tlABR : < (\ A' ('• ; . !? Q ^ r. f UNIT. .11 NlAi :.- UF ■ A:\ir:iuUA.| f f t/^ . v^Af/^/^ SuZ/^c^ ^ ^ A^'M'^^ Jk. HD ID K. El S S EX-GOVEMOR BRADFOED, AT THE DEIIK'ATKIN OF THK Jinti^tom |lHtionHl 0|emi|tcru, c SEPTEMBER 17th, 1867. Baltimore: cox S MONUMENTAIi BOOK AND JOli PRINTINC ESTABLI6IIMKNT, Corner of (iay and Lombard Streets. 1807. -«. V S ^ .. A.IDIDI^ESS 'jiM^A..,^ LuL^),y(jJ^ EX-GOVERNOR BRADFORD, AT THE DEDICATION OF THE gntictam l^aiioiuil 0|fm(|icrjr, SEPTEMBER 17th, 1867. -^^'11^9*' ^allimor£: cox's MONUMENTAL BOOK AND JOB PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT, Corner of Gay cand Lombard Streets, 1867. ^ . 6 i ADDRESS. Wc have met liere to-day, my countrymen, on one of the most memorahle of the hattle-fiehls of our civil war, and we stand upon a site selected from the midst of it as an aj)pro- priate resting place for those Avho here laid down their lives as a sacrifice to the cause of free government and a national Union. We have come at the instance of the Trustees, to whom the subject has been more especially committed, to dedicate, by some public and official proceeding, on this the anniversary of the battle, the spot so selected, hallowed as it is already, with every hill around it, in the heart of tlie nation. To unite in this ceremony, the President (jf the United States, several members of his Cabinet, members of the national Legislature, Governors or other distinguished re{)resentatives of most of the States whose citizens formed the army of the Union, have honored us with their presence, meaning, I am sure, for themselves and those they represent, to express by that presence their enduring gratitude to the soldiers living or dead who so nobly stood by them in their darkest hour of trial. We are pleased, also, to have the opportunity of welcoming so many of the distinguished representatives of l\)reign Powers, who on tliis occasion have honored us witii their presence, reminding us of the peaceful and pleasant relations we at present maintain with the other Governments of the Avorld. With such a company around me, and this vast throng in front, I feel, as you may well imagine, to the fullest extent, the responsibility of the duty with which I have been honored; an honor for which I am doubtless chiefly indebted to the accidental circumstance that I was, to some extent, officially connected with the initiation of the cemetery, so far at least as the selection of its site was concerned. When, directly after the battle of Antietam, an order was issued by the Executive of Maryland returning thanks to the officers and men of the Union army who had so successfully expelled the invader from our State, the Commanding Gen- eral of that army, to whom it was transmitted, res[)onded to it in terms that challenged our attention. Expressing, on "behalf of the Army of the Potomac, their thanks for our appreciation of their achievements, and their hopes that no rebel army would again pollute our State, he concluded hy committing to us the remains of their gallant comrades who now rested beneatli its soil. A commission so touchingly confided to the people of the State, to say nothing of the duty otherwise incumbent on them, could never become with them a subject of indiflerence or neglect, and at the first meeting, thei'efore, ol their representatives in the General Assembly, of January, 1864, an act was passed, authorizing the purchase of a part of the battle-field for the reception of its dead, and an appropriation of $5,000 placed at the command of the Governor for that purpose. Directly thereafter he visited the ground, examined it, and after consult.ation with prominent citizens, selected this spot, embracing in its view the most interesting points of the field of battle, as the proper site for the proposed cemetery. Subsequent legisla- tion increased the State's appropriation to $15,000; trustees were appointed to superintend the work; other States came generously forward to participate in the undertaking, and by their united efforts it is hoped that the cemetery will become in time a })lace worthy the noble purpose to which we to-day devote it, and of the nation to whom the charge of it should properly belong. In recurring to the events, which, in connection with this day's proceedings, seem to require a brief notice at our hands, it is a subject of congratulation that we can survey them at present from a stand point Avliich ought to secure for them a calm and dispassionate considerfition. Those influences of })assion or policy wliich to some extent are almost inseparable from all accounts of military operations, prepared while the war itself is raging, are happily, it is to be hoped, at an end, or if any still linger, they should find no place on such an occasion as this. Yet in leviewing the details of tlie sangui- nary conflict to which we are about to refer, we find some difficulty, with all the assistance that established peace and the lapse of time have furnished, to fix with proper historical accuracy some of the facts immediately connected with it, more especially the precise force of the Confederate army in that action. The number of the Union army engaged therein, computed as it has been not only from official re- cords, but these records made up after ample time had elapsed for the correction of errors, may be considered as authenti- cally