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Official Map of Camp-Ground at New Windsor. 
 
 COPIED FROM THE ORIGINAL IN THE POSSESSION OF THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 
 (From Magazine of American History.! 
 tHasbrouck's was Washington's Headquarters. 
 JJohn Ellison's was General Gates's Headquarters. 
 
THE 
 
 CENTENNIAL CELEBRy\TION 
 
 Washington Monument 
 
 AT NBWBURGH, N. Y. 
 
 Report of the Joint Select Committee. 
 
 WASHIN(}TON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1889. 
 
 ^^-^er-A, 
 
 c 
 

 
THE NEWBURGH MONUMENT AND CENTENNIAL 
 CELEBRATION. 
 
 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 On March 20, 1882, Mr. Beach introduced in the House of 
 Representatives a joint lesolution authorizing the Secre- 
 tary of War to erect at Washington's Headquarters, in the 
 city of Newburgh, New York, a memorial cohimn, com- 
 memorative of the events which occurred at that place dur- 
 ing the Revolutionary War, and to aid in defraying the 
 expenses of the Centennial Celebration to be held at New- 
 burgh in the year 1883. The resolution was read a first 
 and second time, referred to the Committee on Public 
 Buildings and Grounds, and ordered to be printed. The 
 text of the resolution was as follows : 
 
 Joint resolution authorizing the Secretary of War to erect at Wash- 
 ington's Headquarters, in the city of Newburgh, N. Y., a memorial 
 column, and to aid in defraying the expenses of the centennial 
 celebration to be held at that city in the year eighteen hundred 
 and eighty-three. 
 
 Whereas it is in contemplation by citizens of Newburgh, State of 
 New York, to commemorate the proclamation of peace, the dis- 
 bandment of the Army, and other notable Revolutionary events, by 
 appropriate centennial ceremonies, to be held at Washington's Head- 
 quarters, in said city of Newburgh, during the year eighteen hun- 
 dred and eighty-three; and 
 
 Whereas the events in question, forming as they did the closing 
 scenes in the struggle for Independence, are in every respect worthy 
 
 3 
 
4 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 of being commemorated, and should be perpetuated by the erection 
 of some suitable memorial structure; and 
 
 Whereas it was near this place, in the building known as " The 
 Temple," that Washington, by his appeal to the patriotism of the 
 Army, saved the country from military despotism; and 
 
 Whereas it is intended to purchase the grounds upon which the 
 Temple stood, together with so much of the surrounding land as may 
 be deemed necessary, and cause to be erected thereon a building of 
 frame or logs in the original form or style of the said Temple as near 
 as may be; and 
 
 Whereas it is further intended to purchase certain other adjacent 
 grounds, wherein rest the remains of the Revolutionary veterans who 
 died during the encampment of the Army near Newburgh, and cause 
 the same to be properly inclosed, to the end that they may be per- 
 petually kept and maintained as a burial-ground : Therefore, 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
 States of America in Congress assembled, That a joint select committee 
 be created, to consist of five Senators, to be appointed by the presiding 
 officer of the Senate, and eight Representatives, to be appointed by 
 the Speaker of the House of Representatives, whose duty it shall be 
 to make, independently gf itself or in connection with the trustees of 
 Washington's Headquarters and the citizens' committee, all necessary 
 arrangements for a befitting celebration of the centennial ceremonies 
 commemorative of Washington's refusal to accept a crown, the proc- 
 lamation of peace, the disbandment of the Army, and other notable 
 Revolutionary events, to be held at Washington's Headquarters, in 
 the city of Newburgh and State of New York, in the year eighteen 
 hundred and eighty-three. 
 
 Sec. 2. That the Secretary of War be, and he hereby is, author- 
 ized and directed to expend, out of the moneys hereinafter appro- 
 [)riated, a sum not to exceed ten thousand dollars in the erection of 
 a suitable monument or column on the grounds belonging to the 
 State of New York, and known as Washington's Headquarters, with 
 such inscriptions and emblems as may properly commemorate the 
 historical events which occurred at Newburgh and vicinity during the 
 war of the Revolution. 
 
 Sec. 3. That the sum of thousand dollars, or so much 
 
 thereof as may be necessary, is hereby appropriated for the purpose 
 mentioned in the preceding section, and for aiding in defraying the 
 
Washington Monument at Nervhiirgh^ N. Y. 5 
 
 expenses of said centennial celebration, and for the purposes men- 
 tioned in the preamble hereto, the same to be disbursed under the 
 direction of the said joint committee at such times and in such man- 
 ner as will best promote the objects and intent of this resolution. 
 
 The resolution, as before observed, was referred to the 
 Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds. This com- 
 mittee was composed as follows : Hon. William S. Shallen- 
 berger of Pennsylvania, Hon. J. H. Lewis of Illinois, Hon. 
 M. E. Cutts of Iowa, Hon. M. h. De Motte of Indiana, 
 Hon, J. A. Scranton of Pennsylvania, Hon. Nicholas -Ford 
 of Missouri, Hon. J. Hyatt Smith of New York, Hon. 
 Philip Cook of Georgia, Hon. J. W. Singleton of Illi- 
 nois, Hon. H. A. Herbert of Alabama, Hon. Lewis Beach 
 of New York. 
 
 On May 3, 1882, Mr. De Motte, from the Committee on 
 Public Buildings and Grounds, submitted the following 
 report : 
 
 The Committee on Public Buildings and Grounds, to whom was 
 referred the joint resolution " authorizing the Secretary of War to 
 erect at Washington's Headquarters, in the city of Newburgh, N. Y., 
 a memorial column, and to aid in defraying the expenses of the Cen- 
 tennial Celebration to be held at that city in the year 1883," having 
 had the same under consideration, submit the following report: 
 
 The events intended to be commemorated by the proposed Centen- 
 nial Celebration at Newburgh in 1883 are of a broad and national 
 character. 
 
 It was here, on the 19th day of April, 1783, that the formal proc 
 lamation of i)eace was made, and it was here, on the green in 
 front of Washington's Headquarters, that the patriot army was dis- 
 banded on the 3d day of November, 1783. On the 25th day of No- 
 vember, 1783, commonly called Evacuation Day, the British troops 
 took to their transports, and sullenly quit the laud they had come to 
 conquer and oppress. 
 
6 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 It was at Newburgh, or its immediate vicinity, about four miles 
 from the present city, that the Army was encamped after the victory 
 at Yorktown. Here those of the patriots who died during the 
 encampment were buried. Rude mounds still indicate the spot, but 
 no stone marks their resting place. 
 
 It was here, in the building known as the "Temple," that Wash- 
 ington met to confer with his officers upon the famous " Newburgh 
 Letters," The Army, without pay and without clothing, had grown 
 mutinous at the continued neglect of Congress to provide for their 
 wants. In this emergency it was proposed to form a limited mon- 
 archy and proclaim Washington dictator, with, eventually, the title 
 of king. The proposition was formally made to him, but was 
 promptly and indignantly* rejected. It was here that Washington, 
 Knox, Greene, Gates, St. Clair, Clinton, Wayne, and the Baron Steu- 
 ben had their headquarters.* 
 
 There is a peculiar fitness in the place chosen for the celebration 
 of these important national events. Newburgh and vicinity, from 
 the very commencement of the war to its close, was the scene of 
 numerous other notable incidents and events. The Highland Pass, 
 as it is called, was regarded as the key to the whole struggle. The 
 object of the British was to get possession of the Hudson, and, by 
 uniting the forces of Burgoyne in the North with those of Howe in 
 the South, cut off the Eastern from the Middle and Southern States. 
 To checkmate the enemy Washington had taken early measures, by 
 throwing up forts on the mountain spurs overlooking the river. The 
 passage of vessels was to be obstructed by chains, booms, and 
 chevaiix de /rise stationed at the narrow points. 
 
 To secure the control of the Highland Pass the British resorted to 
 both assault and stratagem. The capture of Forts Clinton and 
 Montgomery and the treason of Arnold are incidents of this region, 
 which, with scores of others, make it rich with Revolutionary interest. 
 
 Among the other reasons for the proposed celebration may be 
 given the fact that the year 1883 will furnish the last opportunity for 
 commemorating by centennial ceremonies any of our Revolution- 
 ary events; and it so happens that the events it will commemorate 
 
 * The inaccuracies in statements of fact in this and preceding paragraphs will be 
 noticed by the readers of history. Having been made in an official report, for the 
 authorship of which the committee was not responsible, they can not now be 
 eliminated. 
 
Washington Monnment at Newlmrgh^ N. V. 7 
 
 are unsurpassed in grandeur and significance by any that preceded 
 them. 
 
 During the last six years we have had several centennial celebra- 
 tions, beginning with that at Bunker Hill and ending with that at 
 Yorktown. None of these celebrations were in honor of Washing- 
 ton. They commemorated military events. The time has now come 
 to pay a fitting tribute to Washington, not as a military hero, but as 
 a patriot. By his refusal to accept the crown he saved to America 
 the liberties won by the sword, and set an example of lofty patriot- 
 ism which has probably never been equaled, certainly never sur- 
 passed, in the history of mankind. 
 
 No detailed plan for the proposed celebration has been perfected 
 as yet. It will be left to the joint committee of Congress to be ap- 
 pointed under the resolution. A general idea, however, of what 
 would be proper to the occasion has been submitted. 
 
 It is proposed to erect at Washington's Headquarters, on the bluff 
 overlooking the river, a plain shaft or column, with inscriptions com- 
 memorative of the most important events occurring at this point. 
 For this purpose, it is thought, the sum of $10,000 will be adequate. 
 
 It is further proposed to purchase the site on which the Temple 
 stood and as much of the surrounding ground as may be deemed 
 necessary, and erect thereon a structure of frame or logs in the orig- 
 inal style of the Temple. 
 
 It is also proposed to buy the land in which the Revolutionary 
 veterans are interred and have it substantially inclosed, to the end 
 that it may be preserved from future desecration. 
 
 In addition, it is proposed to have, on some day in the year 1883 
 to be hereafter designated, a centennial jubilee at Washington's Head- 
 quarters. Military detachments from such of the original States as 
 had troops at the encampment in 1783 are to be invited. The trans- 
 portation and subsistence of these delegations will be paid out of the 
 general fund. 
 
 To make the land purchases and defray the necessary expenses 
 of the celebration it is estimated that the sum of $50,000 will be re- 
 quired. Of this amount the city of Newburgh has already raised 
 ;^5,ooo by tax, and the citizens have promised an additional $5,000 
 by voluntary subscription. A bill is now pending in the legislature 
 of the State of New York for an appropriation by the State of 
 ;^2 5,000 more. 
 
8 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 Your committee is of opinion that a memorial shaft, not to ex- 
 ceed $10,000 in cost, should be erected by the General Government, 
 and that the sum of $25,000 should be appropriated to pay for such 
 shaft and aid in defraying the expenses of the celebration and for 
 the other purposes mentioned in the preamble. 
 
 The joint resolution is therefore reported back, with a recommen- 
 dation that the blank on page 3, section 3, line i, be filled with the 
 words " twenty -five," and that, as thus amended, it do pass. 
 
 On June 13, 1882, the following proceedings were had in 
 the House: 
 
 Mr. Beach. I ask unanimous consent to have taken up for im- 
 mediate action a joint resolution in honor of the memory of Wash- 
 ington, and to protect the graves of our Revolutionary sires from 
 further desecration. ' I do not believe there is a member on this 
 floor who will cast a vote against this resolution. Its consideration 
 will take but a few moments. I ask unanimous consent that the 
 Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union be dis- 
 charged from the consideration of House joint resolution No. 176, 
 and that it be now put on its passage. 
 
 The Clerk read the resolution. (For copy of resolution, see ante.) 
 
 Mr. HoLMAN. Mr. Speaker, I do not rise for the purpose of object- 
 ing to this resolution, but to reserve the right of objection for a 
 moment. If it is determined to enter upon this celebration (and 
 there seems to be a propriety in it), I hope that the sum to be ex- 
 pended will be definitely specified. If the sum named in the resolu- 
 tion is not sufficient, let a sufficient sum be fixed now; and let us 
 have no exceeding of the authority granted by Congress on the part 
 of those who may be named as the committee. 
 
 Mr. Beach. If the gentleman from Indiana will permit me, I wish 
 to explain that there is an amendment 
 
 Mr. HoLMAN. I suggest to my friend to add an amendment in the 
 following w ords : 
 
 No greater sum shall be expended for said purposes than the sums above men- 
 tioned. 
 
 Mr. Beach. An amendment has been prepared by the gentleman 
 from Maine [Mr. Dingley] which I think will meet the views of the 
 gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Holman]. 
 
Washington Monument at Neivbtirgh^ N. V. 
 Mr. DiNGLEY. I offer the following amendment 
 
 Mr. Robinson, of Massachusetts. Let the amendment be read, 
 subject to objection. 
 
 Mr. Burrows, of Michigan. I desire to reserve the right to object 
 to consideration until after the amendment is read. 
 
 The Speaker. That may be done. 
 
 The Clerk read as follows : 
 
 Add at the end of section 3 the following words : 
 
 "Provided, That no part of the amount appropriated by this act shall be paid 
 except on bills and vouchers approved by the Secretary of War as just and proper 
 charges, and that no bills shall be contracted on account of the United States in 
 excess of the appropriation hereby made." 
 
 Mr. HoLMAN. I hope the amendment will be accepted by the 
 gentleman from New York, and that it will be adopted. 
 
 Mr. Burrows, of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, when this matter was 
 before the House on a previous occasion I objected to its considera- 
 tion, for the reason that I was apprehensive it might lay the founda- 
 tion for a repetition of the Yorktown affair, where the United States 
 Government appropriated ^40,000, and was afterwards called upon to 
 make up a deficiency of $32,000. Now, if this bill can be so guarded 
 that the gentlemen appointed to take charge of the proposed cele- 
 bration shall not feel authorized or be allowed to go beyond the 
 amount fixed by the bill and involve the Government in any future 
 liability, I have no objection to it. If the amendment proposed by 
 the gentleman from Maine covers that point, I am content. 
 
 Mr. DiNGLEY. It not only meets it, but goes a little further. 
 
 Mr. HoLMAN. The joint resolution is allowed to come in with the 
 understanding that that amendment shall be accepted. 
 
 Mr. Beach. I accept it. I think it is a wise and salutary pro- 
 vision. 
 
 Mr. Burrows, of Michigan. It was impossible to hear the amend- 
 ment when it was read, and I ask that the Clerk again read it. 
 
 The amendment was again read, 
 
 Mr. Burrows, of Michigan. I think that will meet the objection, 
 and I therefore consent to the present consideration of the measure. 
 
 Mr. Springer. I want the joint resolution so guarded that we shall 
 have no repetition of what occurred in the Yorktown celebration. 
 
 Mr. Robinson, of New York. That is all provided for, and I 
 hope the joint resolution will be permitted to pass. 
 
10 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 The Speaker. Is there any further objection to the joint resolu- 
 tion ? 
 
 Mr. DiNGLEY. I move to modify my amendment so as to insert, 
 after the word " bills," the words " or liabilities incurred." 
 
 Mr. Springer. I hope that modification will be adopted and no 
 objection made to the joint resolution, on the understanding we are 
 to have no deficiencies for whisky or anything else. [Laughter.] 
 
 The amendment as modified was agreed to. 
 
 Mr. Beach. The centennial ceremonies to be held next year at 
 Newburgh, on the Hudson, are intended to commemorate, among 
 other things, an event in the life of George Washington which in my 
 opinion is more noteworthy than any other in the long career of this 
 most illustrious man. The event to which I allude occurred at the 
 close of the war. The Army, after the victory at Yorktown, had been 
 withdrawn to the vicinity of Newburgh, where it went into camp. 
 Disaffection, almost amounting to mutiny, existed not only among 
 the men, but among the officers. Their pay was in arrears, and they 
 had become impressed with the conviction that upon the declaration 
 of peace they would be turned adrift on the world in a penniless con- 
 dition and with no provision for their future support. Eight years 
 of military service had rendered them unfit for the pursuits of civil 
 life. 
 
 That I may not be charged with exaggeration, let me quote from 
 a letter written by Washington to the Secretary of War, dated Octo- 
 ber 2, 1782 : 
 
 When I see, he writes, such a number of men, goaded by a thousand stings of 
 reflection on the past and of anticipation on the future, about to be turned into the 
 world, soured by penury and what they call the ingratitude of the public, involved 
 in debts, without one farthing of money to carry them home, after having spent 
 the flower of their days and many of them their patrimonies in establishing the 
 freedom and independence of their country, and suffered everything that human 
 nature is capable of enduring on this side of death — I repeat it, that when I con- 
 sider these irritating circumstances, without one thing to soothe their feelings or 
 dispel the gloomy prospects, I can not avoid apprehending that a train of evils 
 will follow of a very serious and distressing nature. 
 
 ******* 
 
 I wish not to heighten the shades of the picture so far as the reality would jus- 
 tify me in doing it. I could give anecdotes of patriotism and distress which have 
 scarcely ever been paralleled, never surpassed, in the history of mankind. But, 
 you may rely upon it, the patience and long-suffering of this Army are almost ex- 
 
Washington Momunent at Nezuhurgh^ M K ] 1 
 
 hausted, and that there never was so great a spirit of discontent as at this instant 
 While in the field I think it may be kept from breaking out into acts of outrage 
 but when we retire into winter quarters, unless the storm is previously dissipated! 
 I can not be at ease respecting the consequences. 
 
 Appeals to Congress had been made, but made in vain. That 
 body was powerless to act, because of the failure of the several States 
 to contribute the moneys which had been levied upon them respect- 
 ively. 
 
 In this emergency it is not at all strange that the Army in camp 
 with no prospect of further service in the field, should have turned 
 Its attention to its wrongs, actual or fancied. The ills it suffered were 
 very naturally attributed to the temporary confederated form of gov- 
 ernment which had been adopted. While the great majority of^'the 
 Army as well as the people were firm in their conviction that the 
 changed condition of aft^airs had not changed the principle involved 
 m the struggle— viz, that the several separate Colonies were, and of 
 right ought to be, "free and independent States," as proclaimed in 
 the Declaration of Independence— there were those who regarded 
 independence as but a change from one monarchial and consolidated 
 government to that of another, or one of their own creation. A limited 
 monarchy, modeled after that of the mother country, was thought by 
 them to be best suited to the new empire. These views were com- 
 municated to the commander-in-chief. The instrument of commu- 
 nication was Col. Lewis Nicola, a veteran ofificer, to whom Wash- 
 ington was warmly attached. He was chosen on account of his 
 close intimacy with Washington. After speaking of the diff-erent 
 forms of government and alluding to the great abilities of Wash- 
 ington, so frequently displayed throughout the war. Colonel Nicola 
 proceeded : 
 
 Some people have so connected the idea of tyranny and monarchy as to find ,t 
 very difficult to separate them. It may therefore be requisite to give the head of 
 such a constitution as I propose some title apparently more moderate; but if all 
 other thii^s were once adjusted, I believe strong arguments might be produced 
 for admitting the title of king, which I conceive would be attended .^th some 
 material advantages. 
 
 This is what history has figuratively called "the tender of the 
 crown." 
 
 ^^ A discussion of the merits of the question involved in this assumed 
 tender " may not be strictly proper at this time. Admit, however. 
 
12 The Centennial Celebration ai.d 
 
 that Colonel Nicola's letter was only what he claimed it to be, and 
 which all the attendant circumstances indicate — viz, that it was but a 
 discussion of a form of government and not a " tender " from any 
 one but Colonel Nicola himself — it was nevertheless an opportunity 
 of which Washington could have availed himself to establish a mon- 
 archy. We have already referred to the mutinous condition of the 
 troops. They were ripe for any change that promised relief. We all 
 of us know the unparalleled hold Washington had on the affections 
 of the Army, They believed in him ; they trusted him. Where he 
 led they were willing and ready to follow. They never doubted him. 
 Their distrust was of Congress ; never of their commander. His 
 devotion to their interests in camp and field had been displayed on 
 too many occasions for them to question his friendship. He was 
 their leader, their guide, their friend. All eyes turned to him now 
 for extrication from difficulties and sufferings as great, if not greater, 
 than those of Valley Forge. The significance of the proposition 
 will be apparent if we consider what would have been the result 
 of its acceptance. What would have prevented his marching the 
 Army on Princeton, dispersing Congress, and usurping the Govern- 
 ment ? 
 
 Another fact must be remembered. The Army at that time em- 
 braced all, or nearly all, who were capable of bearing arms. It had 
 control of the munitions of war. It was irresistible. No resistance 
 could have been organized against it. The people would have sub- 
 missively bent their necks to the yoke of military despotism, for they 
 had not the power to oppose it. We must not compare the situation 
 then with the situation now. Because such a usurpation is impossible 
 now, we must not conclude it was impossible then. All that it re- 
 (^uired was Washington's assent. If he had given the wished-for 
 " yes," what would have been the fate of this continent and the people 
 destined to populate it ? It may be truly said, the destiny of a 
 nation trembled on the motion of his lips. His answer to the over- 
 ture is happily preserved, and I will read it, for it can not be read too 
 often : 
 
 Sir, with a mixture of great surprise and astonishment I have read with attention 
 the sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no occurrence in 
 the course of this war has given me more painful sensations than your information 
 of there being such ideas existing in the Army as you have expressed, and which 
 I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity. For the present the 
 
Washington A/oiiiinicnt at Neivlnwgli^ N. Y. 13 
 
 communication of them will rest in my own bosom, unless some further agitation 
 of the matter shall make a disclosure necessary. I am much at a loss to conceive 
 what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address which to 
 me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not 
 deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom 
 your schemes are more disagreeable. At the same time, in justice to my own feel- 
 ings, I must add, that no man possesses a more serious wish to see ample justice 
 done to the Army than I do; and, as far as my power and influence in a constitu- 
 tional way extend, they shall be employed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it 
 should there be any occasion. Let me conjure you, then, if you have any regard 
 for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or res])ect for me, to banish these 
 thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one 
 else, a sentiment of the like nature. 
 
 These words, Mr. Speaker, deserve a place on the memorial shaft 
 contemplated by this resolution. They should be emblazoned on 
 the solid granite in golden capitals. They should be taught to our 
 children, that they in turn may teach them to theirs and hand them 
 from generation to generation and from age to age down to " the 
 last syllable of recorded time." Search the pages of history, and 
 find me, if you can, a similar instance of lofty devotion to the princi- 
 ples of government, which were embodied in the "Declaration" for 
 which he had struggled and the " Independence " which he had 
 achieved. 
 
 May we not safely say that Washington refused a crown which he 
 might have grasped, and that we are to-day enjoying the fruits of his 
 exalted patriotism ? 
 
 I wish, Mr. Speaker, I might dwell upon this memorable letter, but 
 time forbids, and I must pass on. 
 
 The position taken by Washington convinced the Army that what- 
 ever might be done in the future for a redress of their grievances 
 would have to be done without his knowledge. The language of his 
 letter, strong though it was, did not allay the public mutterings. A 
 delegation of three officers had been sent to lay before Congress the 
 hardships of the troops and urge relief. It returned without success. 
 On the loth of March, 1783, an anonymous paper was circulated 
 through the camp, calling a meeting the next day to take into consid- 
 eration proper measures for the enforcement of the rights so unjustly 
 withheld by Congress. The meeting was to be one of officers ; one 
 from each company and a delegate from the medical staffi With a 
 view to inflame their passions, an anonymous address was privately 
 
14 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 circulated. This address was couched in such stirring language, 
 and portrays so vividly the situation of the Army, that I beg atten- 
 tion while I quote from it : 
 
 After a pursuit of seven long years [observed the writer] the object for which 
 we set out is at length brought within our reach. Yes, my friends, that suffering 
 courage of yours was active once ; it has conducted the United States of America 
 through a doubtful and bloody war; it has placed her in the chair of independ- 
 ency, and peace returns to bless — whom? A country willing to redress your 
 wrongs, cherish your worth, and reward your services; a country courting your 
 return to private life with tears of gratitude and smiles of admiration, longing 
 to divide with you that independency which your gallantry has given and those 
 riches which your wounds have preserved ? Is this the case ? Or is it rather a 
 country that tramples upon your rights, disdains your cries, and insults your dis- 
 tresses ? Have you not more than once suggested your wishes and made known 
 your wants to Congress — wants and wishes which gratitude and policy should have 
 anticipated rather than evaded? And have you not lately, in the meek language 
 of entreating memorials, begged from their justice what you could no longer expect 
 from their favor? How have you been answered? Let the letter which you are 
 called upon to consider to-morrow make reply. 
 
