E 527 
 .5 
 
 150lh.fl 
 Copy 1 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 SURVIVORS' ASSOCIATION 
 
 ISOtli Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. 
 
 READ AT GETTYSBURG, SEPTEMBER 25th, 1896, 
 
 BY 
 
 BREVET-MAJOR R. L. ASHHURST. 
 
 First Adjutant ok thi-; Regiment. 
 
 Printed bv Ordek >h ijm Kxecutive Committee. 
 
 PHILADELPHI.\: 
 Printing House of Allen, Lane & Scott, 
 
 1211-15 Clover St. and 229-11 S. Fifth St. 
 1896. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 SURVIVORS' ASSOCIATION 
 
 ISOtli Regiment, Pennsylvania A^ohinteers. 
 
 READ AT GETTYSBURG, SEPTEMBER 25th, i 
 
 BY 
 
 BREVET-MAJOR R. L. ASHHURST, 
 
 First Adjutant of the Rkgiment. 
 
 Printed bv Order of the Executive Committee. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 1'rinting House of Allen, Lane & Scott, 
 
 ijii-15 Clover St. and 2a9-3i S. Fifth St. 
 
 1896. 
 

 \^0 
 
 ff \at. Soc. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 TO THK 
 
 SURVIVORS 01- Till'. 150th RliCIMENT. 
 
 HOW widely different are the circumstances under which 
 we now meet, my comrades, from those which marked 
 our first visit to the town of Gettysburg thirty-three years ago. 
 We had spent the night of June 30th, as you will all remem- 
 ber, at the little hamlet of State Line, just across the Maryland 
 border. We knew we were nearing the enemy, and that a 
 battle was certainly approaching ; but we little realized the 
 terrible ordeal which the 1st of July, 1863, had in store for 
 us. We spent the night peacefully, and started on our march 
 northward leisurely enough on that W^cdnesda}' morning. It 
 was not until after we had fairly started that the sound of the 
 cannon broke upon our ears, and rumors of the commencing 
 conflict began to meet us on our way. Then the cannon 
 Sfrew louder and news came thick and fast. We heard of 
 the first success and the capture of Archer's Brigade, and 
 then, alas! of the gallant Reynolds' death. Our pace had 
 quickened as the cannons' sound grew louder, and e'er long 
 the order to double quick was given. Then, just before we 
 reached this pretty town, lying white and peaceful in its green 
 meadows, our course was turned to the left, .and leaving 
 Gettysburg to the east of us we hastened forward o\er the 
 hills and vales, where we passed many a gallant soldier 
 stretched upon the ground for his last slumber, to the ridge 
 or hill b}- Mcpherson's barn, which we were to make historic 
 ground forever. Gett\-sburg itself we were not to pass 
 through until, as the afternoon shadows grew long, the broken 
 remnants of our gallant regiment, far more than decimated, 
 since we had left between this old barn and the Seminary 
 more than half our number killed or serioush" wounded, 
 
 (3) 
 
struggled tlirough the streets of this little town, divided but 
 undismayed, to form once more on the hills south of it, and 
 to take that memorable position on Cemetery Ridge, from 
 which no hostile attack could dislodge us. 
 
 Now we come into this smiling v^alley as welcome guests, to 
 partake again its now familiar hospitality, and visit each 
 hallowed spot sacred by the effusion of patriot blood, and 
 renew our memories of those awful and glorious days, which 
 nature in its prodigal growth is doing its best to efface, and 
 which but for the memorials set up by loving hands she 
 would long since have hidden with her green mantle of 
 oblivion. 
 
 Now are our browes bound with victorious wreaths ; 
 Our bruised armes hung up for monuments ; 
 Our stern alarums changed to merry making ; 
 Our dreadful marches to delightful measures ; 
 Grim-visaged Mars hath smoothed his wrinkled front. 
 
 These were the words that the immortal bard of Avon 
 placed in the mouth of the Duke of Gloster, when the long 
 civil wars of England had come to an end by the triumph 
 of the white over the red rose, and the establishment on 
 the throne of Edward IV., the representative of the House 
 of York. 
 
