears and treasure, another mon- ument has risen to mark the great struggle, to com- memorate the departed fallen in our army and navy, to honor, likewise, shall we not say, their compan- ions in arms who survived. So, for our own land at least, seems likely to be verified that memorable saying of Pericles, the peerless orator of Greece, while commemorating the Athenian dead, -" This whole earth is the sepulchre of illustrious men."
Thus, fellow-citizens, instructed by the instincts of humanity, by affection and religion, and by the les- sons of history, we dedicate this Monument to the memory of our soldiers who died for us. We do it in gratitude, likewise, to their surviving comrades, many of whom are here present with us, who gave heart and strength and offered life in the same great contest. It becomes you with strong propriety thus to commemorate your gallant defenders. Your rec- ord through the war has been honorable. Your quo- tas have been readily filled. Your sons have borne their part in the toils and hardships, in the daring exploits, and in the victories on the field and on the sea. Your wives and mothers and daughters have labored and endured for the sacred cause with wo- man's noblest heroism, while your sons have enjoyed
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certainly their full share in the honorable promotions and stations of the military service.
The 22d of June, 1865, you devoted as a triumphal occasion to your returned soldiers. They were wel- comed home by public procession, by the peal of bells, by the cannon that woke the echoes of our hills and valleys. They were greeted by childhood's joy and manhood's pride, by graceful decorations, by the smiles of mothers and maidens, by music and song, by feasting and dancing, even as was King David welcomed home from the battle of old. As on that joyous occasion we could not forget the brave ones who came not home, too, because they had gone up to their better home, so to-day, in the commem- oration rendered especially to the departed, we do not forget the living. Gentlemen, we welcome you here to sit with us about this Monument ; with us to catch the exalted spirit which it breathes, while you drop the beautiful evergreen,# emblem of undying remembrance and regard, as above the graves of your brothers. We welcome you with us to commune with your departed comrades whose names it bears, and with us to mingle your sympathies and prayers for the bereaved hearts and homes whose honest tears cannot be quite stayed in the proud considera- tion that these have died to save their country. With unselfish purpose they went forth from the hon-
* Evergreen and flowers were laid by the soldiers and children on the base of the Monument. See Appendix.
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orable pursuits of labor, from halls of learning, from stations of social ease and enjoyment, from homes how precious those homes can now best testify. They counted not their own lives dear, so they might win victory for the nation. They cared not to live to benefit themselves alone. Not of them indeed could be uttered that striking Roman taunt, "Qui vivit sibi solum prodesse, moriens omnibus prodest :" He who lives only to benefit himself gives the world a benefit when he dies. And we beg you, sol- diers, with us comfort these mourners in the assur- ance that their beloved have died thus unselfishly to redeem a race from awful bondage, and to transmit to future generations the blessings of union and free- dom, of equal civil rights, of education and peace, of liberty and law.
With further propriety you make this loyal dedi- cation as citizens of a town which, not many years since, was embraced in the ancient municipality of Cambridge. Your fathers, in their homes hereabouts, were still citizens of Cambridge, many of them fore- most in patriotic service in the Revolution of 1775. As inhabitants of the south part of Cambridge, on this side of the Charles River, they stood on their Common, now within the limits of Cambridge proper, with Washington as he took command of the Amer- ican army beneath that ancient elm, still green and vigorous, and of late with tender care encircled with
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an iron balustrade, the patriotic offering of one of your former ministers.