established. It comprised 87,104 men of all arms. In regard to the Confederate force, the accounts arc more conflicting. The Union commander, in estimating it at up- ward of 97,000 men, basing liis estimate on all the informa- tion received irom prisoners, deserters and refugees, has pro- bably overstated the number, while, on the other hand, our knowledge of the size of that army shortly before it crossed into Maryland would warrant us in saying that the strag- gling to which its commanders chiefly ascribe its subsequent reduction, must have exceeded all straggling ever known in the history of armies, if, when it reached tlie Antietam, it numbered only 40,000 men. General Lee, I believe, in a re- port prepared by him a few days after the action, does say that lie went into it with only that number, but in that reckoning he must undoubtedly have excluded the three divisions which, under A. P. Hill, McLaws and Walker, he had several days before detached to different points to aid in the investment of Harper's Ferry, that had not returned at the commencement of the action on the evening of the 16th, but came in most opportunely to his support before its con- clusion on the following day. This inference is rendered certain by other Southern accounts of the number engaged. Confederate historians and newspapers in those days, how- ever, under certain circumstances, they might at times, have attempted to deceive us by an inflated account of their mili- tary power, were by no means given to such an exaggera- tion, when the battle was over and they were summing up its incidents; yet a leading newspaper at Eichmond, professing to give, four days afterward, authentic particulars of the battle, declared that it was opened on the IGth of September with all their available force, " 60,000 strong." A later, and looking to the means of information enjoyed, probably a still more reliable authority, a Confederate historian who has pub- lished a " Southern History of the War," in describing the battle of Antietam, states that for half the day it was fought on the Confederate side with "a force of 45,000," and for the remaining half, "with no more than an aggregate of 70,000 men." I think, therefore, that the discrepancies in the Confederate accounts of their force have been the result of the difierent periods of the action to which they have severally referred, some having regard to the time that })re- ceded the arrival of their divisions from the neighborhood of the ferry, and others including these divisions in their state- ments. All things, therefore, considered, and allowing for that portion of our force that could not take part in the ac- tion, there could not have been much difference in the eftective strength of the two armies; but if such a difference did exist, 6 and in ftxvor of the Union army, it was more than compen- sated to the Confederates, not only hy tlieir choice of position hut by other influences, which, justice to all concerned, re- quires us now to consider. It may be confidently affirmed that at no time during the progress of the rebellion did the loyal heart of the country doubt its ultimate result ; yet it is equally certain that there were seasons when it quivered with emotion as it contem- l)lated the results of particular campaigns or despaired for a moment at the ])artial failure of long-cherished expeditions. At no i)eriod of the war were such feelings more rife than during the Summer of 1802. In the early- Spring of that year the Peninsular expedition had set forth, and the people of the loyal States looked witli anxious solicitude to its re- sults and with earnest hopes that it would retrieve the dis- asters of the preceding year and place the rebel capitol at our command. In every movement of the army in that direction, in all its marches, all its toils, its victories and reverses from Yorktown to Williamsburgh, on the Chicka- hominy, at Fair Oaks, Gaines' Mill, Malvern, and on the James, it never took a step to front or rear, that it did not carry with it by an inseparable sympathy the throbbing heart of the people. So high-wrought had become the popu- lar feeling in that connection, that the slightest indication of success or defeat in the movements of that army exerted, for a time at least, an influence on the public mind entirely dis- proportioned to any intrinsic im])ortance attaching to it. It was just when this excitement of the public i)ulse Avas at its height, after witnessing the heroic struggles of that army for so many weeks, with ho]ies and fears alternately pre- dominating, that we were suddenly startled by the informa- tion that transports were convejdng it back to the neighbor- hood of Washington. The people did not pause to consider whether or how far ulterior objects justified that movement; they saw only in it the confession that for the present Rich- mond was beyond our i-each. Incidents connected with it revealed to them also the fact — surmises in regard to which had already disturbed them — that there was an unfortunate difference of opinion between the comnuxnding General of that army and the powers that controlled his movements ; the reluctance with which he yielded to the peremptory orders for the change of his base of operations soon became known and excited criticisms unavoidably injurious in their tendency. Our friends did not