 If this, then, be your treatment while the swords you wear are necessary for the 
 defense of America, what have you to expect from peace, when your voice shall 
 sink and your strength dissipate by division ; when those very swords, the instru- 
 ments and companions of your glory, shall be taken from your sides, and no remain- 
 ing mark of military distinction left but your wants, infirmities, and scars ? Can 
 you then consent to be the only sufferers by this Revolution, and, retiring from the 
 field, grow old in poverty, wretchedness, and contempt? Can you consent to wade 
 through the vile mire of dependency, and owe the miserable remnant of that life 
 to cnarity which has hitherto been spent in honor? If you can, go, and carry 
 with you the jest of Tories and the scorn of Whigs; the ridicule and, what is 
 worse, the pity of the world ! Go starve, and be forgotten ! But if your spirits 
 should revolt at this ; if you have sense enough to discover and spirit sufficient to 
 oppose tyranny, under whatever garb it may assume — whether it be the plain coat 
 of republicanism or the splendid robe of royalty^if you have yet learned to dis- 
 criminate between a people and a cause, between men and principles, awake, 
 attend to your situation, and redress yourselves ! If the present moment be lost, 
 every future effort is in vain ; and your threats then will be as empty as your 
 entreaties now. 
 
 The danger of an appeal like this in the then inflamed state of 
 public opinion may be readily imagined. As soon as the paper was 
 brought to the attention of General Washington he took means to 
 counteract its effect. He knew that the feeling of discontent was 
 too deep-seated to be checked, and, with his usual circumspection, 
 he concluded at once to take the movement in hand and direct 
 
Washington Monument at Nezvburgh^ N. Y. 15 
 
 its course. He therefore issued a general order calling the officers 
 together for substantially the same purpose, but changing the day from 
 the nth to the 15th of March. This would allow time for reflection 
 and afford opportunity for preparation. On the day appointed the 
 officers gathered at the designated meeting place. The building in 
 which they met was called the " Temple." This was a more impos- 
 ing edifice than some writers suppose. It was not a mere " log 
 structure with a barrack roof," as some have assumed, but a framed 
 building, described by General Heath in his " Memoirs" as being 
 " handsomely finished, with a spacious hall, sufficient to contain a 
 brigade of troops on Lord's days, with an orchestra (or gallery) at 
 one end" and vaulted ceiling. At either end of this hall were rooms 
 for quartermaster and commissary departments, meetings for officers, 
 etc., and " on the top was a cupola and flag-staff." It stood in the 
 present town of New Windsor, some five miles back of Newburgh. 
 General Washington, on the recommendation of Chaplain Evans, 
 first approved its erection, and it was subsequently carried to com- 
 pletion by General Gates. It was used for worship on the Sabbath, 
 for meetings during the week, occasionally for festive purposes, and 
 sometimes by the masonic fraternity. It was in the Temple also that 
 the officers met and established the Society of the Cincinnati. At its 
 door the proclamation of peace, of which I shall presently speak, was 
 read to the troops. In speaking of this building, the historian has 
 aptly said : 
 
 This spot is consecrated by one of the loftiest exhibitions of true patriotism with 
 which our Revolutionary history abounds. Here love of country and devotion to 
 exalted principles achieved a wonderful triumph over the seductive power of self 
 and individual interest, goaded into rebellion against higher motives by the lash 
 of apparent injustice and personal suffering. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the resolution has in view the reconstruction of the 
 Temple in its original simplicity. The cost of purchasing the ground 
 and erecting the building will be quite inconsiderable. 
 
 But let us return to our story. The meeting in the Temple took 
 place on Saturday, the 15th of March, 1783. Washington had not 
 been idle during the few previous days. He had taken the officers 
 aside one by one, and cautioned them against intemperate resolu- 
 tions. When the meeting organized General Gates occupied the 
 chair. Washington arose, and, remarking that he had committed 
 
16 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 his sentiments to writing, began to read from the manuscript. He 
 had not gone far when he halted. He took out his spectacles, and, 
 while adjusting them to their place, remarked that he had grown 
 gray in their service, and now found himself growing blind. He 
 then proceeded with his address, which was intended to smooth 
 the troubled waters and restore confidence. But let him speak for 
 himself: 
 
 If my conduct heretofore [said he] has not evinced to you that I have been a 
 faithful friend to the Army, my declaration of it at this time would be equally un- 
 availing and improper. But as I was among the first who embarked in the cause 
 of our common country ; as I have never left your side one moment but when 
 called from you on public duty ; as I have been the constant companion and wit- 
 ness of your distresses and not among the last to feel and acknowledge your 
 merits ; as I have ever considered my own military reputation as inseparably con- 
 nected with that of the Army; as my heart has ever expanded with joy when I 
 have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen when the mouth of detrac- 
 tion has been opened against it, it can scarcely be supposed at this last stage of 
 the war that I am indifferent to its interests. 
 
 After recalling the cheerful obedience of the Army at all times, he 
 went on to say : 
 
 Let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures which, 
 viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity and sully the glory you 
 have hitherto maintained. Let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of 
 your country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Con- 
 gress ; that, previous to your dissolution as an army, they will cause all your 
 accounts to be fairly liquidated, as directed in the resolutions which were published 
 to you two days ago; and that they will adopt the most effectual measures in their 
 power to render ample justice to you for your faithful and meritorious services; 
 and let me conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your 
 own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the 
 military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and 
 detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretenses, to overturn the 
 liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the flood-gates of 
 civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood. 
 
 This patriotic and stirring appeal had its effect. Major Shaw, of 
 the Army, who was present, thus writes of it : 
 
 Happy for America that she has a patriot Army, and equally so that Washington 
 is its leader. I rejoice in the opportunities I have had of seeing this great man in 
 a variety of situations ; calm and intrepid when the battle raged, patient and per- 
 severing under the pressure of misfortune ; moderate and possessing himself in 
 the full career of victory. Great as these qualifications deservedly render him, 
 
Washington Monument at Newburgh^ N. Y. 17 
 
 he never appeared to me more truly so than at the assembly we have been speak- 
 ing of. On other occasions he has been supported by the exertions of an ormy 
 and the countenance of his friends, but on tliis he stood single and alone. There 
 was no saying where the passions of an army, which were not a little inflamed, 
 might lead; but it was generally allowed that further forbearance was dangerous, 
 and moderation had ceased to be a virtue. Under these circumstances he ap- 
 peared, not at the head of his troops, but, as it were, in opposition to them; and 
 for a dreadful moment the interests o^ the Army and its general seemed to be in 
 competition. He sp^oke ; every doubt was dispelled, and the tide of patriotism 
 rolled again in its wonted course. Illustrious man ! What he says of the Army 
 may with equal justice be applied to his own character : " Had this day been 
 wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human 
 nature is capable of attaining." 
 
 Mr. Speaker, by this prompt and vigorous action the tide which 
 was fast setting toward anarchy was turned back. As soon as Wash- 
 ington left the building, which he did upon completing his address, 
 General Knox quickly moved and General Rufus Putnam seconded 
 resolutions of confidence in their commander and trust in Congress, 
 which were unanimously carried. Thus ended another of those 
 critical periods in our Revolution when a misstep might have precipi- 
 tated untold miseries and turned the fate of a nation. 
 
 We come now to another of those interesting events which we 
 propose to commemorate at the approaching centennial. After the 
 victory at Yorktown, as already observed, the Army went into winter 
 quarters in New Windsor, with headquarters at Newburgh, and there 
 it remained about a year and a half. Yorktown had substantially 
 ended the war, but before disbanding the Army it was necessary to 
 settle on the terms of peace. These were the subject of negotiation 
 at Paris, and great delay occurred in their satisfactory arrangement. 
 Washington was extremely anxious to hold the troops together, from 
 fear that if the peace negotiations should fail it would be impossible 
 to re-assemble them when once dispersed. Finally the preliminary 
 treaty was signed, and Congress issued its proclamation suspending 
 hostilities. It was received by Washington on the 17th of April, 
 1783, at his headquarters at Newburgh. 
 
 The building in which he had established his headquarters in the 
 early part of the previous year is deserving of a passing notice. It is 
 one of the most quaint and remarkable structures in the country. 
 Built of rough stone, with a low Dutch roof, on a bluff overhanging the 
 Hudson, it attracts the attention of the millions who travel up and 
 H. Mis. 601 2 
 
18 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 down the river. The ulterior is no less remarkable. The huge open 
 fire-places and the room with seven doors and one window excite 
 the surprise of the visitor. It is surrounded now by a beautiful park, 
 kept at all times in the best of order. The property is owned by 
 the State of New York, and is managed by a board of trustees, com- 
 posed of citizens of Newburgh. The trustees have gathered here a 
 large number of valuable and rare Revolutionary manuscripts and 
 relics, mainly by bequest from Mr. Enoch Carter, the catalogue of 
 which fills about seventy-five pages. The board of trustees are 
 required to preserve the building in the precise condition it w^as when 
 occupied by Washington, and to maintain a flag-staff, with a flag, 
 upon which must be inscribed the words, " Liberty and Union, now 
 and forever, one and inseparable." 
 
 This is the building in which Washington opened the packet froir 
 Congress containing the proclamation of peace. The next day h{ 
 issued the following order : 
 
 Headquarters, Newburgh, April i8, 1783. 
 The Commander-in-Chief orders the cessation of hostilities between the United 
 States of America and the King of Great Britain to be publicly proclaimed to- 
 morrow at 12 o'clock at the new building, and that the proclamation which will 
 be communicated herewith will be read to-morrow evening at the head of every 
 regiment and corps of the Army ; after which the chaplain will render thanks to 
 Almighty God for all His mercies, particularly for His overruling the wrath of man 
 to His own glory and causing the rage of war to cease among the nations. 
 
 The " new building " referred to in this order was the Temple of 
 which I have already spoken. In conformity to the order, the proc- 
 lamation was read to the Army on the 19th day of April, 1783 — ^just 
 eight years to a day after the battle of Lexington. It is a remarkable 
 coincidence that the war of the Revolution should have begun and 
 ended on the same day of the month. The day is thus doubly noted 
 in our national calendar. 
 
 On the 19th day of April, 1783, there was great rejoicing. The 
 people mingled with the soldiers in expressing their congratulations. 
 The discharge of cannon and muskets was kept up during the day, 
 and when night came the mountains blazed with signal-fires. Shouts 
 and singing of a happy and disenthralled people were heard in every 
 direction. Joy reigned supreme. Washington was quick to appre- 
 ciate the enthusiasm of the populace, and that it might have full 
 vent he resolved to set aside a day in the following week for a further 
 
U\islii)iglon Alonnniciil at Ncivburgh^ N. Y. 19 
 
 celebration. He issued the following order, which has just been 
 discovered, and never saw print until recently : 
 
 Hkadquartkrs, Nkwhukch, April i(), 1783. 
 To erect a frame-work for an illumination, the several corps of the cantonment 
 are to square and deliver at the new building on Monday next the following pieces 
 of timber, namely : 
 
 Maryland Detachment, 2 pieces, 30 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Jersey Regiment, 5 pieces, 30 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Jersey Battalion, 2 pieces, 30 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 First New York Regiment, 2 pieces, 30 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Second New York Regiment, 3 pieces, 30 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Hampshire Regiment, 8 pieces, 18 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Hampshire Battalion, 3 pieces, 18 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 First Massachusetts Regiment, 9 pieces, 18 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, 8 pieces, iS feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Seventh Massachusetts Regiment, 4 pieces, 18 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Seventh Massachusetts Regiment, 4 pieces, 19 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Second Massachusetts Regiment, 8 pieces, 19 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Fifth Massachusetts Regiment, 4 pieces, 19 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Fifth Massachusetts Regiment, 8 pieces, 8 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Eighth Massachusetts Regiment, 16 pieces, 8 feet long 7 inches square. 
 
 Third Massachusetts Regiment, 2 pieces, 14 feet long 3 inches square. 
 
 Third Massachusetts Regiment, 3 pieces, 15 feet long 3 inches square. 
 
 Third Massachusetts Regiment, 6 pieces, 11 feet long 3 inches square. 
 
 The different detachments at once betook themselves with their 
 axes to the woods. Trees were felled, squared, and hauled to the 
 Temple, where they were erected into a huge frame for the display 
 of fire-works and hanging of lanterns. The celebration surpassed 
 the previous one. The people went wild with joy. There was 
 music in the Temple, and dancing was kept up till a late hour. 
 The noise of fire-arms was incessant and deafening. One who was 
 a witness of the scene has written : 
 
 The mountain sides resounded and echoed like tremendous peals of thunder, 
 and the Hashing from thousands of fne-arms in the darkness of the evening was 
 like unto vivid flashes of lightning from the clouds. 
 
 This is the way, Mr. Speaker, in which the war-worn veterans of 
 1783 celebrated the proclamation of peace. How shall we, their 
 descendants, now reaping the full benefit of their noble efforts, with 
 an overflowing Treasury, celebrate it in 1883 ? 1 await, and I must 
 say I await in confidence, the vote on the pending resolution for an 
 answer to the question. 
 
20 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 I have already said, Mr. Speaker, that the whole Army had gone 
 into camp at Newburgh and vicmity. The encampment, as it was 
 called, had been marked out by General Heath. The ground which 
 it occupied is now used as ordinary farm land. The quarters for the 
 soldiers consisted of log huts, built on the slope of the hill, with reg- 
 ular streets, to facilitate access from one section to another. General 
 Heath says the encampment was "regular and beautiful," and Chas- ' 
 tellux says the "huts were wooden houses, well built and well covered, 
 having garrets, and even cellars." The subordinate officers were pro- 
 vided with barracks near the Temple. The commanding generals 
 had their headquarters within a radius of five miles. General Gates, 
 who was in command, had his headquarters at the Ellison House, 
 and Baron Steuben had his headquarters at Fishkill, within convenient 
 distance. These various houses are yet in a good state of preserva- 
 tion and are the objects of increasing interest to tourists. 
 
 The troops occupying the encampment embraced detachments 
 from all the Northern States. It has been said that New Jersey was 
 not represented, because of a law that forbade the encampment of 
 New Jersey men on other than their own territory. But I think this 
 is a mistake. The recently-discovered order, which I have read, 
 assigns to the Jersey Battalion and the Jersey Regiment the squaring 
 of a certain number of logs before the following Monday. This 
 assignment of labor would not have been made unless there had been 
 on the ground Jersey men to comply with the direction. The only 
 Southern States represented were Maryland and Virginia. 
 
 It will be remembered that the Army occupied the encampment 
 for about a year and a half. During this time many of the soldiers 
 died. They were buried on a slight elevation to the east of the 
 Temple. The spot is yet well marked by the raised hillocks, although 
 overgrown with trees. The site of the old encampment, Mr. Speaker, 
 is indeed hallowed ground. No spot on this continent is so replete 
 with Revolutionary interest; none so consecrated by patriotic asso- 
 ciations. Here yet may be seen the broken walls of the commis- 
 sary store-house and the rude flagging which formed the hearth-stones 
 of the sheltering huts. Here also is to be found the mounded earth, 
 devoid of head-stone, yet speaking in silent tones of the patriot dead. 
 The ruthless plow has thus far spared their graves. Let us, by our 
 action to-day, preserve this God's acre from future desecration. Let 
 us repair the nation's neglect. Let us do a simple act of justice. 
 
Washington Monument at Neivbiirgh^ N. V. 21 
 
 already too long delayed, to the veterans who yielded their lives on 
 the altar of their country's freedom. Let us, from this time forth, 
 guard the sacred spot with zealous care, and leave it as a monu- 
 ment of love and veneration to our children and our children's 
 children. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I speak with feeling on this subject. This historic 
 ground is in view of my own humble home at the foot of the Corn- 
 wall Mountains. Living as I do within rifle range of the old en- 
 campment, it is but natural I should feel the impulse and influence 
 of these grand associations. Upon the farm I till I have upturned 
 with the plow cannon-balls which were discharged a century ago. 
 The road which fronts my residence is the same old Revolutionary 
 road over which the victorious Army marched on its way from York- 
 town to New Windsor. But a mile distant, on the mountain side, still 
 flows the " Continental Spring," where the Army halted to quench its 
 thirst. Surrounded by such associations I am constantly reminded 
 of the men of the days gone by. I glory in their deeds. I am 
 moved by the same sentiment which Sallust says actuated Quintus 
 Maximus and Publius Scipio : Ci/m majorum imagines intuerentur, 
 vehementissime sibi animum ad vinutem accendi : " When they beheld 
 the images of their ancestors, their minds were strongly incited to 
 deeds of honor." 
 
 I now propose, Mr. Speaker, to consider another event occurring 
 at this place in 1783, which will come in for its share of attention 
 during the centennial ceremonies of next year. I refer to the dis- 
 bandment of the Army. This occurred practically by furloughs 
 immediately following the proclamation of April 19. Under this 
 order regiments and battalions in whole bodies left the encampment 
 until the 2 2d of June, when, by Washington's order, the remainder, 
 consisting of short-term men and numbering less than one thousand, 
 were marched to West Point, and the encampment broken up. The 
 buildings were soon after sold by auction, and finally Washington 
 followed on the i8th of August. Rapid as was this disintegration, 
 it was not the less filled with touching incidents. Tradition tells us 
 that Washington addressed his old and faithful guard at headquarters 
 and parted with them in tears on the 9th of June. Drawn from the 
 regiments by detail for that service, they were furloughed with their 
 commands, and were not again on duty. Other accounts come to 
 us more immediately from the encampment proper. Although not a 
 
22 TJic Centennial Celebration and 
 
 personal witness, Dr. Thacher's statement is regarded as of authority 
 in his description of some of the parting scenes. He writes : 
 
 No description would be adetjuate to the painful circumstances of the parting. 
 * * * Both officers anil soldiers, long unaccustomed to the affairs of private 
 life, turned loose on the world to starve and to become the prey to vulture specu- 
 lators. Never can that melancholy day be forgotten when friends, companions for 
 seven long years in joy and in sorrow, were torn asunder without the hope of ever 
 meeting again and with prospects of a miserable subsistence in future. 
 
 Major North, who was a participant, says : 
 
 The inmates of the same tent or hut for seven long years grasped each other's 
 hands in silent agony, to go, they knew not whither. All recollection of the art 
 to thrive by civil occupation lost, or to the youthful never known ; their hard- 
 earned military knowledge worse than useless; and with their badge of brother- 
 hood, a mark at which to point the finger of suspicion — ignoble, vile suspicion ! — 
 to be cast out on a world long since by them forgotten ; severed from friends and 
 all the joys and griefs which soldiers feel ! Griefs, while hope remained ; when 
 shared by numbers, almost joy ! To go in silence and alone and poor and hope- 
 less, it was too hard ! On that sad day, how many hearts were wrung ! I .saw it 
 all, nor will the scene be ever blurred or blotted from my view. 
 
 Baron Steuben's letter, recently published in Kapp's life of that 
 illustrious general, is also in testimony, and may be referred to with 
 profit. It may be added that the Army was never re-assembled. 
 Those on furlough were discharged at their homes, under proclama- 
 tion of Congress of October 18. A small detachment remained in 
 garrison at West Point and other posts, but beyond these the Army 
 of the Revolution had, long prior to November 3, the day fixed for 
 the final termination of its period of service, " passed from mortal 
 sight into immortal history." 
 
 It has been suggested that making the appropriation asked for by 
 this resolution will be establishing a bad precedent; that the Treasury 
 will be called upon in the future for numerous projects of a kindred 
 nature. My answer to that is, the events now about to be commem- 
 orated were the closing events of the Revolution, and furnish the 
 last opportunity for a centennial celebration until another hundred 
 years have rolled by. My further answer is, the precedent, whether 
 good or bad, has been too frequently made in favor of such appro- 
 priations to be now departed from. 
 
 The first instance will be found in the action of the Continental 
 Congress, away back in 1776, when 5300 were voted for a monument 
 
X'f>:^^'^- 
 
 Washington Parting with his Guard at Headquarters, June 7, 1783. 
 
Washmgton Monument at Newbiirgh^ N. V. 23 
 
 to General Montgomery. The following year similar appropriations 
 were made in honor of General Warren, General Wooster, General 
 Herkimer, and General Nash. In 1780 like action was taken in 
 behalf of Baron de Kalb In 1781 Congress passed appropriations 
 for monuments to Brigadier-General Davidson, Brigadier-General 
 Scriven, and General Nathaniel Greene. In the same year Congress 
 passed the resolution relating to Yorktown. which, after slumbering a 
 century, was executed through the legislation of the Forty-sixth Con- 
 gress. Coming down to more recent years, and passing over the 
 intervening ones for which I have made no search, we find that 
 Congress has appropriated, for Groton Heights, $5,000 to repair 
 monument and $5,000 for celebration; for Cowpens, $20,000 for a 
 monument; for Saratoga, $30,000; for Bennington, $40,000; for 
 Yorktown, $20,000 for celebration and $100,000 for monument. 
 
 The action of Congress on these various occasions met with uni- 
 versal favor. Public sentiment approved it, and so it will always 
 be. The great American heart will never fail to respond to the 
 claims of patriotism. The reverence it feels for the men of the Rev- 
 olution and their noble deeds will strengthen as time rolls on, and 
 the day is coming when every important event, from Lexington to 
 Yorktown, will be marked with its appropriate monument ; and it is 
 right that it should be so. Horatio Seymour has aptly said : 
 
 No people ever held lasting power or greatness who did not reverence the 
 virtues of their fathei-s, or who did not show forth this reverence by material 
 and striking testimonials. 
 
 The feeling which prompts to these commemorations is instinctive 
 to the human race. It is not peculiar to any nationality. All nations 
 in all ages have yielded to it. In very early times cairns were built 
 to mark the site of decisive battles, and ballads were composed de- 
 scriptive of important events. In Greece, the anniversaries of heroes 
 were celebrated by libations, sacrifices, and crowning of their tombs 
 with garlands. With like intent were erected the obelisks of Egypt, 
 with their memorial inscriptions; also the sculptured halls of Ninevah. 
 The Jews have celebrated the deliverance of the Hebrew nation for 
 over three thousand years with their annual Passover. Draco, whose 
 laws are said to have been written in blood, as typical of their sever- 
 ity, ordained it to be a sacred and inviolable law to pay public hom- 
 age to the national heroes. 
 
24 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 But why, Mr. Speaker, should I multiply instances? We all of us 
 know, we all of us feel in the bottom of our hearts, that in voting the 
 appropriation asked for in this resolution we are doing what is right 
 and proper. We are simply stopping by the wayside, as it were, in 
 this weary pilgrimage of life to gather garlands for the brow of him 
 who was " First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his 
 countrymen." 
 
 The joint resolution, as amended, was ordered to be 
 engrossed and read a third time; and, being engrossed, it 
 was accordingly read the third time and passed. 
 
 On the same day, to wit, June 13, 1882, the joint resolu- 
 tion was, in the Senate, read twice by its title and referred 
 to the Committee on Military Affairs. 
 
 This committee was composed as follows: Hon. John A. 
 Logan of Illinois, Hon. James Donald Cameron of Pennsyl- 
 vania, Hon. Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, Hon. William 
 J. Sewell of New Jersey, Hon. Joseph R. Hawley of Con- 
 necticut, Hon. Francis M. Cockrell of Missouri, Hon. 
 Samuel B, Maxey of Texas, Hon. La Fayette Grover of 
 Oregon, Hon. Wade Hampton of South Carolina. 
 
 On June 20, 1882, the following proceedings took place 
 in the Senate: 
 
 Mr. Hawley. I am instructed by the Committee on Military 
 Affairs, to whom was referred the joint resolution authorizing the 
 Secretary of War to erect at Washington's Headquarters, in the city 
 of Newburgh, New York, a memorial column, and to aid in defray- 
 ing the expenses of the centennial celebration to be held at that city 
 in the year 1883, to make a favorable report thereon; and I ask that 
 it be put upon its passage. 
 
 By unanimous consent, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, 
 proceeded to consider the joint resolution, 
 
 Mr. Hawley. This joint resolution has passed the House and 
 is unanimously recommended by the committee of the Senate. Let 
 
IVashington Motutmcnt at NcivburgJi^ N. V. 25 
 
 me say, in justification, that the private citizens of Newburgh have 
 raised a considerable sum ; the city has voted $5,000, the State of 
 New York has given $15,000, and they ask this contribution from 
 the United States. They desire to purchase the grave-yard, which 
 is without mark or stone, in which all the soldiers of the Revolu- 
 tionary war who died there during a year and a half are buried. 
 They desire to inclose it and to have a proper and suitable monu- 
 ment. 
 