 Thirty-four )'ears have passed, m\- comrades, since our ten 
 companies were gathered into a regiment at Harrisburg in the 
 early Fall of 1862, and more than thirty years have elapsed 
 since the smaller band of those who survived and still re- 
 mained to hold up the flag of the 150th were mustered out 
 of service at Elmira and dispersed to their homes to try 
 to learn again the arts of peace. Thirty-four years have 
 elapsed since many of us met each other for the first time, 
 and began the acquaintance which was to develop into the 
 comradeship which was to unite us in the dear bond of 
 lasting friendship. While all sons of the dear old KeN'stone 
 State, our different and contrasting origin showed what a 
 Commonwealth and republic within itself Pennsylvania is. 
 Mechanics, clerks, and students from the town and city, 
 farmers from the fertile, rolling fields of the countr\- bor- 
 
dcring on the Great Lakes, and woodsmen from tlie nii<^hty 
 forests of the North, we found ourselves brou^^lit together by 
 the exigency of the time into the collocation of companies 
 which ere long was to be welded by the might)- blows 
 of the hammer of war into the indissoluble form of the 
 150th Regiment. We were from the beginning inspired 
 b>' the same hopes and motives. We had come to arms 
 from the same patriotic impulse — the same devotion to our 
 State and country, and to the immortal cause of liberty for 
 which our Union was called into being, and with which it 
 grew entwined from boyhood in our hearts. Three years, my 
 comrades, limits the period of our life as soldiers. Within 
 the brief compass of three years is comprised all that story 
 of peril and adventure; of hope and despondenc)- ; of vic- 
 tor}- and defeat; of toil, struggle, and privation; of well- 
 earned rest, doubly enjo}'able as a respite from our fatigues ; 
 and the renewed encounter of danger and suffering — cruel at 
 the time to endure, yet now precious to look back upon, both 
 in the thought of the triumph of the glorious cause for which 
 the sorrow and suffering were undergone, and in the dear 
 memory of the ties of love and friendship, cemented by the 
 endurance in brave companionship of the same perils and 
 hardships. As we look back upon those days, fellow sol- 
 diers, it seems hard to realize the period of our service 
 can ha\e been so brief, and that the time since then covers 
 a period ten times as long. Those eventful years seem to 
 have been the prime of our life, crowded with the inci- 
 dents and events of march, camp, and battle ; while our later 
 years seem, with all the more tedious struggle and labors of 
 civil life, to have passed awa}- smoothh" and uneventfully in 
 comi^arison. Thirty }cars ha\e passed since then — a time 
 within which a new generation has arisen ; within which 
 our sons and daughters have grown up to strong manhood 
 and fair womanhood. A younger generation who have never 
 hearkened to war's alarms or seen battle's magnificentl}- stern 
 array ; who know the cannon only as it lumbers through 
 the street in militar}' j^rocession. and the musket onh- as it 
 glistens in the sunlight on parade, are now coming to the 
 
front — nay, already are there, and are taking upon them- 
 selves the work of life and the conduct of affairs, and we begin 
 to feel of ourselves that — 
 
 Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage. 
 
 Not only are the deeds of the period which fill so large a 
 space in our memories being largely forgotten, but we find 
 growing up around us a spirit which is impatient of any re- 
 turn to the thoughts and feelings of those glorious days. In 
 the rising generation are many who, when they hear and read 
 of deeds of valor and heroism, cry out aii bono — for what 
 good ? and who measure everything by the yardstick of 
 profit. When any policy or course of conduct is urged as req- 
 uisite to maintain the honor of the Republic or the public 
 policy of our fathers ; when any stir of sympathy is felt for 
 fellow Americans struggling for liberty close to our shores ; 
 these so-called enlightened persons forthwith seek to find how 
 it will affect the stock market, or influence the course of busi- 
 ness ; and if it would appear that the course which far-seeing 
 patriotism indicates, the preservation of America for free 
 Americans, or the extension of a helping hand of sympathy 
 to those, who longing to be free themselves, have dared to 
 strike the blow, may depress trade or lower stocks, loud are 
 the cries which arise against so-called jingoism, and we are ad- 
 monished by these superior teachers against a bold or bully- 
 ing disposition, and urged to walk along quietly and sub- 
 missively and mind our own trade and shop, and leave all 
 great questions and large policies to other nations. We are 
 reminded of the horrors, and, above all, of the cost of war, 
 and our sage critics point out to us that it would be cheaper 
 to pay any damages or give up any claim than run the 
 slightest risk of going to war about it. 
 
