/fit*.
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THE PATEIOT DEAD.
ORATION,
i
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jS&zce/i; P '
PROFESSOR JOHN M. LANGSTON,
NATIONAL CEMETERY,
HAMPTON, YIEGINIA,
tvt a "y both, 1873.
—published by—
"CAILLOUX" POST, No. 7,
a. n.
idieif-^ir.tlvlieiltt oif"
O
prixi1d at
Wise's Book and Job Printing Office,
norfolk, va.
I N"T ftODUOTION.
At eleve.i o'clock, under the direction of Comrade Commander John Millei^—
'■PLAIT" POST, No. 6, Portsmouth,
"CAILLOUX" POST, No. 7, Norfolk City,
ABRAHAM LINCOLN POST, No. 9, Hampton,
SHAW POST, No. 13, Norfolk County,
MITCHELL ALLEN POST, No. 14, Norfolk City,
200 Ex-Soldiers and Sailors, _
Under command of Captain Woodfin, from the Home, halted in front ofllie stan<r
in the Cemetery, where 5003 people had gathered, after prayer and singing by
Rev. Wm.Lewis and J. H. Riddick, reading of Poem "Sleeping Sentinel,^ by Hon.
R. G. L. Paige, theOratov of the day was introduced by Col. J. T.. Wilson, by the
following Introductory Remarks:— /
Comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, and to this vast liberty-loving mul¬
titude gathered here to-day upon Consecrated Ground, we meet to-day fraternally
and nationally, not to disinter the bones of any of the fallen brave, no-r to mark the
resting place of any particular warrior, neither in obedience to those rancor passions
that may govern us in our other duties as citizens of this great Republic ; but yield¬
ing to those inate and instinctive characteristics implanted in the breast of the human
family by the Creator of every Good and Perfect Gift, do we come to do honor to
the remains of the patriot dead, and as they died so let us honor them. The evil
that men do live after them; the good is oft interred with their bones; but the deeds
of the valiant host that lie here sleeping is the history of a nation in its passage irom
bondage to freedom.
Nearly a century has passed since Chistopher Attucks gave his life's blood for
freedom. Since the eloquence of Patrick Henry taught the birds in yonder moun¬
tains, the waters of yon James and the breezes in this valley to . chant in unison 'the
pean's of sweet liberty.
Four score and fourteen years ago the founders bequeathed this Government to a
new nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal.
But what is expected of man, since Adam fell, yea, since angels against God re¬
belled. The Go vernment established by thd fathers was usurped by unwise legislation
.that like a mighty upas spread disorder throughout the land and anarchy and oppres¬
sion followed.until millions groaned in human slavery and yon starry banner was
hailed as a "Flaunting Lie," till a divided iiation arose in arms and commenced the
str.iggle in which these dead patriots died. <
Comrades, I conjure you in the langaage of the martyred Lincoln, it is for us the
living to bj dedicated here to the unfinished-work, to the great task remaining before
us; .that, standing by the graves of these dead comrades let us take increased devo¬
tion and resolve anew that our comrades shall not have died in vain, that the nation
under God shall enjoy its new birth of freedom, and the government of the people,
by tlie people and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
What recollections does our meeting revive. What scenes pass before us while stand¬
ing here: away in the background of the past we see the bloody field ripe with its hor¬
ror's, desolation and ruin brooding o'er our country and the soldiers lying here rush¬
ing to her defence, laying their lives upon the altar of union and liberty, one and
inoperable. We remember the long marches by day and by night as a duty imposed
upon us by He who holds the destiny of nations in his grasp and who suffered us to
con jiier tiie adversary. /
H >w thankful we should be to that Providence that preserved us through that long
night of war, that restored us to the bosom of loved ones, that saved our common
CJ.iutry from annihilation and has decreed equal justice to mankind. While we go
forth on our mission let us remember that there is a bugle to be sounded whose notes
shall awake and call from these graves their occupants to appear before God who
has warned us not to judge one another.
Comrades, when that bugle shall sound. nOne, not even the angels in heaven, will
be able to discriminate between the black and the white, the grey nor the blue.' Let
us never forget to strew, in early summer, flowers upon the graves of the American^,
.soldiers. Teach your children to visit those cities of the dead and strew flowers up¬
on the graves of the Union dead, who died for Equal Rights.