 The joint resolution was reported to the Senate without amend- 
 ment, ordered to a third reading, read the third time, and passed. 
 
 The preamble was agreed to. 
 
 On July 8, 1882, the following proceedings took place : 
 
 The President pro tempore. The Chair desires to make an an- 
 nouncement. Under the joint resolution authorizing the Secretary 
 of War to erect at Washington's Headquarters, in the city of New- 
 burgh, New York, a memorial column, and to aid in defraying the 
 expenses of the centennial celebration to be held in that city in the 
 year 1883, the President of the Senate was authorized to appoint 
 five Senators; and he appoints Mr. Hawley, Mr. Miller of New 
 Vork, Mr. Hill of Colorado, Mr. Bayard, and Mr. Hampton, the 
 committee on the part of the Senate to attend the celebration. 
 
 On the same day the Speaker appointed Mr. Beach of 
 New York, Mr. Curtin of Pennsylvania, Mr. Burrows of 
 Michigan, Mr. Knott of Kentucky, Mr. Ketcham of New 
 York, Mr. Townsend of Ohio, Mr. Ellis of Louisiana, and 
 Mr. Ranney of Massachusetts, on the part of the House. 
 
 The joint select committee met in the room of the Senate 
 Committee on Military Affairs, and organized by the elec- 
 tion of Mr. Beach as permanent chairman, and Mr. Ketcham 
 as .secretary. An executive committee was aj^pointed, 
 consisting of Senators Miller, Hawley, and Bayard, and 
 Representatives Curtin and Ketcham. 
 
 After perfecting its organization, the committee adjourned 
 subject to the call of the chairman. 
 
26 The Centennial Celebration ancf 
 
 At a subsequent meeting, held at the residence of Senator 
 Miller, in Washington, on December 20, 1882, it was 
 resolved that Hon. William M. Evarts, of New York, be 
 requested to deliver the oration on the occasion of the cele- 
 bration. 
 
 In pursuance of such resolution, the chairman of the 
 committee communicated with Mr. Evarts, and received 
 from him the following reply : 
 
 New York, Z>cr(f////^(?;' 23, 1882. 
 
 My Dear Sir : I had the honor yesterday to receive from you, as 
 chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee ujjon the Nevvburgh 
 Centennial, the announcement that, by the unanimous vote of that 
 committee, I had been selected as orator for the occasion. 
 
 Profoundly sensible of the honor which the committee has done me 
 by their choice, and impressed with the great historical and political 
 interest of the transaction which this celebration is to commemorate, 
 it gives me great pleasure to accept the appointment and undertake 
 the service to which it calls me. 
 
 Please convey to the committee my acknowledgment of the dis- 
 tinction conferred upon me, and believe me, my dear sir, very truly, 
 
 your friend and servant, 
 
 Wm. M. Evarts. 
 Hon. Lewis Beach, 
 
 Chairman, etc. 
 
 The third meeting of the committee was held on the 
 evening of February 7, 18S3, at the residence of Senator 
 Hill, in Washington, and the following is an extract from 
 the minutes of the committee: 
 
 Present: Senators Hill, Hawley, and Miller, and Mem- 
 bers Ranney, Beach, Knott, Ketcham, and Townsend. 
 
 The trustees of Washington's Headquarters and the citi- 
 zens committee of Newburgh were in attendance, repre- 
 sented by Mayor Peter Ward, Hon. Joel T. Headley, Judge 
 M. H. Hirschbergh, and John C. Adams, esq. 
 
Washington Monitmenf at Neivbnrgh, N. Y. 27 
 
 On motion of Mr. Beach, Senator Hawley was chosen 
 chairman pro tempore. 
 
 Mr. Townsend, of Ohio, moved that the chairman of the 
 committee be anthorized to propose and introduce a bill or 
 resolution amendatory of the act of Congress approved 
 July 2, 1882, so as to provide that the full amount (#25,000) 
 appropriated may be expended on the proposed monument. 
 
 Upon being put, the motion was carried with but one dis- 
 senting vote; and thereafter the following resolution was 
 prepared: 
 
 jfoint resolution conceniiiio; the erection of a memorial column at Wash- 
 ingtotih Headquarters, at Newhurgh^ Neiv York. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United 
 States of America in Congress assembled, That sections two and three 
 of the joint resolution of Congress approved July first, eighteen hun- 
 dred and eighty-two, authorizing the Secretary of War to erect at 
 Washington's Headquarters, in the city of Newburgh, New York, a 
 memorial column, and to aid in defraying the expenses of the cen- 
 tennial celebration to be held in that city in the year eighteen hun- 
 dred and eighty-three, be, and the same are hereby, amended so as 
 to read as follows: "That the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, 
 or so much thereof as may be necessary, be, and the same is hereby, 
 appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appro- 
 priated, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of War, in 
 the erection of a suitable monument or column on the grounds belong- 
 ing to the State of New York and known as Washington's Headqua'J- 
 ters, with such inscriptions and emblems as may properly commemo- 
 rate the historical events which occurred at Newburgh and vicinity 
 during the war of the Revolution: Proviiied, That the design for said 
 monument or column, with the inscriptions and emblems to be placed 
 thereon, shall be subject to the approval and adoption of the joint 
 select committee directed to be appointed by the joint resolution to 
 which this is an amendment : And provided further. That no part of 
 the said sum of twenty-five thousand dollars shall be used in defray- 
 mg the expenses of said centennial celebration." 
 
28 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 On February i6, 1883, Hon. Senator Miller introduced 
 the resolution in the Senate, when the proceedings had 
 were as follows: 
 
 Mr. Miller, of New York. I ask leave to introduce a joint reso- 
 lution, and ask for its immediate consideration. If I can have the 
 attention of the Senate I think there will be no objection. 
 
 At the last Congress we passed a joint resolution appropriating 
 $25,000 to defray the expenses of a centennial celebration at New- 
 burgh, New York, at which point the Revolutionary Army was dis- 
 banded. That joint resolution provided that $10,000 should be 
 expended for a monument and $15,000 for the general expenses of 
 the celebradon. The citizens of Newburgh have raised sufficient 
 money to pay the general expenses of the celebration, and they ask 
 of us that we shall put the whole of our money into the monument 
 rather than waste $15,000 of it upon bands of music and processions 
 and fire-works and things of that kind. I have no doubt but that the 
 whole people of the country will be much better satisfied that all of 
 our money shall go into a permanent monument rather than to be 
 used in the ordinary expenses of a celebration. It is necessary that 
 this should pass as soon as possible in order that the work on the 
 monument may be started, and as the celebration is to take place 
 during the coming summer, if the resolution of last year is not amended 
 of course the object can not be arrived at. I think there will be no 
 objection to the resolution. 
 
 I will say that the Secretary of War has been consulted, as the 
 money is to be expended under his direction. This resolution has 
 been drawn by the entire joint commission of the two houses of Con- 
 gress, in connection with the Secretary of War, and it meets his ap- 
 proval. 
 
 The joint resolution (S. R. 138) concerning the erecdon of a memo- 
 rial column at Washington's Headquarters, at Newburgh, New York, 
 was read twice. 
 
 The President pro tempore^ The joint resolution is before the 
 Senate as in Committee of the Whole. 
 
 Mr. Hoar. Let it be either referred or go over. 
 
 Mr. Edmunds. It ought to be printed and referred. I dare say 
 it may be right, but I can see that it ought to be guarded about 
 further expenses. 
 
Washingto)i Moiiiinicnt at Nezcburgh^ N. Y. 29 
 
 Mr. Hawi-Ey. I tliink the joint resolution creating the original com- 
 mission is sufficiently guarded in that respect, and this is simply a 
 modification of that as to the expenditure of the 525,000. We are 
 not permitted to draw on or involve the Government. The prohibi- 
 tion is absolute in the original resolution against involving the Gov- 
 ernment in any expense whatever beyond the sum appropriated. 
 
 Mr. Edmunds. That I have no doubt is so; but this is a new joint 
 resolution, and it is not clear to my mind that it possesses the same 
 guards that the original did; and, secondly, it is not clear to my mind 
 that there ought to be not only a statement that this does not involve 
 the Government in any further expense, but that this sum of money 
 shall be applied in such a way as to make an end of the monument; 
 that it is to be kept within the appropriation and that the Secretary 
 shall not spend any of it unless he gets the work all done for this. It 
 may be all right on looking at it, but we had better look at it to be 
 sure. 
 
 Mr. Hawley. I have no objection to making that absolutely cer- 
 tain. 
 
 Mr. Edmunds. We have had so much unfortunate experience, not 
 only about monuments, but about other structures where we thought 
 we had limited the cost, that I think it is well to be careful. 
 Mr. Hawley. There is no objection to any guard. 
 Mr. Miller, of New York. If the Senator from Vermont desires 
 it I will let the resolution go to the Military Committee and let it 
 come back, or let it simply lie on the table to be called up hereafter. 
 Mr. Harris. I suggest that it ought to go to the Committee on 
 Appropriations. 
 
 The Presiding Officer. If there be no objection the joint reso- 
 lution will be referred to the Committee on Appropriations. The 
 Chair hears no objection to that reference, and it is so ordered. 
 
 On February 21, 1883, the following proceedings were 
 had in the Senate: 
 
 Mr. Hawley. The Committee on Military Affairs, to which was 
 referred the joint. resolution (S. R. 138) concerning the erection of a 
 memorial column at Washington's Headquarters at Newburgh, New 
 York, have instructed me to report it favorably and without amend- 
 ment, and I request its immediate consideration. 
 
30 TJic Ce}ite)i)iial Lelebratioi and 
 
 The committee unanimously reported the resolution. It is in alter- 
 ation of a resolution passed last July, which aopropriated $25,000. 
 So we are not asking for any more money. Ten thousand dollars of it 
 was to be devoted to a monument and the remainder to the purchase 
 of certain ground and the expense of the celebration. The commit- 
 tee of Congress charged with a partial supervision of the matter 
 thought it better to devote the whole $25,000 to the monument, 
 and leave the expense of the celebration and the other local mat- 
 ters to the State of New York and the Newburgh local committee. 
 That committee and the Congressional committee, in conference with 
 the Secretary of War, decided upon this division of the labor. We 
 recommend that the entire sum given last July be devoted to the 
 monument, and New York State and the city of Newburgh will then 
 take care of the local purchases and of the celebration. 
 
 By unanimous consent, the Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, 
 proceeded to consider the joint resolution. 
 
 The joint resolution was reported to the Senate without amend- 
 ment, ordered to be engrossed for a third reading, read the third time, 
 and passed. 
 
 At 9.30 o'clock on Sunday morning, March 4, 1883, the 
 last day of the Forty-seventh Congress, the following pro- 
 ceedings took place in the House : 
 
 The recess having expired, the House re-assembled at 9.30 o'clock 
 a. m. 
 
 Mr. TowNSENi), of Ohio. I ask unanimous consent to make a 
 statement to the House for two minutes. 
 
 Mr. HoLMAN. On the condition that that sliall make no change in 
 the status of the pending question. 
 
 Mr. Anderson. I rise to make a parliamentary inquiry. 
 
 The Speaker. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Townsend] will 
 state what his purpose is. 
 
 Mr. Townsend, of Ohio. I will state my jjurpose, and then will 
 make my request known to the House. 
 
 Congress, at its last session, passed a joint resolution appropriating 
 $25,000 to pay for a monument and centennial celebration at New- 
 burgh, New York, Washington's Headquarters. The terms of that 
 resolution were such as to appropriate $10,000 for the monument 
 
Washington Monnnioit at Neivbiirgh^ N. V. 31 
 
 and ^15,000 for the other incidents connected with the celebration. 
 The committee in charge of the work and also the Secretary of War 
 desire to have that joint resolution so amended as to permit them to 
 use the $25,000 in the erection of the monument, leaving to the 
 State of New York and the citizens of Newburgh the expenditures 
 incident to the celebration. It is a more simple and a more satis- 
 factory method, and puts the national contribution where it would 
 be more permanent and lasting. It is to make that slight change in 
 this resolution that I ask the consent of the House. 
 
 The Speaker. Is it a Senate resolution on which the gentleman 
 desires action ? 
 
 Mr. TowNSEND, of Ohio. It is; it passed the Senate. The Sec- 
 retary of War is anxious it should be so arranged, and I do not know 
 any reason why it should not be. 
 
 The Speaker. The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Townsend] asks 
 unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table for consideration 
 at this time a Senate joint resolution, which the Clerk will read. 
 
 The Clerk read as follows : 
 
 A joint resolution [S. R. 138) concerning the erection of a metnorial column at 
 Washington' s Headquarters, at Newburgh, N'ew York. 
 
 Resolved, etc., That sections 2 and 3 of the joint resolution of Congress ap- 
 proved July I, 1882, authorizing the Secretary of War to erect at Washington's 
 Headquarters, in the city of Newburgh, New York, a memorial column, and to 
 aid in defraying the expenses of the centennial celebration to be held at that 
 city in the year 1883, be, and the same are hereby, amended so as to read as fol- 
 lows : " That the sum of $25,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, be, 
 and the same is hereby, appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not other 
 wise appropriated, to be expended, under the direction of the Secretary of War, 
 in the erection of a suitable monument or column on the grounds belonging to the 
 State of New York, and known as Washington's Headquarters, witli such inscrip- 
 tions and emblems as may properly commemorate the historical events which 
 occurred at Newburgh and vicinity during tlie war of the Revolution : Provided, 
 That the design for said monument or column, with the inscriptions and emblems 
 to be placed thereon, shall be subject to the approval and adoption of the joint 
 select committee directed to be appointed by the joint resolution to which this is 
 an amendment : And provided Jurther, That no part of the said sum of $25,000 
 shall be used in defraying the expenses of said centennial celebration. 
 
 The Speaker. Is there objection to the consideration at this time 
 of the joint resolution which has just been read? 
 
32 The Centoinial Celebration and 
 
 Mr. HoLMAN. I hope the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Townsend] 
 will explain again the purpose of this joint resolution ; repeat briefly 
 his statement in regard to the action of the State of New York touch- 
 ing the other expenses contemplated by the original joint resolution 
 of Congress. 
 
 Mr. Townsend, of Ohio. The State of New York has appropriated, 
 I think, $15,000, and the citizens of Newburgh and the council of 
 Newburgh have appropriated another sum, perhaps ten or fifteen 
 thousand dollars, which amounts they expect will be sufficient to pay 
 for certain outside property and the ordinary expenditures of the cele- 
 bration. 
 
 The terms of the appropriation made by Congress limited the 
 expenditures for the memorial column to $10,000, and the remainder 
 ($15,000) was to be expended for general purposes. The commit- 
 tee thought it would be more satisfactory to the public, after the 
 Yorktown celebration, that the Government should have nothing to 
 do with the ordinary expenses, such as brass-bands, ice-cream, and 
 . all that, but that all the money appropriated by the Government 
 should be expended upon the memorial column, and the citizens of 
 New York think so, too. 
 
 Mr. HoLMAN. That seems to be a very proper measure. 
 
 There being no objection, the joint resolution was taken from the 
 Speaker's table, read three several times, and passed. 
 
 Mr. Townsend, of Ohio, moved to reconsider the vote by which 
 the Senate joint resolution was passed ; and also moved that the 
 motion to reconsider be laid on the table. 
 
 The latter motion was agreed to. 
 
Washington Monument at Newburgh^ N. Y. 33 
 
 LOCAL PROCEEDINGS. 
 
 An account of the initiatory local proceedings connected 
 with the celebration has been furnished by R. V. K. Alont- 
 fort, the secretary of the Newburgh Committee of Five, and 
 is as follows: 
 
 December 6, 1881. — Hon. Joel T. Headley and Hon. 
 James G. Graham appeared, on behalf of the trustees of 
 Washington's Headquarters, before the common council, 
 to urge the city authorities to take action for raising funds 
 for the purpose of defraying the expenses of a centennial 
 celebration to be held at Washington's Headquarters in 
 1883. 
 
 Alderman Doyle offered the following resolution, which 
 was unanimously adopted, all the members (eight) being 
 present : 
 
 Whereas it is especially desirable to ascertain the expression of the 
 tax-payers of the city of Newburgh upon the question of whether or 
 not the Legislature of the State of New York be requested to enact 
 a law empowering the common council of the city to levy and raise a 
 sum of money, not exceeding 35,000, for a centennial celebration at 
 Washington's Headquarters in 1883: Therefore, 
 
 Resolved, That the city clerk be instructed to advertise that such 
 an election will be held at the court-house, in the city of Newburgh, 
 on Wednesday, December 21, i88r, from 9 a. m. to 3 p. m., and that 
 the clerk prepare the necessary ballots. 
 
 The special election was held, pursuant to notice, on 
 
 December 21, 1881, and resulted in a vote in favor of the 
 
 proposed action. 
 
 H. Mis. 601 3 
 
34 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 January i6, 1883. — A meeting of citizens was held, pur- 
 suant to' a call made by the then mayor, the Hon. Abram 
 S. Cassedy; the president of the common council, Richard 
 Sterling, esq. ; and the jjresident of the board of trustees 
 of Washington's Headquarters, the Hon. Joel T. Headley, 
 to arrange for a centennial celebration in 1883. 
 
 A nominating committee of six was appointed, to select 
 and publish the names of a general committee of citizens, to 
 act in conjunction with the mayor, the common council, and 
 the Washington Headquarters Commission, in arranging 
 for a centennial celebration; after which publication the 
 mayor was directed to call a meeting of such general com- 
 mittee of citizens. 
 
 The selection was made, and two hundred and forty-four 
 names were published January 18, 1882. 
 
 January 30, 1882. — The General Committee of Citizens 
 met, j)ursuant to a call by Mayor Cassedy, and the following 
 resolutions were adopted: 
 
 Resolved., That the executive committee on the centennial celebra- 
 tion shall consist of the mayor of the city, four members of the com- 
 mon council to be selected by him, and four of the trustees of 
 Washington's Headquarters to be selected by that board, together 
 with six other citizens to be selected by such officials. 
 
 Resolved., That said executive committee be authorized to appoint 
 such subcommittees as they may deem necessary from time to time, 
 and shall also have power to call meetings of the general committee, 
 and shall be required to call such meetings at any time on the written 
 request of five members of said general committee. 
 
 Resolved, That the said executive committee be requested and 
 empowered to co-operate with the centennial committee already ap- 
 pointed by the town of New Windsor, and such other committees as 
 shall hereafter be appointed by other towns or municipal bodies or 
 other organizations, and to invite such co-operation generally, and 
 
IVashington Monument at Newburgh^ N. Y. 35 
 
 to appoint honorary members of the committee in other parts of this 
 State and of the United States to aid in promoting the centennial 
 celebration of iSS . 
 
 On or before February ii, 1882, this exectitive coininittee 
 was appointed, and on that day their names were duly pub- 
 lished, as follows: 
 
 Hon. Abram S. Cassedy, mayor of the city ; Aldermen Joseph S. 
 Embler of the First ward, J. T. Moore of the Second ward, 13. B. 
 Moore of the Third ward, and Charles A. Harcourt of the Fourth 
 ward. 
 
 Hon. Joel T. Headley, president, and James W. Taylor, E. C. 
 Boynton, and J. H. H. Chapman, trustees, of Washington's Head- 
 quarters. 
 
 Hon. Daniel B. St. John, Selah R. Van Duzer, John D. Van 
 Buren, Alfred Post, and John C. Adams, citizens. 
 
 February 22, 1882. — Hon. John J. S. McCroskery and 
 Hon. James G. Graham were appointed to fill vacancies aris- 
 ing from the declination of Selah R. Van Duzer and John 
 D. Van Buren. 
 
 Two other vacancies occurred from the death of Alfred 
 Post and the expiration of the term of office of Mayor Cassedy. 
 
 September II, 1882. — A meeting of the executive com- 
 mittee was held, at which it was resolved that Hon. Peter 
 Ward (successor to Mayor Cassedy) and four others to be 
 selected by him should constitute a committee, with power 
 to take general charge of the organization of the celebration, 
 to appoint subcommittees, and direct the enterprise. 
 
 The mayor chose as his associates Hon. Joel T. Headley, 
 Hon. John J. S. McCroskery, Hon. M. H. Hirschberg, and 
 John C. Adams, esq. 
 
 The organization of the committee was completed by the 
 appointment of R. V. K. Montfort as secretary, June 4, 1883. 
 
36 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 John C. Adams, esq. , had acted in that capacity up to that 
 date. 
 
 In further aid of the proposed celebration application was 
 made to the Legislature of the State of New York. 
 
 Hon. James Mackin, the Senator representing the New- 
 burgh district, introduced a bill, which was passed. The 
 following is a copy: 
 
 An act making an appropriation toivard tJie expenses of a centennial 
 celebration at and in the vicinity of the ffeadcjuarters of Washington, 
 at Newburgh, in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-three, of the 
 disbandment of the Army of the Revolution and the declaration of 
 peace, and other Revolutionary events^ and for the erection of certain 
 memorial structures. 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
 Assembly, do enact as follows: 
 
 Section i. The sum of fifteen thousand dollars is hereby appro- 
 priated, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, 
 payable on the warrant of the comptroller to the mayor of the city 
 of Newburgh and the president of the board of trustees of Washing- 
 ton's Headquarters at Newburgh, to be expended in aiding to defray 
 the expenses of a centennial celebration, to be held in eighteen hun- 
 dred and eighty-three, at Newburgh and in the vicinity thereof, of the 
 disbandment of the Army of the Revolution and the declaration of 
 peace, and of other important events which occurred during the 
 occupation of said Headfjuarters by Washington and the encampment 
 of said Army in that vicinity. 
 
 Sec. 2. The money hereby appropriated shall be applied, if so di- 
 rected by the executive committee having charge of said celebration, 
 in the purchase, for the State of New York, of certain grounds con- 
 taining the site of a building known in the history of the country as 
 the "Temple," near the place of said encampment, at which certain 
 eventful meetings were held at said period and important addresses 
 of Washington were made; and for the erection of a frame and log 
 building as a counterpart of said building (the "Temple") on said 
 grounds, as a Revolutionary memorial structure; and also toward the 
 
WasJiitigton Mojinmcnt at Neiuburgh^ N. V. 37 
 
 purchase of the burial lot adjacent thereto, in which were interred 
 those soldiers of said Army who died during said encampment; and 
 also to be applied by said executive committee toward the erection 
 of a monumental column on said Headquarters grounds, with appro- 
 priate inscriptions, commemorative of said Revolutionary period. 
 
 Sec. 3. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 Passed June 16, 1882; three-fifths being present. 
 
 With a view to increase the fund for the erection of the 
 monument this act was amended the following year by the 
 passage of an act, of which the following is a copy: 
 
 An act to amend chapter three hundred and fifty-five of the laws of eight- 
 een hundred and eighty -two, entitled ''An act making an appropria- 
 tion toward the expenses of a centennial celebration at and in the 
 vicinity of the Headquarters of Washington, at Newburgh, in the year 
 eighteen hundred and eighty-three, of the disbandment of the Army 
 of the Revolution and the declaration of peace and other Revolutionary 
 events, atid for the erection of certain memorial structures.'' 
 
 The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and 
 Assembly, do enact as follows: 
 
 Section i. Section two of chapter three hundred and fifty-five of 
 the laws of eighteen hundred and eighty-two, entitled "An act mak- 
 ing an appropriation toward the expenses of a centennial celebration 
 at and in the vicinity of the Headquarters of Washington, at New- 
 burgh, in the year eighteen hundred and eighty-three, of the disband- 
 ment of the Army of the Revolution and the declaration of peace, 
 and other Revolutionary events, and for the erection of certain me- 
 morial structures," is hereby amended so as to read as follows : 
 
 Sec 2. The sum often thousand dollars of the money hereby appro- 
 priated shall be paid by the said mayor of the city of Newburgh and 
 the president of the board of trustees of Washington's Headquarters 
 at Newburgh to the Secretary of War of the United States, to be ap- 
 plied by the latter toward the building of the monument to be erected 
 on the grounds of said Washington's Headquarters, and for which 
 the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars has been appropriated by 
 Congress; the balanceof the sum hereby appropriated, viz, five thou- 
 sand dollars, shall be applied by the executive committee having 
 
38 Tlie Centennial Celebration and 
 
 charge of said celebration in defraying the expenses of the ceremonies 
 attending the dedication of said monument, and the general expenses 
 of said centennial celebration. 
 
 Sec. 3. This act shall take effect immediately. 
 