 Comrades, when we hear these sapient views dinned in our 
 cars does not our memory go back to the dark da}'s of Bu- 
 chanan's time, in the early part of i86i ? Are not these 
 teachings, now commended to us as the sum of human wis- 
 dom, the very same cowardly counsels which seemed so likely 
 to prevail over the impulse of patriotism and love of liberty 
 in those perilous daws ? Have we forgotten the Northern 
 
men with Southern principles? Have we forgotten those 
 who urged upon the Philadelphia merchant silence as to 
 the cruel wrongs of slavery, lest we should lose Southern 
 trade ? Does it not seem but as yesterday when we were 
 urged to }-ield everything in compromise to the fierce and 
 angry Southerner ; if he could but be prevailed on to forgive 
 us and stay in the Union ; or, failing b>' submission to placate 
 him, were advised to say to the seceding States, " Erring 
 sisters, go in peace," without striking a blow to save and 
 maintain the union of these American States, the most pre- 
 cious bulwark of liberty in the known world ? 
 
 Comrades, there was a time in those dark days of 1861 
 when it seemed as if this cowardly, selfish policy were des- 
 tined to prexail; when amid doubt, confusion, and treason 
 we knew not whom to trust ; when by maladministration, the 
 finances of the country had been brought to such a pass, 
 that the United States had to pay twelve per cent, per an- 
 num for money. When armies and fortifications were on 
 every hand surrendered and abandoned by officers trained 
 by the nation's schools, and the Northern arsenals were 
 stripped to supply intending rebellion with the munitions 
 
 of war. 
 
 Which of us does not i*emember that period of doubt 
 and discouragement? And how did it end? Not by the 
 careful counter teaching of wiser and better and more cour- 
 ageous counsellors, though all honor to those brave teach- 
 ers who bravel)' upheld through that gloomy time the cause 
 of eternal right and deathless libert}-. But in a moment, in 
 the twinkling of an eye, all was changed ; the plain people 
 of the country awoke, and with that sublime instinct which 
 in great crises illuminates the ordinarily slow minds of plain 
 men, they felt and knew that this was all wrong, that there 
 was but one course for the salvation of the nation, and that, 
 the brave and direct one of fighting to the death for libert)' 
 and union, one and inseparable. The>- realized in an instant 
 that to reckon of profit or loss in such an emergenc>- was the 
 wildest folly. 
 
 The Scriptures say: " What shall it profit a man if he gain 
 
the whole world and lose his own soul ? " the people real 
 ized what would all trade and business gains profit us, if we 
 lost our united country ; if we ceased to be Americans and 
 were broken into groups of divided States ; and, on the other 
 hand, what other loss of property or of life itself would count 
 in the scale, if we could save and hand down from sire to 
 son citizenship in this great united free American republic ? 
 
 The first shot fired at Sumter cleared the air of the murky 
 fogs of cowardly and selfish policy, and the great Northern 
 people arose, inspired and enlightened by the divine impulse 
 of patriotic pride. The flag, the immortal Stars and Stripes, 
 which had been but a thing of light estimation to many, 
 shone out in the heavens as a beacon light ; and we fol- 
 lowed it to toil, suffering, sickness, wounds, and death, 
 eagerly and without reluctance, and through and past all 
 those ills, and the multitudinous woes of Avar, to victory and 
 the re-establishment on a firmer foundation than ever of our 
 broad Union. 
 