8
OEATION.
Mr. Commander:—
This day our nation does honor to her v< ble dead. Turning ^ide ft<n: <iircibi¬
nary employments it is fit that our tint hers and mothers. 1,111 1 u-tLei ai.d sisters, the
young man and maiden, tthe girl raid the hoy, the white and the black, those of for¬
eign birth.and the American by nativity should come gathering in the cemeteries whcie
our dead heroes slumber, to express sorrow m d gialilnoe. while we l.or.cr their
memory and magnify their heroism.
For in the great war of the Rebellion— a war so costly to uu ration, in litfu-inc
and precious Wood—no discrimination was made finally as to those who «1 c called
and rushed with life to the defence of our country and its Union, as to nationality or
complexion. Nor did age excuse itself, for the hoary-headt d father and the tender
youth heard alike a^id heeded, in thousands of instances, the bugle cnii to amis'!
Nor did woman excuse herself, for if not clad in the unii'oini of the soldier. t.nd per¬
forming the rougher and more dangerous toils of field life tj&\>e made herself'The Good
Angel of the Hospital"' and was not less interested in the defeats or victories that dis¬
tinguished the cause of the Government, than her sterner brother.
In our national cemeteries commingle the ashes of all the noble braves- who dared
and did in our late wars, and who sacrificing life in a manly and font 3s;ble discharge
of duty—dying jn answer to the demands of intelligent patiioiism, new fri m the bnt-
tlements of their heavenly abodes witness and approve our hnml/.e ifforts to express
our profound gratitude, our deep sorrow and yet our cordial admiration and lasting
remembrance of those who died for the honor, the libuty. the civilization, M.d the
perpetuity of the Government.
• With no regard therefore to nationality, without consideration of age or sex, only
glorying in the fact of our citizenship. We are all Americans living in one (.tinmen
country, under one common all-comprehensive law. enjoying free thought-, free speech
and not less freedom of locomotion, let the spirit of this occasion enthuse ai d possess
our hearts and souls; and going hence let it be with a new devotion to our free in¬
stitutions, our liberty and our religion, determined, as our dead brotlieis have done,
to consecrate all, even life itself, to their conservation and maintaiiuniee.
Gathered in this sacred place, in the midst of these t<i:der and hallowed associa¬
tions, before many of the class once owners, many of the class once slaves, in the
presence of many persons formerly residents of the North—in the irestr.ee of fellow
Americans lately engaged in a deadly conflict, on one part struggling to maintain the
Government, the other to overthow it and upon its min to establish mother. I am
admonished, now in the days of our vietoiy ar.d the assriaree of It l g lite—indeed
immortality to the Government—that, we can and ought to inculcate and j lattice not
less the faith and hope than the charity so beautiiuliy described in tLc weids of St.
Paul when he says : "Charity sufieveth long, and is kind; chaiily ei.vieth not: char¬
ity vaunteth not itself, is not pufkd up, doth not bihaie itseli i-iiti.iirtly, snl.ith not
her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh 1:0 evil: lejoitelh 1 * t :n iniqv.itj. butre-
joieeth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all lliiufs, bejeil) ail 1hhj_s, tn-
dureth all things." In the words I utt< r (his day si.tli il.ariiy i wi i,'ul tniinaJe.
For though at the cost even of our noblest and ti-ucit nun. having bun victorious,
as noble victors always do, we can well afford to cultivate the iaigof m: £ i Miimity,
and while we do not alienate, diaw and attach to the Goveii n.«i.t, in tl.e sirongest
and most lasting affection those who but yesterday we met uj on tl.e field cl'Liocdics-t
conflict. But it is only as this charitable disposition and conduct sic ian utly and
intelligently reciprocated tliat such desirable result can be wisely t xj ce;< (I. It is to
be hoped :(hat such reciprocation will be thoroughly and generally shown by all classes
of the peeple. •
In order to appreciate duly the blessings wrought tliroi j. h the etiJh of < or fjilkn
heroes we may be permitted to particularize somewhat.