 Passed March 31, 1883; three-fifths being present. 
 
 The ten thousand dollars appropriated by this act were - 
 duly paid over to the Secretary of War, thus making an 
 available fund in his hands of $35,000 for the purposes of the 
 monument. 
 
 During the summer of 1883 the Newburgh Committee 
 of Five was in almost continuous session, devising methods 
 for a fitting celebration of the day. 
 
 Invitations were extended to the President of the United 
 States and the members of his Cabinet ; also as follows : 
 To Senators of the United States ; Representatives in Con- 
 gress ; Justices of the United States Supreme Court ; Gov- 
 ernors of all the States ; Ex- Presidents and Vice-Presidents ; 
 Senators of the State of New York ; Assemblymen of the 
 State of New York ; all the New York State Officers ; 
 Judges of the Court of Appeals of New York ; Justices of 
 the Supreme Court of New York; General Sherman; Lieu- 
 tenant-General Sheridan ; all Major-Generals and Brevet 
 Major-Generals United States Army ; Admiral Cooper; all 
 other Admirals United States Navy ; Mayors of all cities in 
 the State of New York ; Mayors of forty principal cities in 
 the United States ; New York Historical Society ; Order of 
 the Cincinnati. 
 
 All arrangements having been perfected, proclamation 
 was made in the following : 
 
Washington Monnmcnt at Neivburgh^ N. V. 39 
 
 OFFICIAL PROGRAMME. 
 
 NEWBURGH CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION. 
 
 Office of Marshal of the Day, 
 
 Newburgh Centennial Celebration, 
 Nervburgh, October x'j, 1883—12 o'clock noon. 
 At sunrise to-morrow morning Newburgh's Centennial Celebration 
 will be ushered in by the ringing of bells on all public buildings in 
 the city, and by the booming of cannon from Washington's Head- 
 quarters and from vessels anchored in the bay. 
 
 At 9 a. m. yards will be manned on the seven ships composing the 
 fleet of Rear- Admiral Cooper, which will be drawn up in line in front 
 of the city. At the same time an exhibit of Japanese day fire- works 
 will be given. 
 
 At 10 a. m. a simultaneous landing will be effected from every ship 
 of the line, and at 1 1 o'clock three guns, at intervals of twenty 
 seconds, will be fired from the flag-ship as a signal for the moving of 
 the procession, which will be arranged as follows: 
 
 A squad of mounted police ; a platoon of New York City police. 
 Grand Marshal, Cliarles H. Weygant; H. P. Ramsdell, chief of staff. 
 Aids: Thomas W. Bradley, J. Owen Moore, Charles E. Snyder, J. D. Mabie, N. 
 H. Schram, James Heard, Clark B. Gallatian, Norman A. Sly, Charles J. 
 Lyon, Dr. John Deyo, William H. Kelly, John A. McDonnell, Frederick 
 Decker, Charles Mapes, James W. Benedict, Seneca W. Merritt. 
 Buglers, color-bearers, and orderlies. 
 
 FIRST DIVISION. 
 
 Marshal, Brig. Gen. Louis Fitzgerald; staff, bugler, and orderlies. 
 
 Sevetith Regiment, N. G. S. N. }'., of New York City; 700 men. 
 
 Cappa's Seventh Regiment Band, 55 pieces ; drum and bugle corps, 30 pieces. 
 
 Col. Emmons Clark and staff; Lieut. Col. G. M. Smith; Maj. Richard Allison. 
 
 Company C— Capt. Don Alonzo Pollard. 
 
 Company B— Capt. Henry S. Steel. 
 
 Company G— Capt. James C, Abrams. 
 
 Company A— Capt. Augustus W. Conner. 
 
 Company I— Capt. William C. Casey. 
 
 Company E— Capt. George B. Rhodes. 
 
 Company H— Capt. James L. Price. 
 
 Company K— Capt. Francis W. Bacon. 
 
 Company F— Capt. Daniel Appleton. 
 
 Company D— Capt. W. H. Kipp. 
 
40 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 Uniformed Sei'enth Regiment I'eteran Battalion, 250 men. 
 Eiglith Regiment Band, 40 pieces. 
 Col. Locke VV. Winchester ; Lieut. Col. Charles B. Bostvvick ; Maj. John H. Kemp. 
 Company A — Capt. Henry L Hayden. 
 Company B — Capt. John C. Griffing. 
 Company C — Capt. John W. Murray. 
 Company D— Capt. William H. Riblet. 
 Company E — Capt. William A. Speaight. 
 Company F — Capt. Edward O. Bird. 
 Company G — Capt. Lyman Tiffany. 
 Company H — Capt. Henry C. Shumway. 
 Company I — Capt. Edward G. Arthur. 
 Company K — Capt. James Ray. 
 Officers of the day and distinguished guests, in 50 carriages. 
 Peter Ward, mayor of Newburgh, chairman of the committee in charge. 
 Hon. Joel T. Headley, president Washington's Headquarters Commission. 
 Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, presiding officer. 
 Hon. William M. Evarts, orator. 
 Mr. Wallace Bruce, poet. 
 Rev. S. Irenffius Prime, D. D., chaplain. 
 Hon. William E. Chandler, Secretary of the Navy. 
 Hon. Grover Cleveland, Governor of New York, and staff. 
 Major-General Carr and staff. 
 Major-General Shaler and staff. 
 Members of Joint Congressional Committee, viz : Hon. Lewis Beach, Hon. War- 
 ner Miller, Hon. John H. Ketcham, Hon. Joseph R. Hawley, Hon. Andrew 
 G. Curtin, Hon. Amos Townsend. 
 
 Governor Bourn, of Rhode Island, and staff. 
 
 Bvt. Maj. Gen. W. D. Whipple, A. A. G. ; Maj. Asa B. Gardner, judge-advocate; 
 
 Capt. G. .S. L. Ward, aide-de-camp, of General Hancock's staff. 
 
 Common Council of the City of Newburgh. 
 
 Delegates of the Society of the Cincinnati and 100 distinguished guests. 
 
 SECOND DIVISION. 
 Marshal, William D. Dickey; Howard Thornton, chief of staff. 
 Aids: Bartholomew B. Moore, Augustus Senior, Eugene A. Brewster, jr., Albert 
 N. Chambers, G. Gartzman, M. D., G. Fred. Wiltsie, J. S. Wiseman, E. A. 
 Brown, George H. Clark, Kelsey FuUagar, James Ogden. 
 
 Battalion Fifth United States Artillery, dismounted. 
 Governor's Island Band. 
 Bvt. Brig. Gen. R. H. Jackson, commanding. 
 Company A — Bvt. Lieut. Col. B. Beck, captain. 
 Company B — Capt. N. E. Van Reed. 
 Company I — Capt. G. W. Crabb. 
 Company M — Capt. G. V. Wier. 
 
IVasJungton Mo)iumc)it at Ne^vbiirgJi^ N. Y. 41 
 
 JVava/ Brigade, from North Atlantic Squadron ; 800 men. 
 Marine Band, 20 pieces. 
 Pioneer Corps. 
 Commander A. V. Reed, U. S. N., commandinj,^ brigade; Lieut. C. E. Callahan, 
 U. S. N., adjutant-general. 
 Marine Battalion— Capt. W. S. Muse, U. S. M. C, commanding. 
 Infantry Battalion (sailors)— Lieut. R. P. Rodgers, U. S. N., commanding. 
 Artillery Battalion— Lieut. G. W. Tyler, U. S. N., commanding. 
 Rear-Admiral G. H. Cooper, staff, and officers of fleet, in carriages. 
 Tenth Separate Company, N. G. S. N. Y., of Newburgh ; Capt. Joseph M. Dickey, 
 
 and 40 men. 
 Tenth Regiment Band, of Albany, 24 pieces. 
 Putnam Phalanx Battalion, of Hartford, 125 men. 
 Battalion Drum Corps, 14 pieces. 
 Alvin Squires, major commanding ; Henry B. Taylor, adjutant. 
 First Company— Capt. C. A. Case. 
 Second Company — Capt. Joseph Warner. 
 Honorary Corps — Capt. J. W. Welch. 
 Nineteenth Separate Company, N. G. S. N. Y., Poughkeepsie; Capt. Haubennestel ; 
 60 men ; drum corps. 
 Twenty-third Regiment, N. G. S. N. V., of Brooklyn, 550 men. 
 Twenty-third Regiment Band, 50 pieces; fife and bugle corps, 20 pieces. 
 Col. Rodney C. Ward ; Lieut. Col. J. B. Frothingham; Maj. C. L. Fincke. 
 Company G— Capt. Alfred H. Williams. 
 Company E— Capt. Arthur Guthrie. 
 Company H— Capt. Alexis C. Smith. 
 Company K— Capt. Charles E. Waters. 
 Company F— Capt. George H. Pettit. 
 Company B— First Lieut. Willard L. Candee. 
 Company C— Capt. Ezra De Forest. 
 Company A— Capt. Arthur B. Hart. 
 Company D — Capt. Darius Ferry. 
 Third Regiment, N. G. S. N. J. {Garfield Legion), of Elizabeth, N. J. ; 400 men. 
 Third Regiment Band, 25 pieces. 
 Col. E. H. Ropes and staff; Lieut. Col. M. N. Oviatt; Maj. A. B. Lee. 
 Company A— Capt. G. C. Armerod. 
 Company B— Capt. J. V. Allstroon. 
 Company D— Capt. John D. Stroud. 
 Company C— Capt. W. H. Dehart. 
 Company G— Capt. O. S. Stanhope. 
 
 Company E, Seventh New Jersey— Capt. A. J. Buck, 70 
 men ; temporarily attached to Third New Jersey. 
 Cadet Battalion of the Peekskill Military Academy, Peekskill, N. Y., Colonel 
 Wright, commanding ; 125 men; drum corps. 
 
42 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 THIRD DIVISION. 
 Marshal, Edward D. Hayt ; C. L. Waring, chief of staff. 
 Aids : William T. Peters, John Smith, Edward Stocker, M. V. Waring, Edward 
 Whelan, W. H. Van Sciver, F. H. Mason, C. F. Wells. 
 Thirteenth Regiment, X. G. S. N. Y., of Brooklyn; 600 men and 80 musicians. 
 Dodworth's Thirteenth Regiment Band, 50 pieces; drum and bugle corps, 30 pieces. 
 Col. David E. Austin and staff; Lieut. Col. Theodore B. Gates ; Maj. W. B. Tyson. 
 Regimental Veteran Corps, Col. Willoughby Powell. 
 Company G — Capt. William L. Watson. 
 Company H — Capt. C. P. Kretschmar. 
 Company E — Capt. Edward Fackner. 
 Company I — Capt. James S. Manderville. 
 Company K — Capt. George B. Squires. 
 Company F — Capt. William H. Courtney. 
 Company C — Capt. F. B. S. Morgan. 
 Company A — Capt. William L. Collins. 
 Company D — First Lieut. David M. Demarest. 
 Company B— Capt. Ed. M. Smith. 
 Thirteenth Regiment Battery, Capt. G. W. Cochran. 
 Fifth Separate Company, N. G. S. N. Y., of Newburgh; Capt. James T. Chase, 
 and 60 men. Moscow's Newburgh City Band, 16 pieces; fife and drum 
 corps, 12 pieces. 
 Company H, Seventy-first Regiment, N. G. S. N. V., of New York City ; Capt. F. 
 
 H. Jordan ; 60 men ; band. 
 Fifteenth Separate Company, N. G. S. N. Y., of Poughkeepsie ; Capt. Berthold 
 
 Myers; 40 men; drum corps. 
 Eleventh Separate Company, N. G. S. N. Y., of Mount Vernon; Capt. J. M. 
 
 Jarvis; 40 men. Mount Vernon Band, 15 pieces. 
 Fourth Separate Company, N. G. S. N. Y., of Yonkers; Capt. Isaiah Frazier ; 40 
 
 men. 
 
 Twenty-third Separate Company, N. G. S. N. Y., of Hudson; Capt. E. R. EUing; 
 
 60 men; drum corps, 18 men. 
 
 Grand Army of the Republic Brigade. 
 
 Assistant Marshal, W. H. Mickle. 
 
 Staff: D. L. Kidd, George Barber, W. T. Talmadge, Egbert Lewis. 
 
 Ellis Post, No. 52, of Newburgh ; Commander W. H. Mills ; 80 men; uniformed 
 
 delegates, 120 men; Tottenville Band, 19 pieces. 
 Rankin Post, No. 10, of Brooklyn; Commander J. H. Walker; 150 men; dele- 
 gates from other posts, 100 men; Fourteenth Regiment Band, 20 pieces. 
 Harry Lee Post, No. 21, of Brooklyn; Commander J. R. McNaughton; 60 men ; 
 delegates from other posts, 40 men ; drum corps, 35 pieces. 
 
Washington Monument at Neivburgh^ N. V. 43 
 
 Howland Post, No. 48, of Fishkill ; Commander Stephen Price ; 24 men. 
 
 Carroll Post, No. 279, of Port Jervis ; Commander Sol Van Etten ; 75 men ; 
 
 Emmett's Band, iS pieces. 
 Pratt Post, No. 127, of Kingston; Commander R. W. Anderson ; 150 men; post 
 
 drum corps. 
 Abram Vosburgh Post, No. 95, of Peekskill ; Commander W. A. Sipperley; 75 
 
 men ; band. 
 Geo. G. Meade Post, No. 38, New York; 100 men. 
 
 Waldron Post, No. 82,ofNyack; Commander Louis L. Robbin';, 60 men, with Com- 
 mander W. H. Myers and 20 men from Silliman Post, No. 172 ; band. 
 John Hancock Post, No. 253, of Nyack; Commander G. F. Morse ; 40 men ; band. 
 J. H. Ketcham Post, No. 88, of Wappinger's Falls; Commander James Fenton ; 
 
 40 men ; band. 
 Delegation from First Company, Washington Continental Guards, New York City ; 
 
 24 men; drum corps, 12 pieces. 
 Independent Veteran Volunteers, of Poughkeepsie ; Capt. W. Platto ; 20 men. 
 Veterans of the One hundred and twenty-fourth New York State Volunteers. 
 Ununiformed Grand Army of the Republic Posts and delegations. 
 
 FOURTH DIVISION. 
 
 Marshal, John R. Post; chief of staff, E. R. Harsbrouck. 
 
 Aids: George W. Townsend, Ward Belknap. 
 
 West Point Band, 30 pieces. 
 
 Knights Templar Battalion. 
 
 Hudson River Commandery, No. 35, Knights Templar, of Newburgh; Eminent 
 
 Sir Knight Jeremiah Searle ; 100 men. 
 
 Poughkeepsie Commandery, No. 43, Knights Templar, of Poughkeepsie ; Eminent 
 
 Sir Knight A. F. Lindley; 50 men. 
 
 Knights of Pythias Battalion. 
 
 Albany Uniformed Division, No. 2, of Albany; commander. Sir Knight M. J. 
 
 Severence ; 60 men. 
 lona Uniformed Division, Haverstraw; commander. Sir Knight A. Bedell; 40 men. 
 
 Odd Fellows Battalion. 
 
 Brooklyn Uniformed Degree Camp, No. 2, of Brooklyn ; commander, I. W. 
 
 Reynor; 40 men. 
 Washington Uniformed Degree, No. 10, of New York City; commander, Lewis 
 
 Noble ; 40 men. 
 
 Highland Falls Lodge, No. 429, of Highland Falls ; J. F. Tucker, N. G. ; 40 men. 
 
 Cornwall Lodge, No. 340, of Cornwall ; 25 men. 
 
 Minisink Lodge, No. 444, of West Town ; 25 men. 
 
44 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 Miscellaneous Societies. 
 
 German Mannerchor of Newburgh ; Theo. Ramstedt, president ; 40 men. 
 Juvenile Temperance Association of Newburgh; George W. Bradley, president; 
 
 80 strong. 
 
 FIFTH DIVISION. 
 
 Marshal, Chief Engineer Nicholas Powell. 
 Staff: Assistant Engineers of Newburgh Fire Department. 
 
 Visiting Companies. 
 
 Sixth Battery Band, of Binghamton. 
 Alert Hose Company, No. 2, of Binghamton; J. W. Butler, foreman; 50 men. 
 
 Erie Cornet Band, of Port Jervis. 
 Delaware Hose Company, No. 2, of Port Jervis; E. B. Wilkinson, foreman ; 40 men. 
 
 Y. M. C. A. Band, of Yonkers. 
 Lady Washington Hose Company, No. 2, of Yonkers ; James Mc Vicar, foreman; 
 
 75 men. 
 
 Yonkers Brass Band, 15 pieces. 
 Hudson Hose Company, No. 4, of Yonkers ; Benjamin Cline, foreman; 40 men. 
 
 Peekskill Cornet Band. 
 
 Courtland Hook and Ladder Company, No. i,of Peekskill; Charles R. Swain, 
 
 foreman ; 45 men. 
 
 North Tarrytown Fire Patrol, of North Tarrytown. 
 
 Tarrytown Cornet Band, 17 pieces. 
 
 Pocantico Hook and Ladder Company, of Tarrytown ; John P. Kelly, foreman ; 
 
 40 men. 
 
 Rhinebeck Brass Band, 14 pieces. 
 O. H. Booth Hose Company, No. 2, of Poughkeepsie ; E. O. Caldwell, foreman; 
 
 60 men. 
 
 Hurley Brass Band, of Kingston. 
 Kingston Hose Company, No. 2, of Kingston; H. A. Burgan, foreman. 
 
 Goeller's Band, 14 pieces. 
 Weber Hose Company, No. 3, of Rondout ; R. P. Carter, foreman ; 27 men. 
 
 Band. 
 Protection Hose Company, No. i,of Catskill; Spencer C. Phillips, foreman; 30 men. 
 Washington Hose Company, No. 3, of Newburgh ; Henry Scott, foreman. 
 
Washington Monument at Ncivbnrgh^ N. V. 45 
 
 Newhurgh Fire Department. 
 Montgomery Band, of Montgomery, N. Y. 
 Brewster Hook and Ladder Company, No. i,of Newburgh ; William W.Boyd, 
 
 foreman. 
 
 Seventy-tirst Regiment Band, of New York. 
 Ringgold Hose Company, No. i,of Newburgh; John Ernest, jr., foreman. 
 
 Twenty-first Regiment Band, of Poughkeepsie. 
 C. M. Leonard Steamer Company, No. 2, of Newburgh ; C. S. McKissock, foreman. 
 
 Piano's Band, of Fishkill. 
 Columbian Hose Company, No. 2, of Newburgh ; J. H. R. Strachan, foreman. 
 
 Millerton Band, of Millerton. 
 Highland Steamer Company, No. 3, of Newburgh ; H. C. Mellor, foreman. 
 
 Eastman's College Band, of Poughkeepsie. 
 Chapman Hose Company, No. 4, of Newburgh ; Thomas H. Burke, foreman. 
 
 Collins' Band, of Newburgh. 
 Washington Steamer Company, No. 4, of Newburgh ; Alex. J. Blitt, foreman. 
 
 Cline's Albany City Band, of Albany. 
 Lawson Hose Company, No. 5, of Newburgh ; D. C. Cameron, foreman. 
 
 FORMATION OF DIVISIONS. 
 
 The procession will be formed as follows : 
 
 First division on Grand street, right resting on Broadway. 
 
 Second division on Liberty street, right resting on Broadway. 
 
 Third division, right wing on Chambers street, right resting on 
 Broadway; left wing (consisting of Grand Army Brigade and 
 Veteran organizations) on Lander street, right resting on Broadway, 
 
 Fourth division on Johnston street, right resting on Broadway. 
 
 Fifth division on south side of Broadway, right resting on Lander 
 street. 
 
 In forming divisions, care will be taken to leave Grand street open 
 and to place line as close as possible to the sidewalks, in order to 
 leave as much of the street open as possible for passage of troops. 
 
 THE MARCH. 
 
 When the " Attention " is sounded, marshals and assistant mar- 
 shals of the first four divisions will cause their commands to form 
 column. At the sound of the " Forward," the fourth division will 
 
46 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 move down Broadway and halt, with its right resting on the west 
 side of Lander street, and be brought to a front. 
 
 In same manner — 
 
 Left wing of third division will move forward until its right rests 
 on the west side of Chambers street; right wing of third division 
 until its right rests on west side of Liberty street ; the second divis- 
 ion until its right rests on the west side of Grand street. 
 
 As the left of each division or wing is uncovered, the next will 
 promptly form column and follow. 
 
 LINE OF MARCH. 
 
 The line of march will be down Broadway to Golden, Golden to 
 Water, Water to junction of Grand, Grand to Broadway, Broadway 
 to Liberty, Liberty to South, South to Lander, Lander to Broadway, 
 where, if time will admit, a counter-march will be made, and parade 
 will be dismissed. 
 
 ROUTE OF ORGANIZATIONS TO THEIR PLACES IN LINE. 
 
 All local and other organizations arriving in the city previous to 
 lo a. m. will be conducted promptly at that hour by most direct 
 route to their places in line. 
 
 Organizations arriving after lo and before 10.50, will be con- 
 ducted as follows : 
 
 Those landing at West Shore Depot will cross the square and pro- 
 ceed through Golden and Broadway to their places in line. 
 
 Those arriving by Erie road, up First, through Golden and Broad- 
 way, to their places in line. 
 
 Those landing at Long Dock or arriving by ferry, will move up 
 Second to Water, Water to Golden, Golden to Broadway, thence to 
 their places in line. 
 
 Those landing north of the ferry slip will proceed from place of 
 landing to Fourth street, up Fourth to Water, southerly through 
 Water to Golden, up Golden to Broadway, to their places in line. 
 
 Those landing south of Broadway will move up Washington street 
 to Liberty, through Liberty to Broadway, thence to their places in 
 line. 
 
 Organizations arriving after 10.30 will be formed as follows : 
 
 Fire companies on Fourth street, right resting on Water and left 
 extending northward through Front. 
 
Washmgton Momtmoit at Ncicbiirgh^ N. Y. 47 
 
 Military organizations on South Water street, right resting at junc- 
 tion of Colden. 
 
 Civic organizations on Third, right resting on AVater and left 
 extending southward through Front. 
 
 From positions above indicated they will be placed in line as the 
 divisions to which they belong pass through Water street. 
 
 AFTERNOON EXERCISES 2 P. M. 
 
 At 2 p. m. broadsides from the entire fleet will be fired, and the 
 following exercises, arranged by the Committee of Five, will take 
 place on Washington's Headquarters Grounds : 
 
 1. Introductory Overture, " William Tell" Cappa's yth Regiment Band. 
 
 2. Assemblage called to order by Hon. Peter Ward, Mayor. 
 
 3. Prayer j^^^ y Irenaeus Prime, D. D. 
 
 4. Te Deum, " W'e praise Thee, O God," by Dudley Buck. 
 
 Grand Chorus of 500 Voices and Band. 
 
 5. Introduction of United States Senator Thomas F. Bayard, President of the 
 
 afternoon. 
 
 6. "Hail Columbia" Chorus and Band. 
 
 7. Reading of a Poem (original), " The Long Drama from '76 to '?,ir 
 
 Wallace Bruce. 
 
 8. a. Seventh Regiment Grand Round, by Markstein. ist, Guard fall in. 2d, 
 
 Attention ! 3d, Marching to inspect posts. 4th, Halt ! 5th, Counter-' 
 sign. 6th, Marching back. 7th, Dismissal. 8th, Rejoicing. 
 <^. Chorus, " No King but God " H. R Shelley 
 
 9. Oration Hon. William M. Evarts.' 
 
 10. " Hallelujah Chorus," Handel Chorus and Band. 
 
 11. Benediction Rev. J. Forsyth, D. D. 
 
 12. March. ^ , t> , 
 
 Cappa s Band. 
 
 FIRE-WORKS DISPLAY AT 6.30 P. M. 
 
 The display, which will consist entirely of aerial fire-works, will be 
 fired from three immense floats, anchored in the center of the river, 
 as nearly as possible opposite the foot of Second street. From the 
 two outer floats there will be cross-fires of rockets, bombs, etc., form- 
 ing gigantic arches of many colors. From the center floats volleys 
 of shells, batteries, etc., of variegated flowers, stars, gems, etc., will 
 be set off, the combined effect of which will be reflected in the river, 
 producing a spectacle of much grandeur and beauty. 
 
48 
 
 The Ceittennial Celebration attd 
 
 The exhibition will be fired in the following 
 
 CLASSIFIED GROUPS. 
 
 I. 
 
 2. 
 
 3- 
 4- 
 5- 
 6. 
 
