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deeds. But to America is mankind indebted for the loving and touching tribute this day performed, which brings the offerings of affection and tokens of love to the graves of all our soldier dead. We not only honor our great captains and illustrious commanders, the men who led the vast armies to battle, but we shower equal honors in equal measure upon all, irrespective of rank in battle or condition at home. Our gratitude is of that grand patriotic character which recognizes no titles, permits no discrimination, subordinates all distinctions; and the soldier, whether of the rank and file, the line or the staff, who fought and fell for liberty and union—all who fought in the great cause and have since died, are warmly cherished in the hearts, and are sacred to the memory of the people.

"Mr. President, from the very commencement of our Civil War we recognized the elevated patriotism of the rank and file of the army and their unselfish consecration to the country, while subsequent years have only served to increase our admiration for their splendid and heroic services. They enlisted in the army with no expectation of promotion; not for the paltry pittance of pay; not for fame or popular applause, for their services, however efficient, were not to be heralded abroad. They entered the army moved by the highest and purest motives of patriotism, that no harm might befall the republic. While detracting nothing from the fame of our matchless leaders, we know that, without that great army of volunteers, the citizen soldiery, the brilliant achievements of the war would not have been possible. They, my fellow citizens, were the great power. They were the majestic and irresistible force. They stood behind the strategic commanders, whose intelligent and individual earnestness, guided by their genius, gained the imperishable victories of the war. I would not withhold the most generous eulogy from conspicuous soldiers, living or dead-from the leaders, Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, Meade, Hancock, McClellan, Hooker, and Loganwho flame out the very incarnation of soldiery valor and vigor before the eyes of the American people, and have an exalted rank in history, and fill a great place in the hearts of their countrymen. We need not fear, my fellow citizens, that the great captains will be forgotten.

"My fellow citizens, the rank and file of the old regular army was made of the same heroic mold as our volunteer army. It is a recorded fact in history, that when treason swept over this country in 1861-when distinguished officers, who had been educated at the public expense, who had taken the oath to support the constitution of the United States and defend this government against all its enemies, when they proved recreant to trust and duty, and enlisted under the banner of the Confederacy-the rank and file of that old army stood steadfast to Federal authority, loyal to the Federal government, and no private soldier followed his old com

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nander into the ranks of the enemy. None were false to conscience or to country. None turned their backs on the old flag.

"The most splendid exhibition of devotion to country, and to the government, and to the flag, was displayed also by our prisoners of war. We had 175,000 soldiers taken prisoners during the Civil War, and when death was stalking within the walls of their prisons, when starvation was almost overcoming their brave hearts, when mind was receding and reason was tottering, liberty was offered to those 175,000 men upon one condition-that they would swear allegiance to the Confederate government, and enlist in the cause of the Confederacy. What was the answer of our brave but starving comrades? There could be but one answer. They preferred to suffer all and to bear all rather than to prove false to the cause they had sworn to defend.

"Now, so far removed from the great war, we are prone to forget its disasters and underestimate its sacrifices. Their magnitude is best appreciated when contrasted with the losses and sacrifices of other armies in other times. There were slain in the late war nearly 6,000 commanding officers and over 90,000 enlisted men, and 207,000 died of disease and from exposure, making a grand total of 303,000 men. In the War of the Revolution between the United States and Great Britain, excluding those captured at Yorktown and Saratoga, the whole number of men killed and wounded and captured of the combined British and American forces was less than 22,000. We witnessed that loss in a single battle in a single day in the great Civil War. From 1775 to 1861, including all the foreign wars in which we were engaged, and all our domestic disturbances, covering a period of nearly twenty-four years, we lost but ten general officers, while in the four and a half years of the late war, we lost one hundred and twenty-five.

"And, my fellow citizens, we not only knew little of the scope and proportions of that great war, or the dreadful sacrifice to be incurred, but as little knew the great results which were to follow. We thought at the beginning, and we thought long after the commencement of the war, that the Union to be saved was the Union as it was. That was our understanding when we enlisted-that it was the Constitution and the Union-the Constitution as it was and the Union as it was-for which we fought, little heeding the teachings of history, that wars and revolutions cannot fix in advance the boundaries of their influence or determine the scope of their power. History enforces no sterner lesson. Our own revolution of 1776 produced results unlooked for by its foremost leaders. Separation was no part of the original purpose. Political alienation was no part of the first plan. Disunion was neither thought of nor accepted. Why, in 1775, on the 5th day of July,

in Philadelphia, when the continental congress was in session declaring its purposes toward Great Britain, what did it say? After declaring that it would raise armies, it closed that declaration with this significant language:

"Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of some of our friends and fellow subjects in other parts of the empire, we assure them that we do not mean to dissolve the union which has so long and happily subsisted between us.'

"Our fathers said in that same declaration:

"We have not raised armies with ambitious designs to separate from Great Britain and establish independent states.'

"Those were the views of the fathers. Those were the views entertained by the soldiers and statesmen of colonial days. Why, even the Declaration of Independence, which has sounded the voice of liberty to all mankind, was a shock to some of the colonists. The cautious and conservative, while believing in its eternal truth, doubted its wisdom and its policy. It was in advance of the thought of the great body of the people. Yet it stirred a feeling for independence, and an aspiration for self-government, which made a republic which has now lived more than a century; and only a few days ago you were permitted to celebrate the centennial inauguration in this city of its first great president. Out of all that came a republic that stands for human rights and human destiny, which to-day represents more than any other government the glorious future of the human race.

"Comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, those were brave men whose graves we decorated to-day. No less brave were those whose chambers of repose are beneath the scarlet fields in distant states. We may say of all them as was said of Knights of St. John in the Holy Wars: In the forefront of every battle was seen their burnished mail, and in the gloomy rear of every retreat was heard their voice of conscience and of courage.' 'It is not,' said Mr. Lincoln, 'what we say of them, but what they did, which will live.' They have written their own histories, they have builded their own monuments. No poor words of mine can enhance the glory of their deeds, or add a laurel to their fame. Liberty owes them a debt which centuries of tribute and mountains of granite adorned by the master hands of art can never repay. And so long as liberty lasts and the love of liberty has a place in the hearts of men, they will be safe against the tooth of time and the fate of oblivion. "The nation is full of the graves of the dead. You have but a small fraction of them here in New York, although you contributed onetenth of all the dead, one-tenth of all the dying, one-tenth of all the prisoners, one-tenth of all the sacrifices in that great conflict. You have

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