care to inquire, and certainly I shall enter into no such inquiry to-day, who was right or who 1 / Avere wrong; it was enougli and bad cnongli to know tliat the liarmony wliich liad once marked our military councils had given place to ill-concealed murmurings and misgivings. In this moody condition of the public mind the Army of the Potomac, necessarily to some extent influenced by the same circumstances, its ranks thinned by the casualties of a series of hard-fought battles, and enervated by the climatic influ- ences of the peninsula, reached Acquia Creole and Alexan- dria in the last week of August. The occurrences which there aAvaited it were scarcely of a character to make amends for recent disappointments, or to restore that well-poised })ublic confidence which was becoming dangerously disturbed. About two months before this period the authorities at Washington, gathering up the national forces which had been operating under several commanders in the Valley and other parts of Northern Virginia, had massed and reorgan- ized them, under the name of the Army of Virginia, and placed them under command of Major-Greneral Pope, who had been called from a western department for the purpose. Assuming that command he commenced active military operations about the middle of July; his proclamation on that occasion rang out so cheerily and confidently in tone that the ])ublic pricked up its ear and, readily forbearing any criticism of style, acce])ted the substance as an assurance of a more vigorous policy than had before prevailed, and as fore- shadowing a system of tactics which even if we failed before Richmond, would compensate us with success elsewhere. But on this line too, disappointments awaited us, all the keener for the expectations thus excited. Our first reverse occurred at Cedar Mountain on the 9th of August, when the corps commanded by General Banks, arrayed unsupported against three divisions of the rebel army under Jackson, Ewell and Hill, most advantageously posted, after accom- plishing all that heroic men could against overwhelming odds, was forced back with severe loss. The withdrawal simulta- neously with this action of the Army of the Potomac from the James River, enabled Lee to move a large portion of his command to the support of Jackson, who was now in front of Pope, and compelled the latter to commence a retrograde movement, which continued from point to point until he reached the District line. During all the last week of Au- gust, Pope's army was kept in almost continual action, leaving little or no time for refreshment or rest; engaged thus every day, although supported to some extent by a part of the army now arriving, from the Peninsula, displaying conspicu- ous galLantry, and evincing tlie most heroic powers of endu- rance, they were nevertheless gradually forced back by Lee's army, the greater part of which had now arrived from Eich- mond, until after a last ineffectual effort, on the old battle- field of Bull Kun, in which fell that beau ideal of a soldier, the gallant Kearney, faint and foot-sore, on the second of September they fell back within the fortifications of Wash- ington. You will not, I am sure^ so far misunderstand me as to suppose, that in referring thus briefly to the campaign of Gren. Pope, I have any design to criticise it. I disclaim as well any such power as such a purpose. Whether it failed through his fault or that of others, or without fault anywhere, are questions requiring far more skill in military manoeuvres as well as a more accurate knowledge of facts than I pretend to possess. Nor is the cause of the failure at all material as regards its influence. I advert to it in this connection simply as one of those unfortunate antecedents immediately prece- ding the march of Lee into Maryland, which was calculated to exert a depressing influence as well upon the public mind as on the spirits of the array, on Avhich alone we now de- pended to oppose his passage. That army was to be com- posed of what remained of tliose two once formidable organi- zations, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Virginia, constituted each of them of material, better than which the world never saw, but returning simultaneously from the fields of their recent operations, with such heavy losses, so jaded and war-worn, so keenly sensitive, as we may well sup- pose, to the disappointments the country might feel in the hopes formed of their achievements, that in the new and for- midable invasion they were now so suddenly called on to repel, nothing but the sternest sense of patriotic duty and the most determined devotion to the great cause for which they had already sacrificed so much, could have possibly sus- tained them. In that trying hour the first provision to be made, was for the reorganization of these sliattered armies and the selection of a commandei" who could accomplish it and then lead tlie united host. Whatever doubt the Government authorities, or any of them, or the people of the country, or any part of them, might then or since have entertained of the military abilities of Gen. McClellan, there were few then and probably still fewer to-day, who, in the exigency then existing, would question the wisdom of the order that committed to him this command. His services in a like capacity and under circum- 9 stances so strikingly similar tliat