 7- 
 8. 
 
 9- 
 
 lO. 
 
 II. 
 
 Opening salute, colonial. 
 Balloons, fire-wurks' attachments. 
 Rocket display. 
 Shells, 1 8-inch, Japanese. 
 Batteries, mines, and serpents. 
 Rocket display. 
 Batteries, with serpents. 
 Shells, 1 8-inch, cross-fire. 
 Tourbillions, with cross-fire rockets. 
 Shells, 24-inch, "unexcelled." 
 Rockets, special effects. 
 
 12. Shells, 1 8- inch, Japanese. 
 
 13. Batteries, with mines of serpents. 
 
 14. Tourbillions, with star mines. 
 
 15. Rockets, parachute, special. 
 
 16. Shell batteries, with serpent mines. 
 
 17. Shells, 24-inch, "unexcelled." 
 
 1 8. Rockets, twin asteroid, etc., 4-pound. 
 
 19. Shells, 30-inch, mammoth spreaders. 
 
 20. Rockets, 6-pound. 
 
 21. Shells, 30-inch, aerial acre. 
 
 22. Grouped batteries. 
 
 23. Grand flight of 1,000 rockets. 
 
 24. Parting salute, colonial. 
 
 Extensive displays of fire-works will also be made at Fishkill, 
 
 Temple Hill (New Windsor), and various other points in the vicinity. 
 
 These will begin immediately after the close of the exhibition on the 
 
 river. 
 
 Chas. H. Weygant, 
 
 Manhal of the Day. 
 
 The programme of the day was carried out to the letter, 
 and the display was one of the finest that has ever been wit- 
 nessed in this country. 
 
Washington Monument at Newburgh^ N. K 49 
 
 PARTICIPATION OF THE NAVY. 
 
 The part taken by the Navy in the celebration will appear 
 from the following correspondence: 
 
 Navy Department, 
 Washington, December lo, 1883. 
 
 Sir: In answer to your request to be informed as to what part 
 the Navy took at the Newburgh Centennial Celebration, I have 
 the honor to state tliat the available vessels of the North Atlantic 
 Squadron, under Rear-Admiral George H. Cooper, and the available 
 vessels of the Training Squadron, under the command of Commander 
 H. C. Taylor, were ordered to be present at Newburgh on the [8th 
 of October, and to take such part in the celebration as should be 
 thought proper by Admiral Cooper, or that should be agreed upon 
 by the committee and himself. A copy of the Department's order 
 to Admiral Cooper on the subject is herewith inclosed, together with 
 a copy of his report made to the Department. 
 
 In addition to the commands mentioned above, the Tallapoosa 
 reached Newburgh on the morning of the i8th of October, having on 
 board the Secretary of the Navy, Commodore J. H. Upshur, Capt. 
 J. H. Gillis, Commander T. F. Kane, Lieut. Aaron Ward, Assistant 
 Postmaster-General R. A. Elmer, U. S. Marshal Joel B. Erhardt, and 
 others, who took part in the celebration and were present at all the 
 public ceremonies. 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Hon. Lewis Beach, 
 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 H. Mis. 601 4 
 
 Wm. E. Chandler, 
 Secretary of the Navy. 
 
50 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 Navy Department, 
 Washington, August 7, 1883. 
 Sir : The Department has been requested to have the Navy repre- 
 sented at the Newburgh Centennial Celebration, which occurs at 
 that place on the i8th of October next. 
 
 With this in view, you will proceed to Newburgh, N. Y., by the 
 time mentioned, with such vessels of your squadron as may be avail- 
 able, and place yourself in communication with the Executive Com- 
 mittee, and take such part in the celebration as you may deem 
 proper, or that may be agreed upon by the committee and yourself. 
 Commodore Luce has received similar orders, but will report to 
 you upon arrival, as the senior officer, for instructions. 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Ed. T. Nichols, 
 Acting Si'ctrtary of the Navy. 
 
 Rear- Admiral George H. Cooper, U. S. N., 
 
 Commandinir U. S. Naval Force on North Atlantic Station. 
 
 U. S. Flag-ship, Tennessee (ist rate), • 
 
 Neiv York. Harbor, October 19, 1883. 
 
 Sir : I have the honor to inform the Department that, in com- 
 pliance with its instructions, issued on the 7th August last, I pro- 
 ceeded to Newburgh, N. Y., on the 17th instant, with the Tennessee, 
 Vanilalia, and Alliance, of the North Atlantic Squadron, for the pur- 
 pose of participating in the Centennial Celebration at that place on 
 the 1 8th instant. 
 
 After my arrival at Newburgh the commanding officers of the 
 training-ships Saratoga and Portsmouth reported to me for duty, with 
 their vessels, during the celebration, thus increasing the squadron 
 under my command to five vessels. 
 
 Previous to my arrival at Newburgh I had placed myself in com- 
 munication with the Executive Committee, and had made the neces- 
 sary preliminary arrangements for the participation of the Navy in 
 the celebration. A few minutes after the flag-ship anchored off New- 
 burgh a delegation, consisting of the members of the Executive Com- 
 mittee and other prominent citizens, came on board, and extended 
 to myself and the officers ^ cordial welcome to Newburgh, 
 
Washington Monument at Newburgh, N. V. 51 
 
 In compliance with the request of the committee I arranged to 
 fire three national salutes from all the vessels, and to land the Naval 
 Brigade on the day of the Centennial Celebration. I also arranged 
 to make a display of fire-works from the vessels in the evening. 
 
 All the arrangements agreed upon by myself and the Executive 
 Committee, were carried out to my entire satisfaction, and I believe 
 to the satisfaction of the committee. I was much gratified with the 
 conduct of all the officers and men under my command upon this 
 occasion, and tliink the display by the Navy was in all respects 
 creditable. 
 
 The commanding officers of the training-ships Saratoga and Ports- 
 moHth, Commanders Taylor and Wise, assisted me heartily in all my 
 plans for participating in the Centennial Celebration; and the facility 
 with which their vessels conformed to the routine and organization 
 of the North Atlantic Squadron, although their crews consist of young 
 apprentices, gives evidence of much painstaking on the part of their 
 officers, and indicates a high state of discipline on board the vessels. 
 
 I left Newburgh with Tennessee and Alliance at 9 o'clock this morn- 
 ing, and at 4. 1 5 p. m. anchored oft" the Battery. The Vandalia, having 
 lost an anchor oft" Newburgh, has been directed to remain at that 
 place for two days to search for it, and then return to New York. 
 
 I'he training-ships Saratoga and Portsmouth remained at New- 
 burgh, with orders from me to comply with their original instructions. 
 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 G. H. Cooper, 
 Rear- Admiral Commanding U. S. Naval Force, 
 
 North Atlantic Station. 
 Hon. "W. E. Chandler, 
 
 Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D. C. 
 
52 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 EXERCISES AT THE CELEBRATION. 
 
 Upon the grand stand, which had been erected to the east 
 of the Headquarters Building, in the presence of probably 
 over twenty thousand persons, the following exercises were 
 had: 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 By Rev. S. Iren^us Prime, D. D. 
 
 Almighty God, the Maker of heaven and earth, in whose 
 hand are the destinies of nations, the God of Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, our fathers' God and ours, Thee we adore. Thou 
 didst lead Joseph like a flock, and Thou didst go before our 
 fathers, a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night. For 
 Thy care of them in the war for our Independence we bless 
 and praise Thee to-day. On Thine omnipotent arm our 
 Washington leaned; by Thee our armies were upheld; Thy 
 right hand gave us victory and wrought our salvation. For 
 this day, that commemorates the close of that longstruggle 
 and the establishment of peace, we thank Thee; and for the 
 countless blessings that have ensued; for our existence as a 
 nation; for civil and religious liberty; for law and order, 
 and the prosperity of the country in which it is our privi- 
 lege to dwell. 
 
 Above all, we thank Thee for Thy Son Jesus Christ, by 
 whom we have the forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternal 
 life. 
 
 And we invoke Thy benediction on our beloved country; 
 the General Government and the several States and Territo- 
 ries; upon the President of the United States and all asso- 
 ciated with him in his administration, and on all who are 
 clothed with authority in the land^ that they may guide and 
 
Washingto7i Momiment at Newburgh, N. Y. 53 
 
 govern in Thy fear and for the good of the people. Inspire 
 all hearts with patriotism, obedience to law, and zeal for the 
 honor of the nation. May the people be presented in purity 
 and all honesty, and in the self-sacrificing spirit of our 
 fathers. Put an end, we pray Thee, to corruption, to self- 
 seeking, and to godless ambition; and so may we be a happy 
 people, whose God is the Lord. 
 
 Save us from internal dissension and from foreign war 
 May the peace of the nations be perpetual, while our coun^ 
 try advances in ever>' good work, to the glory of Thv o-reat 
 name. o -/ . & '-'^l 
 
 Send us rain and sunshine and fruitful seasons in their 
 turn that the people may know Thee, the Giver of everv 
 good gift, and may rejoice in the manifestation of Thy con- 
 tinued love. Deliver us from those sins which provoke Thv 
 displeasui:e, and cause Thy face to shine upon us, that we 
 ma}' be saved. 
 
 Bless the country- and people from whom bv the war of 
 Independence we were separated; one with them in lan- 
 guage, liberty, law, and faith in Thee, mav we and thev 
 continue in peace and good-will, to promote each other's 
 welfare and that of the human family. 
 
 And from our land may there go 'out into all lands the 
 light of civil liberty and the light of the blessed Gospel, until 
 the whole world rejoices in the freedom which we enjov, and 
 the King of kings rules in the hearts of men from the risino- 
 to the setting sun. '^ 
 
 Hear us in heaven. Thy dwelling-place, O God, our 
 Father; and to Thy name will we give the praise, as it was 
 in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without 
 end. Amen. 
 
64 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 ADDRESS. 
 
 By Senator Thomas F. Bayard, of Delaware. 
 
 My Fellow- Countrymen : I feel sensibly the honor of hav- 
 ing been selected by the citizens of Newburgh to preside 
 over the interesting ceremonies of to-day. 
 
 As a native of one of the thirteen States which originally 
 formed the Union, I accept the honor of your selection in 
 the name of Delaware, whose citizens treasure the memory 
 of the part their ancestors bore in our united struggle for 
 National Independence, and cherish the honest fame of their 
 forefathers, whose fidelity and courage were well attested 
 on the long line of battle-fields which stretches from Long 
 Island to the Savannah River. 
 
 To-day we have here assembled from our homes in States 
 far distant from each other, drawn together by a common 
 impulse of the brotherhood of American citizenship ; not as 
 citizens of New York, nor of New Jersey, nor of Massachu- 
 setts, nor of Virginia, nor of Delaware; not as citizens of 
 any State, but as citizens of the United States, to commemo- 
 rate with joyful gratitude the sacrifices, the toils, sufferings, 
 and virtues of the band of patriots whose united valor ac- 
 complished what their separate efforts could never possibly 
 have achieved, and which have made us to-day the happy 
 inheritors and possessors of liberty and independence under 
 republican forms of government. 
 
 A full century has passed; and now that we find ourselves 
 in the midst of a bountiful harvest of prosperity, possessing 
 all the elements of wealth and power, let us gratefully cast 
 our eyes in retrospect of the condition of things one hundred 
 years ago on this very spot whereon we stand to-day. 
 
Washmgton Monument at Newburgh^ N. V. 55 
 
 That was the seed-time of American liberty and independ- 
 ence ; this is the harvest home; and it is meet and just that 
 we who to-day reap in joy and safety should remember those 
 who sowed in toil and danger. 
 
 This meeting was fitly opened by the voice of reverential 
 praise and prayer to the Almighty Ruler of the Universe, 
 in the hollow of whose hand rests the fate of men and 
 nations, and whose providential care is so plainly discernible 
 in the control of the marvelous struggle which our fore- 
 fathers — a scanty band — conducted to a successful termina- 
 tion under conditions that oftentimes seemed to forbid even 
 hope and amid difficulties and adversities almost impossible 
 now to conceive. 
 
 Who can read the history of the eight eventful years of 
 war from 1775 to 1783, even at this lapse of time, without 
 breathless interest and agitation, mingled with wonder at 
 the result? He who can rise from its perusal without a 
 realizing sense, an absolute conviction, of the presence of the 
 hand of an overruling Providence in human affairs, must 
 indeed be strangely and abnormally constituted ; and he 
 who fails to comprehend the true value of the virtues which 
 marked the characters of the men of that period, who were 
 the instruments of Providence in bringing forth strength 
 out of weakness and victory out of defeat, can know but 
 little of the true origin of our present happy condition, of 
 the methods by which it was attained, and the conditions 
 under which alone we can hope to preserve it. 
 
 With minds and hearts freed from the asperities, jealousies, 
 and misunderstandings which may have been engendered 
 by the political differences and personal ambitions of our 
 time, let us, forsaking all such things, return to the day 
 whose hundredth anniversary we celebrate. 
 
 It was the day on which the Continental Congress issued 
 its proclamation announcing the end of "a contest involving 
 the essential rights of human nature," and invoked Divine 
 aid ' ' to give wisdom and unanimity to our public councils, 
 
56 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 to cement all our citizens in the bonds of affection, and 
 inspire them all with an earnest regard for the national 
 honor and interest. ' ' 
 
 The Congress was then in session at Princeton, in New 
 Jersey, whither it had withdrawn from Philadelphia by 
 reason of the turbulence of a discontented and mutinous 
 portion of the Army; and Washington, having suppressed 
 the disorder, had, at the request of Congress, left the Head- 
 quarters of the Army at Newburgh, and taken up quarters 
 at Rocky Hill, a few miles distant from Princeton. 
 
 There is a happy coincidence in the day of this proclama- 
 tion, for it is also the anniversary of the victory at York- 
 town, October i8, 1781, followed by the capitulation, on the 
 19th, of the British army under Lord Cornwallis, and the 
 virtual end of the war; for no battle of importance was 
 fought after that date. 
 
 When the news of the preliminary treaty of peace, which 
 had been signed at Paris, January 20, 1783, was conveyed 
 to this country by an armed French vessel, well named 
 The Triumph^ Congress issued a proclamation of the event, 
 under date of x^pril 11, 1783, and Washington promulgated 
 from these Headquarters his memorable order for the cessa- 
 tion of hostilities, and recalled the fact that its date, April 
 19, was the anniversary of the battles of lycxington and 
 Concord, where the first blood had been shed in the struggle 
 for American Independence, eight years before, and which 
 was now crowned with complete success. 
 
 On October 18, 1783, Congress issued proclamation of the 
 signing of the definitive treaty of peace. General Henry 
 Knox, the brave book-seller of Boston, whose robust frame 
 of mind and body made him so distinguished and impres- 
 sive a figure in the great struggle, and whose patriotic 
 virtues and abilities brought him so close in peace and in 
 war to the heart and confidence of his great leader, was 
 then in command at West Point, and b)- him was the action 
 of Congress made known to the Army ; congratulations were 
 tendered upon the prospect of a permanent and honorable 
 
IVashiiigton Mcmument at Ncivhurgh^ N. Y. 57 
 
 peace, and thanks awarded to tlie Army for long, eminent, 
 and faithful services. Its final disbandment was announced 
 in these words: 
 
 It is our will and pleasure that such part of the Federal Army as 
 stands engaged to serve during the war, and as by our acts of May 
 26, June II, August 9, and September 26 last were furloughed, shall 
 from and after November 3 next be absolutely discharged by virtue 
 of this proclamation from said service. 
 
 And well was it that, under the wise recommendation of 
 Washington, these recited orders for furloughs had been 
 liberally granted, and that officers and privates had been 
 freely allowed, ever since early spring, to go back to their 
 homes, until but a comparatively small body remained in 
 arms; for upon these brave men had fallen the chief 
 stress and burden of the struggle, its sufferings and expos- 
 ures. The perils of war had been dreadfully aggravated by 
 want of proper supplies, and still more by a delusive system 
 of paper money. The miseries brought upon them by the 
 fiction of an irredeemable paper currency were equal to all 
 their other woes combined. Their starving families, their 
 honorable debts, their daily needs, were all subjected to the 
 curse of a depreciated and vitiated currency. 
 
 What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give 
 him a stone ? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent ? 
 
 Yet this was done by the Congress to the brave men who 
 had so fought and bled to establish their country's liberties, 
 and claimed no more than their stipulated pay, which they 
 never received; and, despite reiterated promises and "fine 
 words"— promises which were never kept and words which 
 were mere breath, "mouth honor"— the Army was dis- 
 banded and melted away; not without angry remonstrances; 
 not without serious threatenings; not, indeed, without pro- 
 posed treasonable organizations, which last Washington 
 withered with his fiery indignation and ground to powder 
 under his feet. 
 
58 The Cetitennial Celebration and 
 
 Never was the weight of his personal character with the 
 armies he led more strikingly manifested, nor its value to 
 the country proven more importantly, than in this danger- 
 ous crisis, when the crown of unchastened power and mili- 
 tary ambition was held out to his grasp, only to be dashed 
 to the earth by a love of country, which never for a moment 
 was obscured by personal interest or ambition. 
 
 If art is ever to preserve in marble or on canvas a true 
 likeness in soul and body of this great man, the occasion of 
 his thus putting under his feet the solicitations of unlawful 
 ambition will surely be selected. 
 
 Yet Washington never ceased, so long as he survived, to 
 urge the just claims of his suffering companions in arms ; 
 and his name at least is without reproach for the sins of 
 omission in this regard, which have never been repaired, 
 and which I fear now have become irremediable. 
 
 Standing here in the sunshine of this October day, with all 
 the glories of earth and sky enveloping a landscape singu- 
 lar in its beauty, how powerfully do the local features appeal 
 to us ! 
 
 This ancient mansion, built by a Huguenot emigrant one 
 hundred and thirty-three years ago, who sought and found 
 in this land religious as well as civil liberty, was occupied 
 for the year next preceding the disbandment of the Army 
 as the Headquarters of the Commander-in-chief. And, fortu- 
 nately, the arm of public preservation has been thrown 
 around it by the State of New York, by whom it was pur- 
 chased, and since 1850 it has been in the hands of trustees, 
 to be preserved as nearly as possible in the condition in 
 which Washington left it a hundred years ago. 
 
 Faithfully and well this trust has been administered, and 
 the homely and simple features of the dwelling inside and 
 out have been carefully maintained; relics of the war have 
 been here collected, and, in pious pilgrimage, the genera- 
 tions of this and future days can repair hither to note with 
 reverential interest the simple habits of the founders of the 
 Great Republic. The mansion is in itself an impressive 
 
Washington Monument at Newburgh^ N. V. 59 
 
 orator, and its consecration and conservation as the casket of 
 patriotic memories is a dnty which will faithfnlly be fulfilled. 
 
 It is also a subject of congratulation that the Congress of the 
 United States and the lyCgislature of the State of New York 
 have joined in recognition and gratification of the wishes of 
 the American people by appropriating funds for the erection 
 upon these grounds of a memorial column. To-day, in the 
 presence of the Governors of many of the States; of repre- 
 sentative bodies of the volunteer soldiery and militia of the 
 several States; of detachments from the Army and Navy of 
 the United States; of this vast concourse of American citi- 
 zens, and beneath the folds of our national ensign, it was in- 
 tended that the corner-stone should have been laid; but this 
 has unavoidably been delayed. Soon, however, the column 
 will arise, a conspicuous and attractive feature, to which the 
 inquiring glance of every traveler upon the lines of railway 
 or the bosom of the majestic river that flows past its base 
 will be lifted; and so may it stand forever, pointing heaven- 
 ward, to perpetuate remembrance of the courage and devo- 
 tion of the patriotic Army whose last Headquarters were 
 upon this spot. 
 
 Standing upon this commanding height, what a wealth 
 of historic scenery is spread before us ! The noble river 
 flows in the serenity of its beauty and calm strength, just 
 as it did nearly three centuries ago, when the hardy and ad- 
 venturous Dutch navigator, whose name it bears, first cast 
 anchor in the bay that lies below us. A little later and 
 the flag of Holland yielded place to that of Great Britain. 
 Another century passed, and the flag of the American Union 
 of States was raised, and has now for more than one 
 hundred years floated in placid security above these waters, 
 the symbol of the controlling and unquestioned authority 
 of a government truly deriving "its powers from the con- 
 sent of the governed. ' ' 
 
 Yet, as we cast our eyes down this beautiful channel of 
 the Hudson until they rest upon West Point, memories 
 arise of mingled shame and honor. Then, as now, human- 
 
60 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 ity exhibited its weakness as well as its strength ; its selfish- 
 ness as well as its self-sacrifice; its baseness as well as its 
 nobility. The same place that reminds us of George Wash- 
 ington recalls Benedict Arnold. 
 
 The dangers to the cause of American liberty at that early 
 day were from within as well as from without. There were 
 traitors and peculators, and faint and false hearted time- 
 servers ; and great was the embarrassment and sore the dis- 
 tress they caused and the injuries they inflicted upon the 
 struggling patriots. 
 
 It is to be hoped that one result of this and other com- 
 memorations of the historic events of the Revolutionary 
 period may induce among our countrymen a more careful 
 revision and study of those times, and a realization of the 
 difficulties and dangers which our forefathers surmounted in 
 their toilsome journey to Independence and national exist- 
 ence. In the words of Hopkinson, let us be "ever mindful 
 what it cost." 
 
 If we look for the causes of the success of the arms of 
 the United Colonies, of "the embattled farmers" who with- 
 stood the mighty armaments of Great Britain, we discern 
 not alone valor and determination born of a holy and uncon- 
 querable resolve to die as freemen rather than live as slaves, 
 but also the rigid enforcement of the simple and practical 
 virtues essential to a people so weak in wealth and resources. 
 The men who led that struggle were personally rigidly 
 honest and honorable, and with close and painful economy 
 they underwent the severest privations, which were essential 
 to save and to spare the slender treasury of their country. 
 Had these unshowy and simple virtues been replaced by a 
 careless and lavish prodigality ; had an easy, pleasure-loving 
 self-indulgence and luxury been substituted for stern self- 
 denial and frugality, how soon would the contest have been 
 brought to a fatal close ! 
 
 How can the influence of the personal example set by 
 Washington and his associates be overrated in giving a 
 
Washington Monument at Neivhiirgh^ N. Y. 61 
 
 tone of unselfish devotion and sterling integrity in public 
 service? Do you remember his words to Congress in his 
 first address as President of the United States? 
 
 When I was first honored with a call into the service of my country, 
 then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in 
 which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce 
 every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no 
 instance departed ; and, being still under the impression which pro- 
 duced it, I must decline, as inapplicable to myself, any share in the 
 personal emoluments which may be indispensably included in a per- 
 manent provision for the Executive Department, and must accord- 
 ingly pray that the pecuniary estimates of the station in which I am 
 placed may, during my continuance in it, be limited to such actual 
 expenditures as the public good may be thought to require. 
 
 How high and clearly-cut against the sky of history rises 
 the column of the personal character of these patriot sires, 
 crowned with strict honesty and clean-handed integrity, not 
 one of whom ever grew rich in office or attempted to fatten 
 at the public cost, but many of whom became poor by de- 
 voting themselves to the advancement of their country. 
 
 Stich are the personal qualities that make a nation; and, as 
 the success in obtaining American Independence was chiefly 
 due to them, so the cause of their adversaries was propor- 
 tionately weakened by the prevalence of mercenary senti- 
 ments, which demoralized the forces sent for our destrtiction. 
 Much light has been lately thrown upon the inner history 
 of the administration of the British Government during 
 the reign of George III, whilst the war against the Colonies 
 was being waged so unrelentingly, and the picture drawn 
 by Trevelyan, in his life of Charles James Fox, of the 
 "spoils system" of that day accounts for much of the disas- 
 ter and disappointment that awaited the attempts to subdue 
 the Colonies and added stich fearful sums to the British debt. 
 According to this writer, the official circles of the King- 
 dom were honey-combed with corruption ; offices of honor 
 
62 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 and importance were held but as merchandise; the spirit of 
 public plunder reigned supreme. ' ' Members of Parliament 
 bought their seats and then sold themselves. The King 
 himself selected, as his special department, the manipula- 
 tion of the House of Commons; he furnished the means and 
 minutely audited the expenditures of corruption. Every 
 reformer of abuses who had got hold of a thread of jobbery 
 which was strangling the commonwealth was discouraged 
 from following the clew by the certainty that it would lead 
 him sooner or later to the door of the royal closet." 
 