And first, though the victorious, which Iheir struggle, tl.i 11 uX'uii g> iicir jolf-dc-
nial and their death brought to the countiv we < njoy imd 1 r ] e to peij tiiiiCrNation¬
al Unity. .Before the war of the L'cl cHion $ nr is tit 11 v s.s div:d< u in <l.e greet
overshadowing purpose, its judgment and aik ctM n. lit ]U]k<t the Etrth r.i.^cr
the influence of free principles aad their dtvotitn to tie Mi;t!ir.ci.t 1 f iileily Mid
equality, emancipated their slaves, ar.d s< 1 jht to 1 stj.Ui.' h tin i.f.h ilt FiivUr s;i.d the
Federal Government, as far as the sfine could be dene «< ustiliv&i ally.' ftce institu-
4
Hence th«v opposed the spread of slavery ; they denied its legal existence in
the Territories. To all this the people of the South were opposed ; and here we find
the source of our division—a division not superficial but fundamental aud far-reaching
affecting law, politics, religion, education, industry, commerce—indeed every inter¬
est, state, national, and in some sense our international interests, adversely. Divided
thus in our purpose, our judgment and affection, it was not strange that eventually
our differences culminated in a sectional, deadly war. We have now only to rejoice
that coming out of this war with victory crowning the endeavors of the Government,
and with slavery, the cause of this division, utterly overthrown, we are one people,
not only in nationality, in Territory and Government, but in purpose as we trust, in
judgment and affection.
To-day the forty millions of our population are united by the purpose to conserve
and maintain American liberty—all accept without difference of opinion the doctrine
that freedom and the exercise of political power legally belong to every American,
and our hearts are aglow with the single sentiment of earnest and abiding love for
this liberty and freedom. In the progress of our national existence and institutions we
have reached that period when we may confidently and wisely adopt the words of
our powerful and eloquent Webster.—
"While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out
before us, for us and own our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil.
God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may "not rise. God grant that on my
vision never may be opened what lies beyond. When my eyes shall be turned to
behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the bro¬
ken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States disevered, dis¬
cordant, belligerent; on a land rent by civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fra¬
ternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous
ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high
advanced ; its armies and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe
erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured—bearing for its motto, no such miser¬
able interogations as "What is all this looi'thf nor those other words of delusion
and folly "Liberty first and Union afterwards; but everywhere spread all over, in
characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and
over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear
to every true American heart, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and in-
seperable.''
Our Orator had not rightly estimated the influence of slavery, the unyielding
purpose of the friends of freedom against its encroachments, when he gave utterance
to these matchless words. But the struggle has come; the legions of freedom and
slavery have met; the desperate fight is over ; freedom has again won a glorious vic¬
tory, and henceforth in our regenerated country there can be no national strife:
Americans will not again imbue their hands in each others blood, in a treasonable
attempt to overthrow the Government and dismember the Union.
I am not unmindful of considerations of a meterial character, commercial and other
which might be urged in favor of the importance and permanence of our Union.
These however, now as well as those of a moral and political character, the latter
especially, conspire to make our Union lasting,
I beleive our Union is assured mainly in the unity of our convictions and
sentiments.
But in the next place national unity would not only be impossible but it would be largely
valueless with out National Freedom. For as the poet has said, "'Tis liberty that
gives to life its lustre and perfume.''
Our freedom does not mean simple emancipation—mere release of body—self own¬
ership or freedom of locomotion. It is all of these but far more beside. It is the
enjoyment of free thought, free speech, citizenship, the ballot; but above all the op¬
portunity to rise and achieve thereby becoming great and influential among our coun¬
trymen—to cultivate all those things which appertains to dignified life, and the high¬
est interest of our country. That we may rightly estimate this great blessing that the
noble men whose graves we would this day cover with the sweetest flowers, died to
bring to our countrymen, we must recollect that just anterior to the war there was no
freedom, no free thought, no free speech, no freedom of locomotion ejoyed in full
measure by the American people—inde ed American liberty itself had well nigh
gone, glimmering through the dream of things that were, a school boy's tale, the
wonder of an hour. But to day the sun in the heavens is not more bright and glori¬
ous, its light and heat more lovely and life giving than the sun of liberty in our mor¬
al sky, which, shining with a new heat and a new lustre is at once to us the source of
5
our political life and happiness ; in its rays we delight ourselves and fear no moles¬
tation.