General Washington, it may be remarked, arrived at Cambridge on the 2d of July, 1775, at two o'clock in the afternoon, escorted by a cavalcade of citizens and a troop of light-horse, having left Philadelphia on the 21st of June, and having hastened with all possible speed. As he passed through New York, on the 25th, he first heard of the battle of Bunker Hill, which had been fought eight days before. He as- sumed his command on the 3d of July; and among the first orders# which he issued, and which is still preserved, was that for the military funeral, on the 5th, of Col. Thomas Gardner, of this part of Cam- bridge, who, gallantly leading his regiment in the memorable battle of the 17th of June, on Bunker Hill, fell, mortally wounded, was borne back here across the river, and died on the 3d of July, in his fifty-second year. A pleasant town in Worcester County, in this State, incorporated shortly after his death, was called Gardner, to perpetuate the name and memory of this distinguished officer. One of our own streets here, laid out nearly twenty years since through land originally embraced in his estate,
* "July 4, 1775. - Col. Gardner is to be buried to-morrow, at three o'clock, P. M., with the military honors due to so brave and gallant an officer, who fought, bled and died in the cause of his country and mankind. His own regi- ment, except the company at Malden, to attend on this mournful occasion. The place of these companies in the lines on Prospect Hill to be supplied by Col. Glover's regiment till the funeral is over."-Washington's Orders.
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-and contiguous to which, on South Harvard Street, may be seen to-day, beneath three of the noblest elms that grace our town, the unfilled cellar of his house, removed to Allston Street, and the well of whose waters he drank, - commemorates in like manner his cherished name .*
With these and many kindred associations binding the past and the present, you will join heartily in the
* "Thomas Gardner's regiment, of Middlesex, was commissioned on the 2d of June. William Bond was lieutenant-colonel, and Michael Jackson was major. After the British landed, this regiment was stationed in the road lead- ing to Lechmere's Point, and late in the day was ordered to Charlestown. On arriving at Bunker Hill, General Putnam ordered part of it to assist in throw- ing up defences commenced at this place. One company went to the rail fence. The greater part, under the lead of their colonel, on the third attack advanced towards the redoubt. On the way, Col. Gardner was struck by a ball, which inflicted a mortal wound. While a party was carrying him off, he had an affecting interview with his son, a youth of nineteen, who was anxious to aid in bearing him from the field. His heroic father prohibited him, and he was borne on a litter of rails over Winter Hill. Here he was overtaken by the retreating troops. IIe raised himself on his rude couch and addressed to them cheering words. He lingered until July 3d, when he died. On the 5th he was buried with the honors of war. He had been a member of the General Court and of the Provincial Congress. He was a true patriot, a brave soldier, and an upright man."- Frothingham's Siege of Boston.
"From the era of our public difficulties he distinguished himself as an ardent friend to the expiring liberties of America, and by the unanimous suffrages of his townsmen was for some years elected a member of the General Assembly. But when the daring encroachments of intruding despotism deprived us of a constitutional convention, and the first law of nature demanded a substitute, he was chosen one of the Provincial Congress, in which department he was vigilant and indefatigable in defeating every effort of tyranny. To promote the interest of his country was the delight of his soul. An inflexible zeal for freedom caused him to behold every engine of oppression with contempt, hor- ror and aversion. To his family he was kind, tender and indulgent; to his friends, unreserved and sincere; to the whole circle of his acquaintance, affa- ble, condescending and obliging ; while veneration for religion augmented the splendor of his sister virtues." - Essex Gazette, July 13, 1775.