 Thus venality and servility became ingrained in every 
 branch of the public service, and disinterested patriotism 
 was relegated into obscurity. The names of command- 
 ing officers on sea and on shore in the campaigns against 
 America have been associated with transactions which 
 prove that their abilities were directed against the public 
 exchequer rather than against the forces of the enemy. 
 Again says Trevelyan: 
 
 The King knew the secret history of all the hucksters of poHtics, 
 the amount at which they appraised themselves, the form in which 
 they got their price, and the extent to which they were earning their 
 pay by close attendance and blind subservience. * * * He was 
 at home in the darkest corners of the political workshop, and up to 
 the elbows in those processes which a high-minded statesman sternly 
 forbids, and which even a statesman who is not high-minded leaves 
 to be conducted by others. 
 
 Contrast this wretched picture with the conduct of the 
 men who led the American colonists through the long and 
 arduous struggle for their liberties. 
 
 It was a war on the one side for dominion, regardless of 
 justice, by a rich and powerful empire, whose forces were 
 wielded under an administration weakened by corruption, 
 immorality, and profligate expenditure; in which patriotic 
 objects were but little regarded, and the gratification of pas- 
 sion stood in lieu of a conscientious pursuit of the public 
 welfare, On the other side, with forces numerically feeble 
 
IVasJiiiii^toii Mo)U()ncnt at Nczvburgh^ N. Y. 63 
 
 and almost wholly unsupplied with the sinews of war, a 
 scanty band of agricultural colonists, animated by a pure 
 .ind lofty love of liberty, standing in defense of their birth- 
 rights of home and fireside, sustained by a religious faith 
 in the justice of their cause, and aided by the practice of 
 honesty and frugality in the administration of their re- 
 sources, emerged from the unequal contest victorious and 
 unstained. 
 
 Look to-day at the carefully-kept accounts of Washing- 
 ton's personal expenditures as Commander-in-chief of the 
 forces, filed by him at the close of the war in the Depart- 
 ment of State: marvels of honest precision and models in 
 character. Scan closely the personal characters of the coun- 
 selors he selected for his Cabinet. The first. General Henry 
 Knox, Secretary of War; next, xA.lexander Hamilton, Secre- 
 tary of the Treasury; then, Edmund Randolph, Attorney- 
 General; and Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State. For 
 the Supreme Court he selected John Jay as the Chief-Justice, 
 and Rutledge, Wilson, Cushing, Blair, and Iredell as associ- 
 ate justices. Every name is lustrous with virtue and talents; 
 upon the character of none rests the slightest cloud. Each 
 of these upright and patriotic men accepted the creed of 
 Burke: "The principles of true politics are those of morality 
 enlarged;" and public confidence naturally followed, ratify- 
 ing and approving his choice of counselors. Such men are 
 the proper depositaries of public power at all times and 
 under any form of government; and well is it for a people 
 when such men occupy their highest stations. 
 
 By such nominations Washington was putting in practice 
 the precepts he had given to the governors of all the States 
 in a circular letter, written on June 8, 1783, from these 
 Headquarters. Said he: 
 
 This is the moment to give such a tone to our Federal Govern- 
 ment as will enable it to answer the ends of its institution ; or this 
 may be the ill-fated moment for relaxing the power of the Union and 
 annihilating the cement of the Confederation, 
 
64 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 And then he continues in such words of patriotic counsel, 
 that you must permit me to recall them, and ask you to 
 engrave them on your memories: 
 
 Four things are essential to the well-being and existence of the 
 United States as an independent power: 
 
 First. The indissoluble Union of the States under one federal head. 
 
 Second. A sacred regard to public justice. 
 
 Third. The adoption of a proper peace establishment. 
 
 Fourth. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly disposition 
 among the people of the United States which will induce them to 
 forget their local prejudices and politics; to make those mutual con- 
 cessions which are requisite to the general prosperity ; and, in some 
 instances, to sacrifice their admitted advantages for the interest of 
 the community. 
 
 These are the pillars on which that glorious fabric of our independ- 
 ence and national character must be supported. Liberty is the basis, 
 and whoever would dare to sap the foundation or overthrow the 
 structure, under whatever specious pretext he may attempt it, will 
 merit the bitterest execration and severest punishment which can be 
 inflicted by his injured country. 
 
 Even then, standing on the threshold of a great future, 
 his patriotic eye discerned the essentials upon which his 
 country must rely for its safety and progress. His coun- 
 sels, wise and true then, are equally so and as valuable 
 to-day; and it is well for us, in considering the safety and 
 well-being of the vast superstructure of population, wealth, 
 and varied human interests which has been built upon the 
 foundations laid by Washington and his associates a century 
 ago, to remember from what materials its strength was 
 derived, and to what principles it owes its permanence and 
 must depend for its future safety. 
 
 In stating the reasons and objects of this impressive con- 
 vocation I have detained you longer perhaps than I had a 
 right, but the earnestness of my feelings as an American 
 citizen, my sincere desire to keep alive the glorious tradi- 
 tions of the early heroism of our history, must plead my 
 excuse. 
 
Washington Monument at Newburgh^ N. V. 65 
 
 On behalf of the committee charged with conducting 
 these exercises I bid you all welcome in the name of our 
 common American citizenship, and congratulate you that 
 we are now to have the privilege of listening to an address 
 appropriate to the occasion by a distinguished citizen of 
 the State of New York, who has held high places in the 
 public service with honor to himself and benefit to the 
 country. I have the honor and pleasure to introduce to 
 you the Hon. William M. Evarts. 
 
 H. Mis. 6oi c 
 
66 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 ORATION 
 
 By Hon. William M. Evarts, of Nciv York. 
 
 What measure or limit can there or should there be to 
 the joy and pride with which a great, fortunate, prosperous, 
 and powerful people looks back upon the men, the action, 
 and the events which have determined their destiny and 
 made sure their happiness? In every form and with every 
 degree of interest and zeal, such a people does insist, and 
 should insist, that these glories of their inheritance shall 
 never fade from the eyes of themselves or their posterity. 
 The scenes where momentous transactions have had their 
 birth they will mark with durable monuments; they will 
 search out and commemorate every noble purpose and every 
 virtuous act which have made up the collective force and 
 secured the general triumph; they will emblazon with their 
 admiration and their gratitude the names and deeds of the 
 illustrious actors in these great affairs; and, finally, they 
 will swell the impulse and volume of the impressions of 
 the heroic past, which they preserve and transmit to their 
 descendants with their own homage and applause. 
 
 These natural and necessary sentiments and habits of a 
 generous and grateful people are constant and should be 
 perpetual. Their disuse or decay will not dim the luster of 
 the historic period, but simply mark, alas! the degeneracy 
 of the later times, and forebode the failure, or at least the 
 eclipse, of the splendid fortunes which have proved too 
 weighty for the shrunken virtues of unworthy heirs. 
 
 But though the fires of a people's gratitude and venera- 
 tion for the founders and preservers of a nation should never 
 be suffered to go out upon the altar, there needs must occur 
 epochs for the excitement and display of these feelings, 
 which will brighten their flame and fill the whole air with 
 
Washington Monument at Newburgh, N. Y. 67 
 
 their warmth and light. Such an enlivenment of popular 
 enthusiasm over the principal events and famous characters 
 of our civil and military history was a conspicuous attendant 
 of our great civil war. It animated the whole public mind 
 with love of the great country and devotion to the benefi- 
 cent institutions which our fathers' wisdom and courage 
 had prepared as a habitation of liberty and justice for thc^ir 
 descendants forever. It inspirited the young and the old, 
 the rich and the poor, the men and the women, the scholar 
 and the plowman, the soldier and the statesman, to vie 
 with the toil and hardships in which the foundations of the 
 great structure were laid by heroic ancestors, and, by equal 
 labors and sacrifices, to preserve, defend, and perpetuate, 
 for our remotest posterity, an unmutilated territory and an 
 uncorrupted constitution. The examples, the precepts of 
 the fathers were the model and the guide of their children. 
 They agitated the whole mass of patriotism and power 
 which a free, a brave, an intelligent, a strenuous people 
 placed at the service of a government they adored against 
 a rebellion they abhorred. Let later generations, in the 
 assured enjoyment of the great heritage, debate how the 
 sum of their admiration or gratitude shall be distributed 
 between the founders and the preservers of their constituted 
 liberties. For ourselves, we are content to say and to feel 
 that ''the glory of children are their fathers," and to lay 
 the mighty heroism of our own day as a gift upon the altar 
 of our country, to enrich the name and the fame of the 
 founders of the Republic. 
 
 But a renewal of a people's reverence and affection for the 
 founders of their nation may justly be connected with the 
 mere revolution of time, and the recurrence of dates mark- 
 ing the lapse of an important period in the measure of 
 human affairs. Such a period, in the common judgment 
 of mankind, is noted by the expiration of a hundred years. 
 So durable an impression upon the course of things itself 
 gives significance to an event, and when the event is one, 
 
68 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 in its essential character, of moment and the highest dignity, 
 its centennial inevitably revives its memory and awakens 
 public attention. 
 
 The first ontbreak of armed resistance to British author- 
 ity in the Colonies occurred on the 19th of April, 1775, at 
 Concord, in Massachusetts, where was fired ' ' the shot heard 
 round the world.'' On the 19th of April, 1783, near the 
 spot where we now stand, was read to the armies of the 
 United States, by the order of General Washington, their 
 Commander-in-chief, a proclamation of Congress, directing 
 a cessation of hostilities between Great Britain and the 
 United States. Within this space of precisely eight years, 
 then, are comprehended all the military transactions of the 
 Revolutionary War. The corresponding centennial period 
 has witnessed the celebration of the principal incidents of 
 the glorious and successful' conduct of our arms, and their 
 final triumph. These celebrations have followed the course 
 of military operations over the whole theater of the war. 
 Sometimes they have engaged the attention of local pride 
 and interest only, and in other instances they have enlisted 
 the general attention of the people and the active partici- 
 pation of the Government. In all, one spirit and one pur- 
 pose have shaped the popular demonstrations and inspired 
 tiie commemorative addresses. This spirit and this purpose 
 have been, not of rivalry or of discord, but of unison and 
 unbroken sympathy and enthusiasm in the grand effort and 
 the grand result which made us a free, independent, and 
 united people; which established a government adequate for 
 the maintenance of our constituted liberties against domestic 
 danger and foreign menace, and which are justified, to the 
 general judgment of mankind, as the greatest transaction of 
 recorded history and the most beneficent fabric of human 
 institution which the world has witnessed. 
 
 Accordingly, the battles of the war, beginning with Con- 
 cord and Lexington and Bunker Hill, embracing Benning- 
 ton and Saratoga, and ending with the siege and surrender of 
 
Washington Monnment at Nezvhiirgh^ N. Y. 09 
 
 Yorktown, have in turn been made the occasion of spirited 
 and impressive celebrations. The valor of the soldiers; 
 their nnflinching endurance of hunger and cold and every 
 form and degree of suffering and hardship; their progress 
 in discipline till they could face and overcome the regular 
 troops of the great military power with which we were 
 engaged; the bravery, the skill, the genius of their com- 
 manders; the patience and persistence of their campaigns 
 and their strategy; their fortunes and their victories— these 
 all were recalled by the chosen orators, these all received 
 the plaudits of the gathered crowds, all touched their hearts, 
 moved now to the tenderness of tears, and, again, inflamed 
 and aroused as at the sound of a trumpet. 
 ^ In the midst of these festive pomps and proud gratula- 
 tions of our people at the triumphant issue of our arms in 
 the war of the Revolution, the sobriet>- of their judgment 
 and their instinctive subordination of militar}- glory to civic 
 greatness were exhibited in the pre-eminence given to the 
 commemoration of the great central deliberative transac- 
 tion, in the service of which all the heroism and successes 
 of the war had their motive and their end. I mean, to be 
 sure, the Declaration of Independence, a civic transaction of 
 which history has no parallel, and which must stand ever 
 to the admiring esteem of statesmen and philosophers, as 
 it does in the unquestioning faith of our whole people,' as 
 the consummate work of the most profound wisdom and 
 the most intrepid courage which a political assembly has 
 ever exhibited. Fit indeed was it that upon the centennial 
 of that transaction the nation to which it gave birth should 
 invite the other nations of the world to a generous compari- 
 son of the arts, the power, the victories of peace. The con- 
 course of our own population, the attendance of foreign vis- 
 itors from all quarters of the globe, witnessed and formed 
 part of the grand demonstration of the greatness of the new 
 nation, which had thus been born in a day, and of the benign 
 influences upon which it relied to make good its claims 
 upon the attention and respect of the world. 
 
70 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 This continuous and manifold presentation to the homage 
 and applause of our countr)inen of the course of that mar- 
 velous succession of events of which the centennial dates 
 had recurred, had left unmarked one stage and act of the 
 great drama — that stage and act which this vast assemblage 
 has collected to celebrate to-day. 
 
 In the interval between the surrender of the British army 
 to the combined forces of the United States and of France 
 at Yorktown and the definitive treaty of peace, by which the 
 results of the war, as establishing our independence, were 
 recognized by Great Britain, our armies were encamped 
 upon these neighboring fields. Upon this very spot Wash- 
 ington had his headquarters. The other great generals of 
 the patriotic Army were disposed all about this, the central 
 position. 
 
 The disaster to the British arms in Virginia was regarded 
 as the last battle of the war. This victory in the field was 
 counted by us as the complete and final triumph of our cause. 
 France, our generous ally in the darkest days of our conflict, 
 shared in the opinion that the military operations of the war 
 were closed at Yorktown. The suddenness and the com- 
 pleteness of the discomfiture of the British arms made the 
 approaches to the settlement of the terms of peace the more 
 uncertain and the more tedious. The British prime minister. 
 Lord North, we are told by the messenger who conveyed to 
 him the intelligence of the surrender of Cornwallis, received 
 the news "like a bullet in his heart." 
 
 The pacification of Europe, through the firmness of the 
 friendship of France, waited upon the completion of our 
 independence in its treaty recognition by the mother 
 country. But so grave a transaction, besides being repug- 
 nant to the pride of England and intolerable to the temper 
 of her King, involved the questions of boundaries to the 
 new sovereignty, of extra-territorial privileges, of partici- 
 pation in common rights which were incapable of partition. 
 Meanwhile, the American armies must await, inactive, 
 
Washington Moniunent at Neivburgh^ N. Y. 71 
 
 the slow result of these complex negotiations. They must 
 be held in readiness for the renewal of hostilities if the 
 expectations of peace and independence should be disap- 
 pointed. The exigencies of the public service must control, 
 and for an indefinite period, the conduct of an army which 
 had no reason for its existence but the country's need of its 
 service in a defensive war, and must maintain the hold for 
 that army's support upon the voluntary aids of the States, 
 when both army and people believed the war was over and 
 its ends secured. 
 
 This ordeal of the virtue of these citizen soldiers, of the 
 steadfastness and authority of these republican officers; this 
 trial anew of the great qualities of Washington ; this test of 
 the unbalanced scheme of the Revolutionary Government, 
 were all passed through in the experience of the eighteen 
 months that the Army was disposed in its cantonments on 
 these surrounding fields, and its Commander-in-chief occu- 
 pied these Headquarters at Newburgh. 
 
 The occurrences which would mark this peculiar situa- 
 tion of war without hostilities, without securities of peace, 
 would necessarily be interesting; they proved to be moment- 
 ous. In moral and political sequence, as well as in time, 
 they closed the heroic period of our history. Their cele- 
 bration here and to-day completes the pious duty with which 
 this era of power and prosperity gratefully commemorates 
 the days to which it traces their growth. 
 
 The intrinsic interest of the occurrences which followed 
 one another during the transition of the people and of the 
 Army from war to peace has attracted great attention to 
 this chapter of our Revolutionary history. It is no w^onder, 
 then, that the populous communities that have grown up 
 around and upon the scenes of these transactions; that have 
 been brought up upon the traditions, the associations, the 
 inspirations of the place, should have felt a sensible interest 
 in their commemoration and illustration by suitable monu- 
 ments and appropriate ceremonies. The government of the 
 
72 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 State has created a permanent protective trust to preserve 
 from change, injury, or decay the edifice made sacred by its 
 occupation for so long a period by Washington as a home 
 for himself and his wife, and as the hospitable resort of the 
 distinguished generals that were grouped about him. An 
 equal zeal has provided for the restoration of the famous 
 building, known as the "Temple," within whose walls were 
 so often collected, for religious worship and for public delib- 
 erations, the soldiers and the officers of the patriot Army 
 during this their last encampment. 
 
 So great and general, so serious and momentous interests, 
 however, clustered about these scenes, that neither to local 
 attachment nor to State pride exclusively could the duties 
 and the ceremonies of this celebration be properly committed. 
 The Congress of the United States resolved that a joint select 
 committee of the two houses should be appointed, whose 
 duty it should be "to make, independently, of itself, or in 
 connection with the trustees of Washington's Headquarters 
 and the Citizens' Committee, all necessary arrangements for a 
 befitting celebration of the centennial ceremonies commemo- 
 rative of Washington's refusal to accept a crown, the procla- 
 mation of peace, the disbandment of the Army, and other 
 notable Revolutionary events, to be held at Washington's 
 Headquarters, in the city of Newburgh and State of New 
 York." Under, then, these united auspices of the city, the 
 State, and the Nation this public celebration is held, and by 
 the favor and invitation of the committee of the two houses 
 of Congress I enjoy the privilege of taking part in it. 
 
 The commemoration was further and justly recognized by 
 Congress as of national concern by a judicious appropriation 
 from the Treasury for the erection of a suitable monument 
 upon these grounds, with such inscriptions and emblems as 
 may properly commemorate the historical events which here 
 took place. This action of Congress, taken with great una- 
 nimity, shows the public judgment of the importance of these 
 last acts in the Revolutionary period, in themselves and in 
 
WashiJigton Monument at Ah'zvburgh^ AL Y. 73 
 
 their influence upon the complete and fortunate determina- 
 tion of our political institutions and our national life. That 
 this estimate is but a just measure of these occurrences will 
 appear from even a summary examination of their nature 
 and of the public situation which gave rise to them. 
 
 Our affairs had reached that stage when tlie minds of all 
 men occupying conspicuous and responsible positions, either 
 in civil or military employment, were engaged in solicitous 
 consideration of the great problem of the immediate future of 
 the people and the Government. The motives, the objects, 
 the sentiments, and the passions that had formed the substan- 
 tial and the adequate basis for unity of action by the different 
 Colonies; that had knit together the friendships and fellow- 
 ships of their public men; that had secured co-operation 
 in matters of civil prudence and of military combination, 
 were about to come to an end. Nay, more; they were to 
 be replaced, it was feared, by tendencies and influences in 
 which diversities of interests, personal jealousies and com- 
 petitions, discordant opinions and active animosities would, 
 on the ordinary calculations of human character and con- 
 duct, have the upper hand. Every reflecting mind was more 
 and more distressed with the conviction that the common 
 oppressions, the common resentments, the common delibera- 
 tions, and the combined action which had kept alive the 
 prodigious energies of the heroic struggle of a feeble people 
 against a common and powerful enemy, would lose their 
 cohesion and their momentum in their complete attainment 
 of the common end — would all be swallowed up in the final 
 victory. Whether or not new experiences, new dangers, 
 and new necessities would teach new lessons of wisdom and 
 supply a working force to mold and weld into unity and 
 strength the scattered forces of these separate communities, 
 when liberated from the inexorable pressure which had held 
 them together, was a speculation which filled with anxiety 
 the public mind. But the hope, the forecast, the faith that 
 would solve f^W these doubts in the ultimate outcome did 
 
74 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 not meet the instant urgency of the question of the imme- 
 diate means and agencies to be employed to avoid an evil 
 catastrophe and smooth the progress to the establishment 
 of a competent and united government. 
 
 If these anxious speculations, if these distressing uncer- 
 tainties occupied the thoughts of men in civil authority 
 and formed the staple of popular discussion, we may easily 
 understand how, in this long period of military inaction, 
 they pressed with special anxieties upon the minds of the 
 officers and the men of the Revolutionary Army. For the 
 statesmen and magistrates, for the leaders of public opinion 
 as well as for the mass of the people all over the country, 
 the assured triumph of our arms and the establishment of 
 our independence carried with them emotions of supreme 
 personal satisfaction, and offered prospects of new honors 
 and larger spheres of activity for civil ambition and new 
 avenues of wealth and prosperity for energy and industry. 
 If to the more circumspect and the more far-seeing the mists 
 of doubt obscured these prospects, and vicissitudes, mis- 
 chances, blunders, and disasters were counted among the 
 probable experiences which might attend the progress of 
 the Colonies, in their new political relations to each other, to 
 a full develojDUient of unity and strength, these solicitudes 
 were public and general, not personal or particular. Every- 
 body was willing to accept his share of the common fortunes 
 and bear his part in the common dangers or disappointments 
 which might prove inseparable from citizenship in the new 
 Republic. The glory of success, the pride of independence, 
 the joy of new-born greatness colored everything for the 
 great body of the people, with bright anticipations for the 
 future. 
 
 To the officers and men of the Army as they lay in these 
 encampments, and to their comrades on other fields or scat- 
 tered on leave and furlough, the near future presented itself 
 in quite a different aspect, and their own share in it gave 
 rise to sharp anxieties and harassing perplexities. Seven 
 
IVasliiiigton Aloiiiniii'/it at NezvlnirgJi^ N. V. 75 
 
 loug years of military service, of enforced disuse of the peace- 
 ful occupations of life, even if age and wounds and hardships 
 had not seriously reduced health of body, or vigor of mind, or 
 buoyancy of spirits and of hope, had broken the whole tenor 
 of their lives and disabled them from competition, on equal 
 terms, for the moderate successes of the narrow industries of 
 a poor and frugal people. The rank and file would find the 
 places which they would have occupied, had they not obeyed 
 the call of their country to arms, filled by others. The 
 ofiicers must fexpect that the liberal professions, the public 
 employments, the gainful pursuits of trade would be closed 
 against them ; for the indispensable period and stage of prepa- 
 ration and apprenticeship had been lost to them forever while 
 they were learning and practicing the art 'of war, which vic- 
 tory was to make useless to them for all their lives. The 
 living sense of obligation to these oflficers and men for plac- 
 ing their lives and fortunes at the service and staking them 
 upon the issues of war, which had been none too hearty or 
 profuse while their services were needed and their courage 
 and constancy were under immediate and admiring observa- 
 tion, they must conclude would not long persist after their 
 services were ended and their courage and constancy had 
 borne all their fruits. 
 
 If the aspect of the future was thus disconsolate to these 
 veterans when they looked at the general mass of the peo- 
 ple, in which they were soon to be swallowed up, it gained 
 only a deej^er color of sadness when they turned their eyes 
 to the Revolutionary Government, in whose service* so 
 much of their lives had been exhausted and their unmeasured 
 triumph had been achieved. Even in the urgencies of the 
 war, at the most critical periods, when adequate supplies of 
 money and men meant assurance of success and their de- 
 nial certain disaster, the laxity of the ties by which the State 
 governments were held together under the central authority 
 had been painfully evident. 
 
 Already the natural and necessary tendency of the final 
 
76 The Centennial Celebr'ation and 
 
 military successes and the dawn of conclusive and perma- 
 nent peace showed itself in progressive inattention of the 
 Congress to the rights and the wants of the Army, and of 
 the States to the requisitions and authority of the Congress. 
 It looked, indeed, to the soldiers as they lay in their tents, 
 to the officers as they compared opinions in their messes or 
 gathered about headquarters for news and for encourage- 
 ment, as if the Revolutionary Government would decay, or 
 even dissolve before their eyes, and the States would neg- 
 lect, or even repudiate, the obligations to the Army which 
 they were so slow to perform to the authentic Government 
 which they had authorized to raise and support that Army 
 to conduct the war, and, on its successful issue, to conclude 
 the peace. 
 
 Nor were these forebodings for the future, these distrusts 
 of the present, vague or speculative. The Army, with a 
 patience and good temper which can escape admiration only 
 when they escape observation, had waited upon Congress, 
 through correspondence and by committees, with calm, con- 
 vincing, earnest, and pointed expositions of their sufferings 
 and their solicitudes. These communications had included 
 a just insistence upon their rights, a self-respecting asser- 
 tion of their merits, an explicit statement of their expecta- 
 tions, and a vivid portrayal of their difficulties, their doubts, 
 and their fears. 
 