 Were we all wrong? Was the game not worth the can- 
 dle ? Was the loss of property and waste of force and 
 energy, the suffering and pain endured by countless thou- 
 sands, the destruction of so many precious lives, compensated, 
 and more than compensated, as we have always thought and 
 proudly believed, by the splendid results obtained ; or would 
 we have done better each to have pursued his own little 
 narrow pathway in life and done the work which lay before 
 him, married his wife and brought up his children without re- 
 gard to whether he belonged to a great, free nation, the hope 
 of liberty for the world, or not ? Was our sacrifice vain ? 
 Viewed merely from a prosaic and selfish point of view we did 
 make great sacrifices. Apart from toil and suffering, apart 
 from the suffering of the protracted march, the distress of heat, 
 and wet and cold, the pain of the wound, and the anguish of 
 fever, sacrifices individual to every soldier which his body must 
 remember; there were the pangs of separation from loved ones 
 endured by ourselves in the field, and in yet greater degree by 
 those we had left at home. There was also a great pecuniary 
 sacrifice — when at the critical aee of manhood we absented 
 
ourselves from the marts of trade and industry, leaving to 
 those who staid at home the opportunity of seizing cv^ery 
 advantage in the race for successful business life ; so that 
 when we returned to the walks of peace we found the best 
 places already occupied, and learned by experience that, de- 
 spite the loudly expressed gratitude to the soldier, we had 
 before us an up-hill struggle for the chance of even mak- 
 ing a living in civil life. Then many of us came back 
 maimed and crippled, and we left behind us on hill and plain, 
 in swamp and forest, many who never returned. The sac- 
 rifice was enormous, the suffering intense to the individual, 
 and when attempted to be realized in the mass, inconceiv- 
 able. And our antagonists, our gallant Southem brethren 
 who met us on this field and on so many other fair plains 
 and green hills, and in so many shady woodlands, and by 
 so many a lonely river to be dyed with both our bloods; 
 they and theirs suffered, and deeply suffered, too. They 
 fought, as we believe, in a bad cause, the success of which 
 would have been disastrous for human freedom, but they 
 fought nobly, in a firm conviction of its rightfulness, and 
 with splendid disregard of the sacrifice entailed on them- 
 selves and those dear to them. Has all this gone for 
 naught, and are the country and the people only that much 
 the poorer for the precious blood spilt, the salt tears shed, 
 and the wealth consumed and destro}'ed? 
 
 If we were to believe some of our teachers of to-day, such 
 is the case. In a recent glowing and picturesque storj', 
 familiar to many of you, "The Red Badge of Courage," 
 we have a most vivid and intense picture of the soldier's 
 toils, sorrows, perils, and sufferings — we are put in his 
 place to feel all he underwent, his agonies of fear and shame, 
 but not a word is told us of the great and glorious ob- 
 ject of the sacrifice, nor of the noble glow of true patriotic 
 fervor which, as we know, was the governing note and tone 
 of the chords of the soldier's heart, and without which the 
 stor)' of the American soldier's deeds and cndurings is but as 
 a tale told by an idiot — full of sound and fury, signifying 
 nothing. On the contrary, if we knew not better we would 
 
lO 
 
 arise from its perusal with the feeling that nothing could 
 justify or compensate the horror and suffering undergone. 
 
 Other novels and stories and dramas with which literature 
 abounds at this time tell us of many of the incidents of the 
 war time, and describe to us the course of man's life and love 
 running through that period, and of the warp and woof of 
 human feeling and character in those days ; and tell us, too, 
 the harrowing tale of loss and suffering and death, which they 
 often paint as unnecessary and useless. How few of them 
 speak of the lofty ends and sublime purpose, of the devotion 
 and sacrifice called out, or of the ennobling of personal life and 
 character as well as national, by and through that sacrifice. 
 And yet, my comrades, we feel and know that we did not even 
 for ourselves and our own natures fight and suffer in vain. 
 Apart from the sublime achievement of the preservation of our 
 Union and an united free America for ourselves and our pos- 
 terity, our labors were not, we feel, fruitless to ourselves or to 
 the development of our own characters ; and even our South- 
 ern brethren, then our gallant foes, who mistakenly fought 
 so superbly in a bad cause — happily a lost one — though they 
 fought in vain as to success, yet their gallant, earnest struggle 
 for a purpose and end they believed just and noble was not 
 unrewarded, in the development, through sacrifice, of a noble 
 type of manhood in themselves. 
 