Liberty however, is nothing more than mere license—a thing of caprice, without
presenter permanent value, without Law as its shield and protection: and let us
emphasize the third important and valuable blessing brought us througn the war,
m which so many of our sons, brothers and fathers, fell.—-Theequaland all protect¬
ing law beyond whose care we cannot go, however distant, or devious, or hidden our
route.
Where the brave men slumber and sleep who dying purchased for us liberty regu¬
lated and defended by law. '
"'Tis holy ground,
This spot where, in their graves,
We place our country's braves,
Who fell in freedom's holy cause,
Fighting for liberties and laws ;
Let tears abound."
But more than national unity, freedom and law regulating it, was given the nation
through the bloody struggles of the Rebellion. We were given a free Christianity,
an unmuzzled and fearless ministry, and now we may hope that the days is not dis¬
tant when such reform will have taken place in the Country as to insure the practice
of sound morality among all classes of the people, and in all branches an4 depart¬
ments of the goverment. Thus the highest interests of people will be conserved,
good order maintained and civilization advanced. Indeed already we are realizing
these pleasing and beneficial results. Accepting these benefits, brought us in the
providence of our Heavenly Father through the suffering and the death of those
whom we this day hpnor, it is our duty to prove ourselves wise and faithful custodi¬
ans thereof, and as far as possible make them of the longest advantage to ourselves
and posterity. Indeed—
"Such graves as these are hallowed shrines,
Shrines to no code or creed confined;
The Delphiam vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind."
• If what has already been said and indicated be true the dead whose memories we
revere, and whose patrotic and heroic deeds we would celebrate, struggle, fought,
and fell to save and perpetuate our goverment and free institutions, to save and re¬
consecrate and sanctify the doctrines of our declaration and constitution, to emancipate
and introduce into the body politic, as citizens and voters, office holders and equals,
persons formerly held as slaves in our country. Therefore to day we are one nation
possessing a common country, enjoying our freedom our liberty and rights under the
protection ofaGovernmentwhosedestiny we believe is high and glorious. Butthelife of
our Government is onlyjassured as the sentiment and purpose which bring us hereto-day,
animate ever our souls, and stimulate and sustain our devotion to liberal principles.
The history of our country is distinguished for three leading wars, the Revolution¬
ary War, the war of 1812, and the war of the late Rebellion. We would honor the
dead of all these wars, for they were all waged in the interest of our country, to se¬
cure its independence, to maintain its interests and its liberties, the union and majesty
of our law. We would honor the memory of Washington; we would suitably appre¬
ciate the acheivements of Jackson; we would not fail however to hold in constant
remembrance and cherish with grateful hearts the masterly and noble efforts of the great
leaders who gave victory to our arms in the fearful struggle of the Rebellion. And
standing as we do this day in this cemetery, in the presence of more than five thousand
graves, calling to mind too the thousands of other graves in the presence of which
this day the American people assemble themselves to honor the dead, and recollecting
what sacrifices, what protracted sufferings, what indomitible courage and Spartan he¬
roism these noble dead endured and displayed, I would erect to their memory a mon¬
ument, whose base should be broader than this vast cemetery, whose summit should
pierce the very stars, and all over whose sides should be written, in characters never
to be effaced, the history of their acheivements, their valor, their fidelity and their
patriotic devotion. . .
But if such monument may not be erected, forever let our cemeteries, in which
6
the brave but dead men of the war of the Rebellion, are buried, be indeed onr miftori.-
al gardens, kept and beautified in the most handsome and skillful manner, in which
are grown, from the ashes of the fallen and the buried, those seetiments of patriotism,
of liberty, of law, and of union, which should fire the heart, and energize and nerve
the purpose of the faithful and earnest American.
"Here let them rest;
And Summer's heat and Winter's cold
Shall glow and freeze above the mold—
A thousand years shall pass away—
A nation still shall mourn this cla>.
Which now is blest."
WM. TEEMKI',
J. T. WILSON, Post Aiui t^st.
Command f.r„