 With the utmost candor and good faith the soldiers and 
 officers of the Army had impressed upon the collective Con- 
 gress, upon the Governors of the States, upon the great 
 statesmen and patriots in civil life throughout the country, 
 as individuals, that the situation would no longer bear delay; 
 that the temper of the sufferers could no longer brook neg- 
 lect. As, nevertheless, no efficient public action followed, 
 no genuine or responsible assurance of future action was 
 held out, still more persistent pressure, still more vehement 
 remonstrance ensued. These should have made evident to 
 the Congress and the States, as they evinced on the part of 
 
Washington JMonioiioit at A'c7ct)iirg/i^ A'. Y. 77 
 
 the Army, a spreading coiuiction that the time for argu- 
 ment, for deliberation, for forbearance, was passing away, 
 and that immediate action for the Army's necessities, or by 
 the Army for its own protection, must end the weary delay. 
 
 As the months wore away, and the situation, to the ap- 
 prehension of these sober-minded and patriotic officers and 
 men, showed no amelioration, discouragement gave place to 
 despair. The great Commander-in-chief had given to their 
 views and demands his full support. He had approved the 
 statements and enforced the arguments, the entreaties, the 
 remonstrances with which they had urged them upon the 
 Congress and the country. He sympathized, to the bottom 
 of his heart, in the worthiness of their claims upon the 
 justice and the gratitude of the Government and the peo- 
 ple alike, and in the indignation which filled their breasts 
 at the slackness and indifference with which they were 
 treated. This earnest and faithful, this affectionate and in- 
 trepid, support of their rights and their resentments by the 
 great commander could not increase their love or deepen 
 their reverence for him, for these were already immeasurable. 
 But when his great authority failed to gain that effectual 
 attention which the urgency of their affairs demanded, they 
 felt that the faults in the frame and scheme of govern- 
 ment — to which alone, and not at all to the personal in- 
 difference or incompetency of its members, they attributed 
 this failure of justice and duty to the Army — were neither 
 casual, nor partial, nor temporary. Upon this aspect and 
 estimate they brooded, and cast about for some recourse that 
 should meet the necessities of the Army, the interests of the 
 people, both instant and permanent, and all the exigencies 
 of good government for the nascent nation. 
 
 For this juncture of the general need, for this failure of 
 the existing forces, for this crumbling confidence, for this 
 confusion of the old and the new, for this dark and clouded 
 transition from the forsaken past to the undiscovered and 
 unformed future, there seemed but one real, one known, one 
 
78 The Centennial Celebra/ion and 
 
 adequate basis upon which faith, justice, and safety for all — 
 for Army, Government, and People — could be built up. 
 This basis was the name, the fame, the power, the character 
 of Washington. These were the one possession of the new 
 nation about which all minds, all hearts could gather; and 
 add to his incomparable majesty of virtue, of dignity, of 
 personal faculty, of universal service, and of unbroken for- 
 tune, that homage and applause of all his countrymen, 
 which should sober all doubts, dispel all fears, realize all 
 hopes, satisfy all needs, put to flight all theories, all schemes, 
 all discords, all experiments, all fancies, all treasons, and on 
 this new scene, the fullness of time being come, present the 
 crowning glory before the eyes of all men of what till now 
 had been but the vision of political enthusiasm, "A Patriot 
 King at the head of a United People." 
 
 This, I am quite sure, my countrymen, is the true explana- 
 tion of the rash and sudden movement of the patriotic Army 
 to raise up for a patriotic people a patriotic king. In the brief 
 record of this transaction, in the character of those engaged 
 in it, in the circumstances surrounding them, in the motives 
 and influences playing upon their minds, in the objects in 
 view, and in the supposed value in their eyes of this last 
 resort, I see no trace or suspicion of any vulgar, sordid, or 
 selfish preference of the trappings of royalty, or of the drip- 
 pings of a court, or of grades, or ranks, or titles, or classes 
 among the people, over the simple and equal institutions 
 which were the habit then, as they have since proved the 
 glory and strength, of the nation. No motive but love of 
 countr}^, no object less worthy than the safety of the people, 
 suggested this bright vision of an ideal monarchy, in which 
 everything was romantic, in the sober light of our days, 
 except the greatness and the goodness of Washington. 
 
 We must, owever, understand that this step on the part 
 of the Army must have been long reflected on, widely con- 
 sidered, and have received a large, if not a general, concur- 
 rence of opinion, before the officers could have deputed one 
 
Washington Monument at Ne^vbnrgJi^ N. Y. 79 
 
 of their number to impart this their design to Washington. 
 No one could have conceived that any such design could be 
 tolerated, entertained, much less embraced, by their loved, 
 their revered commander, under any less elevated aspect 
 than that of a mere love of country, a mere compulsion of 
 duty. The depth, the sincerity, the purity of their own 
 sentiments on this profound interest of the new nation are 
 guarantied by the simple fact that they made bold to submit 
 it to the honest-hearted, clear-headed defender and protector 
 of liberty and independence. 
 
 I will not debate, his countrymen have no need to debate 
 what serious discredit or disaster, what immediate or per- 
 manent disorder might have disturbed the noble progress of 
 our people from war to peace, from the inarticulate frame 
 of the imperfect Government to the grand and solid struct- 
 ure of the Constitution and the Union, if the man to whom 
 and for whom this project was proposed had been less wise, 
 less good, less great than Washington. In this critical post- 
 ure of public affairs, which he painfully felt, before this 
 sudden evidence of the length and breadth and depth to 
 which these dangerous speculations had spread and pene- 
 trated in his beloved, his trusted, his faithful, his devoted 
 Army, the rapid intelligence and prompt decision of their 
 hero, their commander, their chosen master and king, fright- 
 ened with his awful frown, crushed with his fierce indigna- 
 tion, the pernicious scheme, and confounded all its projectors 
 and supporters. His words were few and simple, uttered with- 
 out parade, and with a sense of shame that he should need 
 to say in words what his whole life had expressed: "Be as- 
 sured, sir, no occurrence in the course of the war has given me 
 more painful sensations than your information of there being 
 such ideas existing in the Army as you have expressed and 
 which I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with 
 severity. * * * i am much at a loss to conceive what 
 part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an 
 address, which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs 
 
80 The Centennial Celebration a)id 
 
 that can befall my country, * * * Let me conjure you, 
 then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for 
 yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these 
 thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from 
 yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature." 
 
 These modest Headquarters are no Lupercal, nor was 
 honest Colonel Nicola a second Antony; the rugged repub- 
 lican army that lay here encamped were not the Roman 
 legions or the Roman mob, and Washington was not a 
 Julius Caesar. No wonder that the greatest orator of the 
 first age of our Government, Fisher Ames, said, and Web- 
 ster, the greatest orator of his day, repeated, ' ' Washington 
 changed mankind's ideas of political greatness." No won- 
 der that his countrymen to-da)', led by the Congress of this 
 great Republic, celebrate the transaction and the scene 
 where Washington refused to accept a crown. 
 
 But this event, notable and noted as it was, was soon fol- 
 lowed by another of the gravest importance, upon this same 
 scene and with the same actors. The same discontents and 
 anxieties of the Army which had sought their satisfaction 
 in a new form and frame of government, when this design 
 was baffled and suppressed by the authority of Washington, 
 meditated an assertion of military power to coerce the slow 
 and feeble justice of the existing Government into an active 
 attention to the rights of the Army, and a prompt succor of 
 their sufferings and redress of their wrongs. This contem- 
 plated and prepared movement of the Army gave to Wash- 
 ington the most serious concern, excited his most energetic 
 action, and was overthrown by him with consummate wis- 
 dom and courage. 
 
 The soldiers and their officers were all without present 
 pay, had long wearily awaited the settlement of accounts 
 and of arrears, and were passing from suspense into despair 
 as to any provision for these, as well as for their future main- 
 tenance, when they should no longer be necessary, and, 
 perhaps, no longer be remembered. The resolution of Con- 
 
WasJiiiigton Moiiuincnt at Nczuhurgh^ N. Y. 81 
 
 gress, passed in October, 1780, granting half-pay for life to 
 the officers, was but the engagement of a Government with- 
 out funds or credit for its performance. The alternatives of 
 prospective provision of a Continental fund, or of the sev- 
 eral States undertaking to meet this burden of the half-pay, 
 seemed equally hopeless, for neither a constitutional majority 
 of the States in Congress nor the individual States favored 
 the measure itself. The proposed commutation of the half- 
 pay for life for a gross sum, which the Army might be will- 
 ing to accept, had come to no head in the public councils 
 or in the public mind. In December, 1782, the officers of 
 the Army here encamped had intrusted to a committee of 
 their number a careful and impressive memorial for presen- 
 tation to and prosecution before Congress. This memorial 
 set forth in serious terms the grievances of which the Army 
 complained and the deplorable straits to which they were 
 reduced by the continual failure of the civil authorities to 
 heed and relieve their distressed condition. This committee 
 had been competent and faithful in the discharge of their 
 trust, and in February, 1783, had communicated the failure 
 of any actual result, and the vagueness and remoteness of 
 any future satisfaction of their just hopes. 
 
 But little reflection is needed to appreciate the gravity of 
 this situation, and the resentments and resistance of the 
 Army against it soon broke out into the tone and attitude 
 of the menace of armed remonstrance and military defiance. 
 The Commander-in-chief, in a letter to the Governor of Vir- 
 ginia, thus speaks of the temper and the danger which this 
 state of things had developed : 
 
 Although a firm reliance on the integrity of Congress, and a belief 
 that the public would finally do justice to all its servants, and give an 
 indisputable security for the payment of the half-pay of the officers, 
 had kept them, amid a variety of sufferings, tolerably quiet and con- 
 tented for two or three years past ; yet the total want of pay, the 
 little prospect of receiving any from the unpromising state of the 
 public finances, and the absolute aversion of the States to establish 
 H. Mis. 601 6 
 
82 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 any Continental iwwX's for the j)aynient of the debt due the Army, 
 did, at the close of the last campaign, excite greater discontent and 
 threaten more serious and alarming consequences than is easy for me 
 to describe or for you to conceive. 
 
 We may be sure, then, that when these calm words of 
 Washington estimate the difficulty and danger as incapable 
 of exaggeration, the peril of the country was indeed alarm- 
 ing. The crisis had come for which neither the Congress, 
 the States, nor the people were prepared. It had come as 
 a shock, because the processes, the influences, the natural 
 sentiments leading to it had been silent, gradual, and un- 
 noticed. Yet the accumulated neglects, imbecilities, and 
 presumptions on the part of an imperfect Government, the 
 accumulating sufferings, grievances, indignities, and resent- 
 ments on the part of the Army, the griefs for the past and 
 the despairs of the future, had proved too much for the 
 temper, the forbearance, and the duty of these faithful, these 
 veteran, these patriotic citizen soldiers. The Government 
 whose call they had obeyed, whose service they had fulfilled 
 through poverty and himger and wounds, whose cause they 
 had maintained, whose honor, whose safety, whose triumph 
 they had made secure, was unable or unwilling to keep the 
 engagements it had made in the past, was careless or in- 
 competent as to any provision for their future. The people 
 which they expected to be grateful was studying how to 
 escape the obligation to be just. The chief share in the 
 enjoyment of the advantages of a glorious and prosperous 
 peace, which a generous consent should have assigned to 
 those who had borne the chief brunt and burden of the war, 
 was to be withheld from them, and humiliation and penury, 
 embittered by pity and charity, were to be their inglorious 
 fate. 
 
 Against this their intelligence, their spirit, their pride, all 
 that had made them the Army of Independence, the glory 
 and defense of their country, rebelled. An eloquent, a pas- 
 sionate, a resolute expression of the thoughts and feelings 
 
Washington Monumejit at Newburgh^ N. Y. 83 
 
 that stirred in the breasts of all was circulated among the 
 officers, and was accompanied by a summons to meet aton-e 
 for the consideration of their wrongs and the assertion of 
 their power and their right to redress them. These appeals 
 bore no name, nor did they need any personal authority to 
 command and quicken sentiments and purposes which were 
 already formed and waited only to be combined ; the delib 
 erations thus invited were to conduct to a conclusive and 
 peremptory determination to confront the Congress with the 
 alternative of promptly meeting the demands of the Army 
 or beholding them refuse to lay down their arms or surrender 
 their organization in case of a declaration of peace or de 
 clme the further defense of the country in case hostilities 
 should be renewed. "Tell them"-was the bold suggestion 
 how the Army should deal with Congress in this dreadful 
 issue between them-" tell them that, though you were the 
 first, and would wish to be the last, to encounter danger- 
 though despair itself can never drive you into dishonor it 
 may drive you from the field; that the wound, often irritated 
 and never healed, may at length become incurable, and that 
 the slightest mark of indignity from Congress now must 
 operate like the grave, and part you forever; that in any 
 political event the Army has its alternative. If peace that 
 nothing shall separate you from your arms but death • if war 
 that courting the auspices and inviting the direction of 
 your illustrious leader, you will retire to some unsettled 
 country, smile in your turn, and 'mock when' their 'fear 
 Cometh. ' ' ' 
 
 Again, my countrymen, what was there to breast this 
 sudden flood of "mutiny and rage?" What to still this 
 storm? What to stay this rising conflict between the civil 
 and military arms of the Government? What, indeed but 
 the name, the fame, the power, the character of Washing- 
 ton ? With instant decision he set aside the anonymous call 
 for the meeting, convoked the assembly for a day appointed 
 by himself, and prescribed its constitution, its duty, and its 
 
84 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 method of proceedings. He attended and addressed it him- 
 self, mastered it by the force of his reasons, the earnestness of 
 his expostnlations, the authority of his presence. The united 
 voice of the assembled officers was but the echo of the wis- 
 dom, the patriotism, the all-enduring obedience of the great 
 citizen, the overwhelming authority of the great commander. 
 And thus the illustrious leader suppressed the military revolt 
 against the supremacy of the civil government as swiftly 
 and as surely as he had overthrown the scheme to subvert 
 its frame. 
 
 For the rest, these great events passed, these great dan- 
 gers escaped, these admirable and prosperous interpositions 
 of the personal power of Washington saving the falling su- 
 premacy of the civil authorities and subduing the restless 
 spirit of the Army, the course of things till the final dis- 
 bandment of the troops, till these Headquarters and these 
 cantonments were all deserted, were marked by no further 
 commotions. In this interval the Commander-in-chief 
 penned his Address to the Governors of the States, in which 
 he spoke to them, and through them to the Legislatures and 
 the people, in far-seeing, far-reaching counsels of wisdom 
 and duty, ' ' as one having authority. ' ' On this very day 
 one hundred years ago Congress issued a proclamation dis- 
 banding all the armies, and Washington, from Princeton, 
 under date of November 2, 1783, put forth his "Farewell 
 Address to the Armies of the United States." 
 
 These two remarkable papers embraced within their coun- 
 sels, their exhortations, their instructions, their warnings, 
 and their benedictions, the citizens and the soldiers of the 
 whole country. They were at once the evidence and the 
 annunciation that the great work of Independence was ac- 
 complished and the Nation was established. No formal 
 proclamation, no authentic acts of government, could carry 
 the weight, could receive the attention, could pervade the 
 public mind, could animate the hearts, could stimulate the 
 conscience, could control the conduct of the people, passing 
 
Washington Monument at Neivbnrgh^ N. V. 85 
 
 from the wilderness into their promised land, as did these 
 personal words of their great leader. He stood, he was to 
 stand, npon the level of common citizenship with themselves. 
 But it was a citizenship which had been built up, and was 
 to endure as a crown of glory to a whole people, and an 
 inheritance never to perish till they had lost the virtues 
 illustrated and inculcated by Washington. 
 
 The interest, the reverence, that we feel, as we recall these 
 great transactions, as we stand upon the spot where they 
 were enacted, center upon Washington. Great everywhere 
 and at all times, the part played upon this field in these 
 closing months of the Revolution was not less conspicuous 
 nor complete in its greatness than any manifestation of his 
 life. Had these events closed his public service ; had he 
 then forever retired from the great theater of action and re- 
 nown ; had he never filled out our admiration and our grati- 
 tude by the eight years of private life and the eight years 
 of the Chief IMagistracy which followed the surrender of his 
 military command; if his great presence in the framing of 
 the Constitution and in the guidance of the nation by high 
 statesmanship and pure administration— if all this had been 
 wanting to the full splendor of his fame, if he stood to his 
 countrymen in their memory as he stood upon this very 
 spot one hundred years ago, his face would have shone to 
 all this people as did the face of Moses to the children of 
 Israel when he delivered the Tables of the Law. 
 
 And now, after a hundred years of marvelous fortunes and 
 crowded experiences, we confront .the days and the works 
 and the men of the first age of the Republic. Three wars 
 have broken the peace here proclaimed: The War for Neu- 
 trality, to complete our independence, by establishing our 
 right to beat peace, though other Powers sought to draw us 
 into their wars; the War for Boundary, which pushed our 
 limits to the Pacific, and rounded our territory; the War 
 of the Constitution, which established for this people that, 
 for them and forever, "Liberty and Union are one and in- 
 
86 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 separable." These rolling years have shown growth — for- 
 ever growth; and strength — increasing strength; and wealth 
 and numbers ever expanding; while intelligence, freedom, 
 art, culture, and religion have pervaded and ennobled all 
 this material greatness. Wide, however, as is our land and 
 vast our population to-day, these are not the limits to the 
 name, the fame, the power of the life and character of 
 Washington. If it could be imagined that this nation, rent 
 by disastrous feuds, broken in its unity, should ever present 
 the miserable spectacle of the undefiled garments of his 
 fame parted among his countrymen, while for the seamless 
 vesture of his virtue they cast lots — if this unutterable 
 shame, if this immeasurable crime, should overtake this 
 land and this people, be sure that no spot in the wide world 
 is inhospitable to his glory, and no people in it but rejoice 
 in the influence of his power and his virtue. 
 
 If the great statesman and orator, Mr. Fox, could, in the 
 British Parliament, exalt the character of Washington as 
 that " illustrious man, deriving honor less from the splendor 
 of his situation than from the dignity of his mind; before 
 whom all borrowed greatness sinks into insignificance, and 
 all the potentates of Europe become little and contempti- 
 ble;" if the famous eloquence of Erskine could speak of 
 him "as the only human being for whom he felfan awful 
 reverence;" if the political philosophy of Brougham pre- 
 scribed it as " the duty of the historian and sage of all nations 
 to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious 
 man;" if he asserted that "until time shall be no more will 
 a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom 
 and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the im- 
 mortal name of Washington ;' ' if our own great statesmen 
 and orators join in this acclaim, 
 
 Nil oriturum alias, nil ortum tale fatentes, 
 
 let his countrymen with one voice accept and cherish this 
 splendid possession, and exalt and perpetuate it now and 
 forever. 
 
Washington Monument at Newburgh^ N. Y. 87 
 
 the long dra.jvia.— from '76 to '83. 
 By Wallace Bruce. 
 
 With banners bright, with roll of drums, 
 
 With pride and pomp and civic state 
 A nation, born of courage, comes 
 
 The closing act to celebrate. 
 
 We've traced the drama, page by page, 
 
 From Lexington to Yorktown field ; 
 The curtain drops upon the stage. 
 
 The century's book to-day is sealed. 
 
 A cycle grand — with wonders fraught 
 
 That triumph over time and space — 
 In woven steel its dreams are wrought, 
 
 The nations whisper face to face. 
 
 But in the proud and onward march 
 
 We halt an hour for dress parade, 
 Remembering that fair freedom's arch 
 
 Springs from the base our fathers laid. 
 
 With cheeks aglow with patriot fire 
 
 They pass in long review again, 
 We grasp the hand of noble sire 
 
 Who made two words of "noblemen." 
 
 In silence now the tattered band — 
 
 Heroes in homespun worn and gray — 
 Around the old Headquarters stand 
 
 As in that dark, uncertain day. 
 
 That low-roofed dwelling shelters still 
 
 The phantom tenants of the past ; 
 Each garret beam, each oaken sill 
 
 Treasures and holds their memories fast. 
 
 Ay, humble walls ! the manger-birth 
 
 To emphasize this truth was given : 
 The noblest deeds are nearest earth. 
 
 The lowliest roofs are nearest heaven. 
 
88 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 We hear the anthem once again, 
 
 " No king but God !" to guide our way — 
 
 Like that of old, "Good will to men" — 
 Unto the shrine where freedom lay. 
 
 One window looking toward the east, 
 Seven doors wide open every side ; 
 
 That room revered proclaims at least 
 An invitation free and wide. 
 
 Wayne, Putnam, Knox, and Heath are there, 
 Steuben, proud Prussia's honored son, 
 
 Brave La Fayette from France the fair, 
 And, chief of all, our Washington. 
 
 Serene and calm in peril's hour, 
 An honest man without pretense, 
 
 He stands supreme to teach the power 
 And brilliancy of common sense. 
 
 Alike disdaining fraud and art. 
 
 He blended love with stern command; 
 
 He bore his country in his heart. 
 He held his army by the hand. 
 
 Hush, carping critic! read aright 
 The record of his fair renown; 
 
 A leader by diviner right 
 
 Than he who wore the British crown. 
 
 With silvered locks and eyes grown dim, 
 As victory's sun proclaimed the morn, 
 
 He pushed aside the diadem 
 
 With stern rebuke and patriot scorn. 
 
 He quells the half-paid mutineers. 
 And binds them closer to the cause ; 
 
 His presence turns their wrath to tears, 
 Their muttered threats to loud applause. 
 
 The Great Republic had its birth 
 That hour beneath the Army's wing. 
 
 Whose leader taught by native worth 
 The man is grander than the king. 
 
Washington Monument at Nezvburgh^ N. Y. 89 
 
 The stars on that bright azure field, 
 Which proudly wave o'er land and sea, 
 
 Were fitly taken from his shield 
 To be our common heraldry. 
 
 We need no trappings worn and old. 
 
 No courdy lineage to invoke, 
 No tinseled plate, but solid gold, 
 
 No thin veneer, but heart of oak. 
 
 No aping after foreign ways 
 . Becomes a son of noble sire ; 
 Columbia wins the sweetest praise 
 When clad in simple, plain attire. 
 
 In science, poesy, and art. 
 
 We ask the best the world can give ; 
 We feel the throb of Britain's heart, 
 
 And will while Burns and Shakespeare live. 
 
 But oh! the nation is too great 
 
 To borrow emptiness and pride; 
 The queenly Hudson wears in state 
 
 Her robes with native pigments dyed. 
 
 October lifts with colors bright 
 
 Its mountain canvas to the sky ; 
 The crimson trees, aglow with light, 
 
 Unto our banners wave reply. 
 
 Like Horeb's bush, the leaves repeat 
 From lips of flame with glory crowned: 
 
 " Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, 
 The place they trod is holy ground." 
 
 O fairest stream beneath the sun ! 
 
 Thy Highland portal was the key, 
 Which force and treason well-nigh won, 
 
 Like that of famed Thermopylae. 
 
 That Ridge along our eastern coast, 
 
 From Carolina to the Sound, 
 Opposed its front to England's host. 
 
 And heroes at each pass were found. 
 
90 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 A vast primeval palisade, 
 
 With bastions bold and wooded crest, 
 A bulwark strong, by nature made, 
 
 To guard the valley of the West. 
 
 Along its heights the beacons gleamed, 
 It formed the nation's battle-line, 
 
 Firm as the rocks and cliffs, where dreamed 
 The soldier-seers of Palestine. 
 
 These hills shall keep their memory sure ; 
 
 The blocks we rear shall fall away ; 
 The mountain fastnesses endure. 
 
 And speak their glorious deeds for aye. 
 
 And oh! while morning's golden urn 
 Pours amber light o'er purple brim, 
 
 And rosy peaks, like rubies, burn 
 Around the emerald valley's rim; 
 
 So long preserve our hearth-stone warm! 
 
 Our reverence, O God, increase! 
 And let the glad centennials form 
 
 One long Millennial of Peace. 
 
Washing ion Monument at Newburgh^ N. Y. 91 
 
 DESIGN OF THE MONUMENT. 
 
 In the selection of a design for the monument the Joint 
 Select Committee encountered many difficulties. 
 
 It was hardly possible to have the monument erected in 
 time for the Centennial Celebration, but it was hoped that 
 the plan at least might be agreed upon and the corner-stone 
 laid. With this object in view the Secretary of War, at 
 the request of the committee, at once caused an advertise- 
 ment to be duly published, inviting proposals for a design. 
 In response, several designs were submitted, but Congress 
 had in the mean while adjourned, and the members of the 
 Joint Select Committee had scattered to their respective 
 homes. 
 
 In pursuance of a call issued by the chairman, the Execu- 
 tive Committee met at the residence of Mr. Beach, at Corn- 
 wall, New York, on September 7, 1883. 
 