tlie coincidence is worthy of note, ninst luive been fresh in the recollection of hoth Gov- ernnient and people. At the time of onr earliest gi'cat dis- aster, the first hattle of Bnll linn, he was condncting active operations in West Virginia, and the very day after that un- fortunate affair, a telegram from the President directing him to turn over his command to another, summoned him to Washington; placed there by the President's order in chief command, he was in less than a week after that leverse, bring- ing order out of the confusion, which for a while prevailed. Now, other disasters culminating on the same unfortnnate field, demanded again the services of a soldier, who, possess- ing the skill to reorganize our broken columns, could so com- mand their confidence as to inspire them with the enthnsiasm necessary to forget disaster. That the administration, with- out any dis})aragement to other distinguished leaders, chose the right man for such an emergency, few, I repeat, will at this day ventnre to deny. But little time remained for pre- paration, Lee and his army exhilarated at the thought that tlieir long beleagured cai)ital was at length relieved, en- couraged by their recent successes near Manassas, and stimu- lated by the i)rospect of the rich supplies, which here and along the fertile Cumberland Valley, awaited their approach, had, by rapid marching, within four days alter Pope's army retired within the Washington intrenchments, crossed the Potomac and encamped around Frederick City. McClellan, reorganizing as he marched, set forth to intercept him; em- barrassed, all the time by the doubts which enveloi)ed Lee's designs, fnlly alive to the various vital interests involved in them, compelled, tor the time, to turn his back Ujion Wash- ington, and yet well aware and frequently reminded that after all, this might be Lee's objective point, and his move- ments in other directions meant only as a feint, with the cai)ital of Pennsylvania and tlie emporium of Maryland both menaced by the enemy, and the citizens of each watching with anxious concern McClellan 's movements, with the natnral apprehension that the course of his march might so far un- cover their several cities as to open the way to Lee's approach, we may imagine to-day, though even now can scarcely a})pre- ciate, tlie responsibilities of the Union commander, and un- derstand some of the reasons for what, in the nervons anxiety of that moment, might have been considered by some as too tardy a ])ursuit. He was, however, on the right track; the van of his army reached Frederick on the twelfth of Septem- 10 her, Lee, with the greater part of his command, having left it two days before. Here, before following the subsequent movements of tliese armies, allow me to advert briefly to tlie reception that awaited them respectively on this new theatre of the war on the north of the Potomac. Subsequently, in the course of its progress, rebel raids and invasions were matters of frequent occurrence, and came to be regarded by us as a Uiing of course whenever our usual summer drought reduced the river to a fordable condition. This, however, was our first hostile invasion, and on that and other accounts was regarded by the people of the country, and especially of this State, with absorbing interest and anxiety. The loyal citizens of the North had been taught to believe that the loyalty of Maryland had, at best, but an apochryphal existence; that as a patriotic and. spontaneous impulse it was limited to a few, whilst as re- garded the great body of our people, it was but a pretended and su])erficial displaj^ induced chiefly by the presence of the national force. So confident in tlie early stages of the rebel- lion liad been the appeals of our secessionists, so exorbitant their claims to an assumed social and commercial importance, and so clamorous their denunciations of what they denomi- nate an odious Federal ban, forcing the action of the people into a channel contrary to its natural inclination, that there seemed for a time some excuse for such an opinion, and a few even of our own citizens, who had not watched that strong patriotic undercurrent, on Avhich, as on a full mountain stream, the masses of our people were from the first borne onward, came sometimes themselves to the reluctant conclu- sion that the outside estimate of our loyalty might possibly be true. Gen. Lee, doubtless confiding in the same repre- sentations, only more highly exaggerated, chanced to select as favorable a moment for himself as jjossible, for putting these theories to the test. To say nothing of the despondency already noticed, resulting from recent disappointments, a process had just commenced better calculated than anything that had occurred to awaken the people of the country to a practical sense of the grim realities of war. The President, on the first of July, having issued a call for three hundred thousand volunteers, followed it on the fourth of August with an order for the draft of a like number of militia; the pre- liminary details for that draft had been just completed, and the enrolling officers sent forth on their mission, as Lee made his appearance north of the Potomac. The order for a draft had something startling in the ideas it suggested; no one 11 wlio WHS suLject to the process liad over witnessed ils appli- cation; tlio country