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dedication which we make of this Monument to the spirit of Patriotism and Loyalty which animated these fallen soldiers. It nerved them for the strife. It sustained them in the deadly encounter. It speaks from this granite shaft as it did from the marble lips of those of them on whom we looked shrouded in their country's flag for the burial. Patriotism, we are hereby assured, has not died out. Many had come well-nigh to think of it as peculiarly the noble virtue of a by-gone age, and to fancy, often, that men like those who framed our Republic - that generals, commanders, soldiers, - faithful, steadfast, true as those of the American Revolution of 1775- should be known here no more. Natural, perhaps, that the heroic age must be always thus placed in the shad- owy past. But what learn we to-day from this, and from these multiform and fast-rising monuments of which I have spoken ? What great lesson have these young martyrs taught us all ? Our present, they tes- tify, how heroic has it proved! The question, so long mooted, in regard to our early patriots, whether nature or the exigencies of the age produce the men needed for the service, seems now put to rest. Shall our future annalist, think you, shrink from matching our 1860-65 with the 1775 of our fathers, so radiant with acknowledged glory ? The patriots, statesmen, generals, soldiers of that earlier time, do we them injustice when we write on the lengthened scroll the names of those on whom this later contest, so glori-
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ous in its issues, has laid an imperishable renown ? The battle-fields of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, of At- lanta, Petersburg, and Fredericksburg; the exploits of our monitors ; the passes of the Mississippi; the Georgian tour to the Atlantic by the daring Sher- man ; the waters of New Orleans and the approaches of Mobile commanded by the intrepid Farragut,- does not, shall not equal pride and honor attach to them as to the well-fought battle-fields and naval exploits of the Revolution, so familiar to our school pupils here ? And Washington himself, the truly great, stands he now quite so solitary in his country's fame ? May not the name of him, the second father of his country, our martyred chief, who, with an aim so steadfast to the restoration of the Union, to the salvation of his country, to the redemption of an oppressed race, walked bravely the path of duty that led so shortly to the grave, be written on the same starry scroll ? Kindred with Washington in some of the best attributes of human nature; a man of homely but of wondrous wisdom ; of lowliest humil- ity joined with the highest ambition, the ambition to serve; a man of the noblest sense because it was so truly common; the lover of children ; emancipator of the bondmen; lover of his land and his race; lover and trusting child of the Infinite Father ; loved by the soldiers for his honesty and kindness, his genial, manly heart,- no dedication services like these would be complete that did not recognize the
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life and services and death of our good President Lincoln. In a choice lay of one of our American poets, eminent among living dramatists, Mr. George H. Boker, and in a single sweet strain from a gifted poetess of our own State, Miss Kimball, let his mem- ory blend with that of our dead while we dedicate this their Monument to the spirit of patriotism that inspired them and him : -
"Nor in your prayers forget the martyred chief, Fallen for the gospel of your own belief, Who, ere he mounted to the people's throne, Asked for your prayers, and joined in them his own. I knew the man. I see him, as he stands With gifts of mercy in his outstretched hands ; A kindly light within his gentle eyes, Sad as the toil in which his heart grew wise; Ilis lips half parted with the constant smile That kindled truth, but foiled the deepest guile ; His head bent forward, and his willing car Divinely patient right and wrong to hear; Great in his goodness, humble in his state, Firm in his purpose, yet not passionate, He led his people with a tender hand, And won by love a sway beyond command. Summoned by lot to mitigate a time Frenzied with rage, unscrupulous with crime, Ile bore his mission with so meek a heart, That Heaven itself took up his people's part, And, when he faltered, helped him ere he fell, Eking his efforts out by miracle. No king this man, by grace of God's intent, No, something better, freemen, - President ! A nature modelled on a higher plan, Lord of himself, an inborn gentleman !"
" Rest, rest for him whose noble work is done; For him who led us gently, unaware, Till we were rendier to do and dare For Freedom, and her hundred fields were won."
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To FREEDOM, next to Patriotism and Loyalty, we dedicate this Monument in the name of our fallen soldiers. For sacred freedom they bore the battle- shock. Freedom, I hold, was necessarily involved in every worthy issue of that war. Say that we fought it out to its glorious end for the restoration of the Union, or for the preservation of the Constitution ; still, does any man believe that after the first year or two of the contest, as the North came thoroughly to understand the purpose of the rebels, to experience their unparalleled cruelties, and to learn how slavery was at the bottom of the whole strife, any union could be possible again save in the downfall of slavery ? Does he believe that any Constitution could again be regarded as of the strength of a straw that was not wiped clean of this foul leprosy ?
No ! when, on the 22d of September, 1862, Presi. dent Lincoln issued his Proclamation of Emancipa- tion,-immortal document, if aught that ever came from mortal pen can be immortal,-the great mass of our people, I tell you, were ready for it. The army was ready for it. The Almighty, who directed all,- with reverence I speak it,- was ready for it, for his own " fulness of time" had come. Humanity, not on these shores only, but worn with the tyran- nies and oppressions of the Old World, was ready for it. Yes! and many a noble patriot here and there, whose weary eyes were strained in watching for this glorious light, this second sun of righteousness upon
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