 Present: Senators Bayard, Miller, and Hawley, and Rep- 
 resentatives Ketcham, Townsend, and Beach. 
 
 The plans, bids, etc. , forwarded by the Secretary of War 
 were opened and examined. 
 
 There were also present, of the Newburgh Committee 
 of Five, its chairman, Hon. Peter Ward, Mayor of the 
 city; Hon. Joel T. Headley, Hon. M. H. Hirschberg, Hon, 
 John J. S. McCroskery, and Dr. R. V. K. Montfort, its sec- 
 retary. 
 
 After listening to the remarks of the Newburgh repre- 
 sentatives, the committee went into executive session. 
 
92 The Centeimial Celebration and 
 
 It was decided that, before coming to a conclusion, an 
 inspection of the grounds about the Headquarters would 
 be advisable. The committee thereupon proceeded in car- 
 riages to Newburgh. 
 
 Having examined the grounds and surroundings at Head- 
 quarters, the committee re-assembled in the room once occu- 
 pied by Alexander Hamilton. 
 
 Senator Bayard moved that the committee approve of a 
 monolithic obelisk for the Newburgh Monument at Wash- 
 ington's Headquarters, of the proportions and measurements 
 and of light-colored and fine-grained granite, as required 
 by the Secretary of War in his specifications to bidders, 
 the obelisk to be the largest obtainable for the money in 
 hand, and to possess the requisite qualifications. Adopted. 
 
 Mr. Beach then moved that the matter of inscriptions be 
 deferred to a future meeting of the committee; which mo- 
 tion was adopted. 
 
 The committee thereupon adjourned. 
 
 The money at the disposal of the Secretary of War for 
 the erection of the monument was not adequate to excite 
 competition among artists of established reputation. W^ith 
 a single exception, none of the bidders were artists or sculpt- 
 ors whose previous efforts would afibrd a reasonable guar- 
 anty that their plans, when wrought into execution, would be 
 either creditable to themselves or satisfactory to the public. 
 For this reason the Executive Committee decided in favor 
 of an obelisk. The decision of the committee was criticised 
 severely in the public press, and was in apparent opposition 
 to the wishes of the residents of the city of Newburgh. 
 The Trustees of Washington's Headquarters, at a meeting 
 
IVas/iingtoti Moniimoil at Nczvbiirgh^ X. Y. 93 
 
 held on October 26, 1883, unanimously adopted the follow- 
 ing resolution: 
 
 Resolved, That, in the judgment of the Trustees of Washington's 
 Headquarters, the ere?tion of an obelisk uiion the Headquarters 
 grounds would be incongruous and inartistic; and the Hon. Lewis 
 Beach is earnestly urged by this Board to press upon the committee 
 of which he is chairman, and which is in charge of the contemplated 
 National and State memorial, the adoption of some design for a 
 monument more in accordance with propriety and public taste and 
 opinion. 
 
 The Historical Society of Newburgh Bay and the High- 
 lands, at a meeting held in the city of Newburgh, on Friday 
 evening, February 22, 1884, adopted a resolution, of which 
 the following is a copy : 
 
 Resolved, That, in the judgment of this society, the proposed cen- 
 tennial memorial to be erected at Washington's Headquarters, in 
 Newburgh, should be in the form of a statue, with Washington 
 either as the sole or principal figure ; and that it should be designed 
 by an American artist of national reputation, and should be erected 
 for the purpose of showing a nation's regard for the devoted patriot- 
 ism and domestic virtues of the illustrious commander, statesman, 
 and citizen, as here developed at the close of the Revolution, and 
 that it should be so placed as to awaken increased interest and regard 
 for the picturesque stone house, now consecrated by so many mem- 
 ories of the past. 
 
 The Hon. Benson J. Lossing, the historian, sent a letter 
 to the committee, from which the following extract is made: 
 
 The erection of a shaft or other monument of marble or granite is 
 only an imitation of the rude commemorative structures of barbaric 
 nations — a cairn— a mere " heap of stones " that tell you nothing with- 
 out an inscription, which time and the elements will efface. * * * 
 Let us have a Christian statue ; not a heathen " heap of stones." 
 
94 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 The Newburgh Committee of Five also held a meeting 
 
 on September i8, 1883, at which the following motion was 
 
 adopted: 
 
 On motion, Mr, Beach is requested to use his influence to induce 
 the Joint Congressional Committee to adopt some other form than 
 the obelisk, in deference to the manifest judgment of the public, as 
 expressed by the press and the judgment of this committee. 
 
 At a meeting of the Joint Select Committee on the 
 Newburgh Monument, held at the rooms of Mr. Beach, in 
 Washington, on the evening of May 26, 1884, the following 
 members were present : Senators Bayard, Miller, Hawley, 
 and Hill; Representatives Ranney, Curtin, Ellis, Ketcham, 
 and Beach. 
 
 Mr. Beach requested Mr. Hawley to preside. 
 
 Mr. Beach then called attention to the previous action of 
 the Executive Committee in recommending an obelisk, and 
 stated that an obelisk had been severeh' criticised by the 
 press, and was objectionable to the residents of Newburgh. 
 He read resolutions passed by the local Committee of Five, 
 the Trustees of Washington's Headquarters, and the Histor- 
 ical Society of Newburgh Bay and the Highlands. He also 
 gave extracts from a letter written by the Hon. Benson J. 
 Lossing, which were, alike with the resolutions, adverse to 
 an obelisk. He then stated that he had called the full com- 
 mittee together for the purpose of reconsidering the action 
 of the Executive Committee, and he trusted that such re- 
 consideration would be had, in view of the popular demand. 
 
 After some time spent in an interchange of views, it was 
 moved by Senator Hill that artists of well-established repu- 
 tation be consulted and requested to submit designs. 
 
 Mr. Ranney proposed, as an amendment, that a committee 
 of three be appointed, with full power to consult with the 
 
Washington Monument at Neivbutgh^ N. V. 95 
 
 Secretary of War and secure and adopt an artistic design 
 for the monument. 
 
 The amendment of Mr. Ranney was thereupon put and 
 carried. 
 
 Senators Bayard and Hawley and Representative Beach 
 were thereupon appointed such subcommittee. 
 
 The subcommittee thereafter met and adopted the follow- 
 ing resolution: 
 
 Resohed, That, in the execution of the duty devolved upon them 
 by the joint resolution of Congress entitled "Joint resolution con- 
 cerning the erection of a memorial column at Washington's Head- 
 quarters at Newburgh, New York," approved March 3, 1883, this 
 committee hereby recommends that the sum of $750, part of the sum 
 appropriated, should be expended in equal sums in furtherance of 
 the work by the Secretary of War in procuring from the artists herein- 
 after named sketches and plans suggestive of the memorial structure 
 contemplated by tlie joint resolution, in order that this committee 
 may be properly instructed in relation thereto ; and that, in order to 
 inform the artists of the scale of expenditure involved, a copy of the 
 joint resolution and a statement of the amount appropriated thereby 
 and the sum of money deposited by the State of New York for the 
 same object, shall be communicated to them. 
 
 Names of artists : Augustus St. Gaudens, Launt Thompson, 
 William R. O'Donovan, H. K. Bu-he Brown, J. Q. A. Ward. 
 
 In pursuance of this resolution the Secretary of War 
 invited the artists in question to furnish designs. 
 
 Augustus St. Gaudens and Launt Thompson declined to 
 supply designs, while the other three sent in designs. 
 
 The plans submitted by J. Q. A. Ward, H. K. Bushe 
 Brown, and William R. O'Donovan severally possessed very 
 marked merit, but they failed to impress the committee with 
 being just w^hat was required for the particular monument 
 at the particular place in question. 
 
96 TJie Centennial Celebration and 
 
 Upon this point the committee, after much reflection, 
 had come to the conclusion that the most appropriate mon- 
 ument to carry out the spirit of the joint resolution would 
 be a structure of rude but imposing nature, built of the 
 native stone. Such a structure would typify the rugged 
 simplicity of the times and personages it was intended to 
 commemorate. 
 
 In addition to this, the site of the proposed monument 
 afforded an opportunity for distant display, which could not 
 well be ignored. The grounds are on a bluff overlooking 
 the river, and in full view of travelers on the cars and 
 passing steam-boats. The monument therefore should be 
 of sufficient proportions to attract the eye of the millions 
 who annually pass up and down the river. 
 
 Another fact to which the attention of the committee was 
 called was that these Headquarters are visited every year by 
 thousands of excursionists from the city of New York and 
 tourists from all parts of the world. A very natural, and 
 probably the first, impulse of strangers visiting a monu- 
 ment is to ascend it, and for this reason the committee was 
 of opinion that if the structure to be erected could be sur- 
 mounted by an accessible outlook it would be a very desir- 
 able feature. 
 
 Another conclusion to which the committee was forced 
 at an early date was that the amount appropriated for the 
 monument was entirely inadequate to secure an imposing 
 work of art. It was therefore thought best to devote the 
 appropriation to the erection of a structure which could be 
 used hereafter as a receptacle for such artistic productions, 
 in the shape of tablets and statues, as future generations 
 might provide. 
 
Washington Mominient at Newburgh^ N. Y. 97 
 
 Impressed with these views, the committee commissioned 
 Mr. Maurice J. Power, of New York, who has had a wide 
 experience and great success in monumental structures, to 
 prepare a design. Mr. Power called to his aid Mr. John 
 H. Duncan, of New York, artist and architect. 
 
 The design prepared by Mr. Duncan and adopted by the 
 committee represents a Tower of Victor}^, built of native 
 stone, of a rectangular form. The dimensions or ground 
 lines are 2il by 32 feet, with a total height of 53 feet. 
 
 Four large archways open into the atrium, one on each 
 side. 
 
 In the center of the atrimn, upon a polished pedestal of 
 red granite, will stand a life-size bronze statue of Washing- 
 ton, modeled by the sculptor O' Donovan. 
 
 From the ground floor two commodious circular stair- 
 cases (one for ascent and the other for descent) lead to a 
 belvedere, or open outlook, capable of holding over three 
 hundred persons. 
 
 The view from the belvedere will pro\'e a ver\' attractive 
 feature to the thousands of strangers who visit these Head- 
 quarters every year. It embraces a broad expanse of river 
 and mountain scenery, with outlying valleys. North and 
 South Beacon, upon whose towering tops the signal fires 
 were lit during the Revolution, are directly in front, whilst 
 to the right will be seen the Northern Gate to the High- 
 lands and West Point in the distance. 
 
 The belvedere will be surmounted by an iron and tile 
 roof, affording protection from sun and rain. The roof will 
 be supported by thirteen massive columns, upon which the 
 shields of the thirteen original States may be eventually 
 placed. 
 
 H. Mis. 601 7 
 
98 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 The interior walls are to be provided with recesses for the 
 reception of bas-reliefs and medallions, which can be sup- 
 plied in the future. 
 
 The exterior walls will be furnished with four niches, two 
 on the river side and two on the west side. These are in- 
 tended to receive bronze figures of an allegorical character 
 or statues of Washington's four favorite generals. 
 
 A tablet will be set on the exterior west wall, with such 
 commemorative inscriptions as may hereafter be agreed 
 upon. 
 
The Washington Monument at Newburgh. 
 
Washington Monument at Newbnrgh^ N. V. 99 
 
 AF»F>ENDIX. 
 
 Letter from the Secretary of War ^ transmitting^ in compli- 
 aitce with a resolution of the House^ a report tipon the 
 present condition of the Monument at Washington'' s Head- 
 quarters^ Newburgh^ New York. 
 
 War Department, 
 Washiftgton City, May 25, 1888. 
 Sir: In compliance with the following resolution of the House of 
 Representatives, I have the honor to submit herewith a copy of the 
 report of Col. John M. Wilson, U. S. Army, in charge of public build- 
 ings and grounds in this city, in reference to the present condition of 
 the Monument at Washington's Headquarters in the city of New- 
 burgh, New York: 
 
 May 23, 1888. 
 Resolved, That the Secretary of War be, and he hereby is, requested to transmit 
 to this House copies of all reports made to him by the Engineers of the War De- 
 partment, or others, relating to the present condition of the work on the Monument 
 at Washington's Headquarters, in the city of Newburgh, State of New York, 
 and any other information relating to the same in possession of his Department, 
 together with any recommendation he may deem proper to make in relation to the 
 completeness thereof according to the plans adopted therefor by the Joint Com- 
 mittee of the Senate of the United States and this House. 
 
 This monument was constructed in accordance with the joint res- 
 olution of Congress approved March 3, 1883, which provides as 
 follows : 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 
 America in Congress assembled, That sections two and three of the joint resolu- 
 tion of Congress approved July first, eighteen hundred and eighty two, authorizing 
 the Secretary of War to erect at Washington's Headquarters, in the city of New- 
 burgh, New York, a memorial column and to aid in defraying the expenses at the 
 centennial celebration to be held at that city in the year eighteen hundred and 
 
100 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 eighty three, be, and the same are hereby, amended so as to read as follows: 
 "That the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be 
 necessary, be, and the same is hereby, appropriated, out of any money in the 
 Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to be expended, under the direction of the 
 Secretary of War, in the erection of a suitable monument or column on the grounds 
 belonging to the State of New York and known as Washington's Headquarters, 
 with such inscriptions and emblems as may properly commemorate the historical 
 events which occurred at Newburgh and vicinity during the war of the Revolu- 
 tion : Prcn'ided, That the design for said monument or column, with the inscrip- 
 tions and emblems to be placed thereon, shall be subject to the approval and 
 adoption of the Joint Select Committee directed to be appointed by the joint resolu- 
 tion to which this is an amendment : And provided further. That no part of the 
 said sum of twenty-five thousand dollars shall be used in defraying the expenses of 
 said centennial celebration." 
 
 The joint resolution of July i, 1882, which was amended, pro- 
 vided — 
 
 That a Joint Select Committee be created, to consist of five vSenators, to be ap- 
 pointed by the Presiding Officer of the Senate, and eight Representatives, to be 
 appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
 
 Various plans were submitted to this committee, and on June 5, 
 1886, Hon. T. F. Bayard and Hon. Joseph R. Hawley, composing 
 a subcommittee, in pursuance of power delegated to them by the 
 Joint Select Committee, selected the plan submitted by Mr. M. J. 
 Power, of New York. A contract was made between the United 
 States and Mr. Power on June 25, 1886, and work commenced in 
 the summer of that year and practically completed by the last of 
 December, 1887. 
 
 Upon the original plan, signed by the subcommittee, there are 
 sketches of statues resting upon projections on the exterior t)f the 
 monument, and the specifications of the original contract state — 
 
 There will be four niches on exterior of monument to receive statues of a deco- 
 rative nature, but these statues do not form a part of the contract. 
 
 It is to be presumed therefore that it was the intention of the Joint 
 Committee to include these statues in the plan that met its approval, 
 and that the statues were omitted because the money available was 
 not sufficient to procure them. A copy of the plan is inclosed. 
 
 For the protection of the interior of the structure, bronze gates at 
 the four entrances have been suggested, although there appears to 
 
Washington Mo)iiimcnt at Ncivhurgh^ N. V. 101 
 
 have been no provision for them in the original plans and specifica- 
 tions. 
 
 The ofiicer in charge, Col. John M. Wilson, has recommended that 
 a watchman be employed by the United States to take care of the 
 monument. 
 
 The estimates, which are submitted for the consideration of Con- 
 gress, are as follows : 
 
 Four bronze statues, at ^5,000 each $20,000 
 
 Four bronze gates, at $3,000 each 12,000 
 
 Salary of watchman for one year 500 
 
 32,500 
 
 It will be observed that of the above only the statues were included 
 in the original plan ; but the bronze gates at the entrances to the 
 monument and the attendance of a watchman are necessary for the 
 protection and care of the whole structure. 
 Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 William C. Endicott, 
 
 Secretaij of War. 
 
 The Speaker of the House of Representatives. 
 
 Report of Col John M. Wilson, U. S. Army, 
 
 W^ar Department, 
 Washington, D. C, February 29, 18 
 
 Mr. Secretary : I have the honor to report that the Monument 
 at Washington's Headquarters, Newburgh, New York, constructed 
 under contract dated June 25, 1886, by Mr. M. J. Power, of New 
 York City, has been completed and accepted. 
 
 This work was commenced in the summer of 1886, and the foun- 
 dation was completed about the middle of October of that year. By 
 direction of the Secretary of War I relieved Col. T. L. Casey, Corps 
 of Engineers, of the charge of the work October 20, 1886, operations 
 for the season being then suspended. 
 
 Work was renewed May 3, 1887, and, with the exception of a few 
 minor details, was satisfactorily completed on December 31, 1887. 
 
102 TJie Centennial Celebration and 
 
 The building is rectangular in plan, and measures 30 by 24 feet 
 on the interior. 37 by 31 feet on the exterior, 46 feet from foundation 
 to top of masonry work, and 53 feet to the top of roof. 
 
 The upper portion, or belvedere, has openings on all sides, and is 
 reached by two spiral stair-ways, the height from floor to floor being 
 ZIYj^ feet. 
 
 Foundat'uvi. — The foundation of the building and pedestal are of 
 concrete, made of one part Rosendale cement, one of sand, and two 
 of broken stone. 
 
 Masonry. — The masonry is rock-faced broken ashlar work, set in 
 mortar made of one part Rosendale cement and one part of sand; 
 the stone for the most part was obtained from a quarry near New- 
 burgh, and is of a hard limestone nature and a bluish color ; it is 
 seamy in character, and there was much difficulty in obtaining jamb 
 and arch-cut stones. 
 
 The stones for the sills, piers, and lintels were obtained from a 
 quarry near Albany. They are a little lighter in color, but of much 
 better quality than those from the Newburgh quarry. 
 
 The work is well and solidly built, and contains about 427 cubic 
 yards of stone. 
 
 Brick-work. — The interior of the building is. finished with Perth 
 Amboy terra-cotta brick, set in struck joints ; the mortar is of one 
 part Portland cement and one part sand, with a small quantity of 
 lime to prevent cement setting too quickly; the brick below the 
 belvedere floor are 12 by 4 by i)^ inches; those in the belvedere 
 and floor arches are 8 by 4 by 2^ inches. 
 
 The brick-work contains about 68 cubic yards, well bonded to the 
 stone-work by iron anchors. 
 
 White Indiana sandstone. — The ornamental bands that extend 
 around the building and arches and the brackets and hoods on the 
 east and west fronts are of white Indiana sandstone; the stone are 
 good and sound and workmanship excellent. 
 
 Bluestone flagging. — The floor of the belvedere is finished with 
 bluestone flags, each 6 feet square and 4 inches thick ; they are set 
 in Portland cement on a bed of concrete; the stone are of excellent 
 quality. 
 
 Granite. — The steps at the four entrances and the 9-inch border 
 around the interior of the building and around the base of the pedes- 
 
IVasliiiiglon M,m„wenl at Newburgh^ N. Y. 103 
 
 ,?'/'! 1- ^"T""' '""' """'Pshire, grani.c; the base stone of the 
 pedestal is of Qiuncy, Massachusetts, granite 
 
 tneMh::f:fTh?%"°''7;.^''°"' O'^-' -'H-l-ed corrugated 
 tile those on the ndge and hips are semicircular in cross-section 
 and each t,le is fastened to the iron roof work with two 000!; 
 
 r;:S; " ""' "'^^ "'^ "^ ^« ^-^ pointed with PorS 
 
 G-/„Wyf,w._The ground floor, which consists of a bed of broken 
 
 stone .0 tnches deep, covered with 6 inches of concrete is finished 
 
 with a pav,ng of cobble-stone set in Portland ce„,ent and L^" 'he 
 
 /-.-/■«&/ The pedestal on which the statue stands is of red and 
 feray polished granite, from St. John, New Brunswick; it l 4 fee. 
 inches high, 3 feet , inch square at base, and . fee. 8 ince, squire 
 
 xrdUd^z:^ ^' '"^ '-' - --^«'' - "'o- crab^::: 
 
 /r.n-„„ri.-The floor beams, roof frame, channel bars and rail 
 ings are of wrought iron ; the ,5-inch floor beams weigh .; pount 
 .0 the yard; the ndge and hips of roof are 9-inch beams, wdgWnt 
 69 pounds to the yard, and the rafters are 6-inch beams weiSng 
 sTonrork.'" '""' "" """ ''"'' '^^'^ °" *°- ''°'-d °o -hf 
 
 to^e tl".'"" "T'"" ""'""'" '""="*"« f™'" "'<= 8™«"'l floor 
 ntothem, "' T' "' ""^"'^ to wrought-ron supports built 
 
 dafk oH^^r.;::;:;":^' '™ '°"^ °^ "'''-' ^"^ •"- --» °f 
 
 brote'maT'r^'' '"""' •'^'''' '^^"'^ "^^^es, and bolts are of 
 s 6 feet . mches m height, and represents General Washington in 
 
 .0 inches h,gh, and is anchored by two bolts to the pedestal • the crab 
 wedges are bolted to the base stone. estai , the crab 
 
 sioIl'lV"''''"-"™'^'"'"^ "'" '"''"iP'ion prepared by the Congres- 
 Tr bour"" ' " """'"' '"'° '"^ "'^^°"'->' "" *-= -^' f™'« by 
 
104 The Centennial Celebration and 
 
 The bronze-work weighs about 1,200 pounds. 
 
 The workmanship of the whole Monument is excellent, and the 
 contract has been completed to my satisfaction. The total cost of 
 the work, including advertising, plans, supervision, etc., has been 
 $35,000. Before the Monument can be called complete, however, 
 there should be statues placed upon the four brackets on the east and 
 west fronts; bronze gates should be erected at the four entrances, 
 and a bronze railing around the statue and pedestal, to protect them 
 from the vandalism of relic-hunters. 
 
 It is estimated that the cost of the work suggested would be as 
 follows : 
 
 Four bronze statues, at $5,000 each $20,000 
 
 Four bronze gates, at $3,000 each 12,000 
 
 A bronze railing, with four granite posts, around the statue and pedestal. 3, 700 
 
 It is recommended that an appropriation for the railing be imme- 
 diately requested of Congress; the other two items of the statues 
 and the gates are respectfully suggested for the consideration of the 
 Secretary of War. The railing is necessary for the protection of the 
 statue from vandalism, and its immediate construction is very desir- 
 able. Bronze is suggested as more suitable than iron in so prominent 
 a structure. 
 
 I respectfully invite attention to the fact that steps should be 
 taken for the protection of this valuable and interesting monument. 
 Upon its transfer to the United States the contractor's watchman 
 was withdrawn, and had it not been for the courtesy of the Board of 
 Trustees of Washington's Headquarters, Newburgh, New York, which 
 directed its watchman to assume charge of the work, it would have 
 been left to the mercy of relic-hunters. The Board of Trustees has 
 placed wooden gates at the entrances, and has agreed to continue 
 the temporary charge until Congress provides a watchman. 
 
 I respectfully recommend that the attention of Congress be called 
 to this matter and an estimate submitted for the salary of a watch- 
 man at an annual compensation of $500; possibly arrangements 
 could be made with the Board of Trustees of the Headquarters 
 whereby its watchman would continue in charge by paying him a 
 small annual salary in addition to that received from the Newburgh 
 Board. 
 
Washington Monument at Newhiirgh^ N. Y. 105 
 In conclusion, I desire to commend to the Secretary of War Cor- 
 poral Martu. O'Connor, of Company E, Battalion 'of Engineer 
 who has acted as United States inspector of this work for the past' 
 eight months and who, in the discharge of his official duties ha 
 displayed zeal, mtelligence, skill, and energy. ' 
 
 I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant, 
 
 John M. Wilson, 
 
 T-i,^ c Colonel, U. S. Army. 
 
 The Secretary of War, -^ 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 Extract from Appropriation Bill^ Fiftieth Congress, First 
 
 Session. 
 
 For the completion of the monument at Washington's Headquar 
 ers at Newburgh, New York, and of the statues thereon, ac corTng 
 
 Hot ' Tl ''"' '" ^'^ J'""^ ''''''' ^°"^-*"- °f ^he Senate and 
 House of Representatives, under joint resolution of the two Houses 
 and for gates therein, according to the recommendation of the Secre- 
 
 dTpd^l- °"''"'''^."' "^""'"^^"^ ^°^"™^"t ""'^l^ered three hun- 
 dred, and thirty-six. Fiftieth Congress, first session, to be expended 
 
 dolts "°" '' ''' '^"^^^^^ °^ ^^'' '^^^y-^-^ thousand 
 H. Mis. 601 8 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 014 224 232 1