 I have read to you in the beginning of this address some 
 lines from Shakespeare, contrasting the period of peace with 
 that of the bloody war then lately ended in its physical aspects. 
 Let me read you now some verses by England's late laureate, 
 Alfred Tennyson, written in 1854, when the long period of 
 peace which had settled down vipon Europe after the termina- 
 tion of the Napoleonic wars was at last broken, and men 
 again put aside the plough and the reaping hook for the 
 musket and the sword : — 
 
 It was but a dream, yet it lightened my despair 
 When I thought that a war would arise in defense of the right ; 
 
 That an iron tyranny now should bend or cease, 
 The glory of manhood stand on his ancient height. 
 
 Nor Britain's one sole God be the millionaire ; 
 No more shall commerce be all in all, and peace 
 
II 
 
 Pipe on her pastoral hillock a languid note, 
 And watch her harvest ripen, her herd increase, 
 
 Nor the cannon bullet rust on the slothful shore. 
 And the cobweb woven across the cannon's throat 
 
 Shall shake its threaded tiers in the wind no more. 
 Let it go or stay, so I wake to the higher aims 
 
 Of a land that has lost for a little her lust of gold. 
 
 * ******** 
 
 And hail once more to the banner of battle unroll'd, 
 Tho' many a ligiit shall darken and many shall weep 
 
 For those that are crush'd in the clash of jarring claims, 
 Yet God's just doom shall be wreaked * * * 
 
 And noble thought be freer under the sun, 
 And the heart of a people beat with one desire, 
 
 For the long, long canker of peace is over and done. 
 
 The poet, in his prophetic vision, saw good, not ill, to come 
 out of war with all its suffering and sacrifice, and looked, as 
 we see, to war to remedy the ills of the canker of peace : that 
 is, the decay and corruption of the character of the nation by 
 reason of the self-indulgence and lust of mere material per- 
 sonal gain and enjoyment — which the laureate deemed the 
 consequence of this long devotion of the people of England 
 to the accumulation of wealth and attainment of pleasure, each 
 for himself, during those thirty years while the drum and 
 cannon were silent. 
 
 The ills and horrors of war all can sec ; it needs no prophet 
 or poet to point them out or make them real to us. The dan- 
 gers of peace, on the other hand, are more subtle, and it re- 
 quires the flash of the true poet's genius to bring them before 
 us and make us realize they are not blessings and good things. 
 Let us then, comrades, in the ligiit of the poet's inspiration, 
 as well as in that of our own limited experience, consider what 
 are these treacherous dangers of peace to personal and na- 
 tional character, and why it is that war with all its terrors ma}- 
 yet, like Winter's frosts, be beneficent in the destruction of 
 germs of disease which, if unchecked, might work a moral 
 destruction as compared with which the direst effects of war 
 are but kindly and wholesome surger}-. 
 
 Perhaps the first and most immediatel}' striking effect of the 
 change from the way men act and feel in time of peace to 
 
12 
 
 their sentiments and conduct in the days which try men's 
 souls, is in the unity, the soHdarity of fcehng which arises when 
 a great cause stirs into activity the blood of the most torpid, 
 and we suddenly feel ourselves, instead of mere isolated units, 
 members of a great being, knit together by a common pa- 
 triotism. As Tennyson said, in the lines above quoted, war 
 makes in a moment "the heart of a people beat with one 
 desire." 
 