luul only a kind ol" traditional know- ledge of the character of the proceedinj^ — all the more excitin*^ for its very vagueness. It was in this condition of things that Lcc encamped his army about Frederick, and none knew Letter than himself how to take advantage of it. Appointing as the Provost-Mar- shal, cf that city a former resident, wlio, having once heen a person of some i)olitical influence, had, in the early days of the rebellion, attached himself to its fortunes, and observing the most scrupulous forbearance toward the citizens, he next issued to them a proclamation, every sentence of which was studiously adapted to their supposed tastes and political sym- pathies, and Avhich, if the facts had corresponded with the suggestions of Southern sympathizers and Northern skeptics, would have brought them in crowds to the Confederate stand- ard. It expressed the deepest sympathy for the "wrongs and outrages" they had suffered; it reminded them of the obliga- tions that bound them to the South by "the strongest social, political and commercial ties;" it depicted the profound indig- nation of their sister States at the spectacle they presented of "a conquered province;" it appealed to their State pride, alluded to "the military usurpations of armed strangers," the arrest and imprisonment of their citizens, and, "the faithful and manly protest" made against such outrages by a venerable and illustrious jurist, who, being a former citizen of this town, was known to be held by its inhabitants in high respect and esteem. Then reminding them that the people of Maryland possessed a spirit too lofty to submit to such a Government, it gave them to understand that the Confederate army had come among them to aid them in "throwing off this foreign yoke," and all that was necessary w^as their co-o[)eration Was there ever so fair an opportunity for a semi-loyal, secession-loving people, living under a Fedeial ban, threatened with a Fed- eral draft, and, awaiting only the opportunity to escajte and throw themselves into the arms of their Southern friends ! How did they respond to this opportunity and these eloquent appeals ? A Confederate officer, who seems to have accom- panied th,e expedition, and has since written an account of it, tells the story in a few words. Confessing to the disa})point- ment that awaited those who ex])ected the Marylanders to rush to arms, he tells us, that on the contrary, "they rushed into their houses and slammed their doors." "The rebels," says he, "were regarded not as friends, but enemies, the in- habitants Avere Union," and the ireneral sentiment was: 12 ''Wait, wearers of the gray, the patriots in blue are coming." When they did come, who that saw can ever forget, what heart that even now does not throb the quicker as it remem- bers the change irom the dogged, moody, scowling and stifled condition in wliich the presence of tlie Confederates liad for four days ke})t that people tortured, to the outburst of joyous, enthusiastic, exuberant, and irrepressible loyalty that rung out from cellar to house-top as the boys in blue pressed on upon their reai-. All along their way, wherever they ap- peared, in the towns or among the log cabins of the moun- tain, up went the national banner; hid away, some of them, until this day; many, doubtless, improvised for the occasion, and exacting tribute, I dare say, of many a discarded ribbon and threadbare wrapper ; sometimes faded and soiled, it may have been, and utter regardless of the proportions required by army regulations, but every stripe and every star was there, and better still, every heart that beat beneath it was ovcr- poweringly full of the sacred cause of which it was the sym- bol. Yet to this day, with that and every other ordeal — and that was neither the first nor last — by which Maryland loy- alty ha^been tested, there are those who still make it the subject of an ungenerous sneer. I am happy, however, to believe tliat it never comes from that gallant host that accom- panied lier sons to the field, but usually from those Avhose well-calculated distance from the scene of conflict placed them as far out of the reach of information as of danger. When Lee evacuated Frederick on the twelfth' of Septem- ber, directing his course toward this county, he doubtless sup- posed that the reticent policy and strategic manceiupes he had tlius far so successfully pursued would still havcvlwin- fluencc on McClellan's movements, leaving him in doubt as to Avhere the threatened blow would ultimatel}^ tall ; but by one of those rare occurrences which some may call accident, and others a special Providence, there fell into McClellan's hands on the day of his arrival at Frederick, a copy of Lee's order of march, dated the day before he left tliat city, and negligently left tliere by one of his officers. This told the whole story of his contemplated movements, and, possessed of that information, a new vigor was infused into the Union host. Directing the cor[)s of Gen. Franklin toward Pleasant Val- ley, that it might, if })ossible, reach and relieve Harper's Fen-_y beibre it should be captured l)y tlie force Lee had de- tailed for the })urpose, McClellan, witli the main body of tlio Union Army, moved forward toward the South Mountain, on the track Lee himself had taken. The latter having already 18 ])aR.sc(l on toward Boonsboro and na