 In peace individualism predominates. It is every one for 
 himself and the devil take the hindmost. We know what 
 that means in war. As soon as the mere individual is thought 
 of and considered, the army becomes a mob. The first stage 
 of discipline is to curb and restrain the fierce individual 
 movement, and to teach man that he is powerless by him- 
 self, and that his strength is in unity ; the effacement of 
 the individual in the company, the regiment, the brigade, 
 until the whole army becomes a splendid unit, capable of 
 that combined and sustained action which can alone bring 
 victory to its country's banners. Therefore while the essence 
 of a serious and noble war is unity of feeling among the 
 nation in its patriotic support, its success must spring from 
 the united action of its citizen soldiery who learn to stand 
 shoulder to shoulder, and to move as one man in their 
 country's cause. In every way we view it, my comrades, 
 we see in this thought of unity the permeating principle of 
 military life as it should be. How lost and separate each 
 of us felt when we first assembled round our flag. How in- 
 valuable were the days when each man learned to know and 
 rely upon the comrade who stood beside him. As the days 
 went by and the overwrought individualism of our modern 
 civilization gave way by degrees to the welding force of disci- 
 pline, how we grew to feel ourselves one, and our pride and 
 confidence grew and strengthened, not in our individual selves, 
 but in the splendid organization of which we formed a part — 
 the 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers. And from that day to 
 this, my comrades, what unity has there been in our lives 
 like military unity? What friendship like that of comrades 
 tried and found true amid perils and privations which the 
 
^3 
 
 peaceful life dreams not of? Although our soldiering was 
 scant three years, and though more than ten times three- 
 have since rolled by. have we found in that longer period 
 since, friendships or alliances which can take the place of 
 those cemented in our army days, and now, alas, becoming 
 fewer year by year, as one comrade after another steps from 
 life's ranks at death's imperious summons ? P^ven since our 
 last reunion on this historic field how many names of our 
 comrades have been dropped from the muster roll ! As I 
 write I recall those of Gimber, Gutelius, Williams, Yocum^ 
 and O'Conor. Friends many and true have we made in 
 these thirty years of peace, but can we in our heart of 
 hearts feel that they are the same to us as the comrade 
 who walked beside us on the march, when mile added 
 to mile seemed to tax human endurance to the utmost; 
 beside whom we la}' under the canopy of heaven, or per- 
 haps sheltered by the same blanket f/om the storm, and 
 who stood shoulder to shoulder with us on the day of 
 battle ; who sometimes helped us, and sometimes sought 
 not in vain our assistance, when wounds and sickness over- 
 powered him ? No association however intimate in the life 
 of peaceful industry can make such friendship as grows 
 under the tent and to the music of the cannon. 
 
 The military virtues which we are considering are nearly 
 connected ; and the habit of obedience lies close to the re- 
 pression of that undue development of the individual which 
 is one of the vices of modern life. Obedience, the repression 
 of the fierce individual will, the habit of readily obeying lawful 
 authority, of giving up for the time the right even of using 
 our own judgment and accepting without question that of our 
 commanding officer, is an element of the first importance in 
 building up the soldier's character. It lies at the root of dis- 
 cipline, and he who would command must learn how to obey. 
 Early civilization has sprung from obedience, and one of the 
 first steps in putting off mere savager} and ascending in the 
 social scale to the condition even of the barbarian, is when 
 man learns to subdue the fiery impulses of his savage nature 
 enough to accept the command of a superior, and to submit to 
 
the bonds of discipline and training to win victory from the 
 common foe. 
 
 In thus praising discipHne and obedience, let me not be un- 
 derstood as for a moment undervaluing freedom, or confusing 
 the base submission of the serf with the voluntary and proud 
 obedience of the soldier. No two things can be further 
 apart. The obedience I speak of is the voluntary, conscious 
 submission of the freeman to the yoke of authority for the 
 accomplishment of a great purpose, with no trace in it of 
 the element of fear or servility. History shows us that 
 never has there been such superb discipline, never has the 
 spirit of obedience, unit)-, and order produced such great re- 
 sults as with bodies of intelligent freemen. Where was there 
 a more superb instance of discipline than in the three hundred 
 Spartan freemen who, moving to the sound of flutes and soft 
 recorders, died to the last man in the pass of Thermopylae? 
 Where could be found more splendid specimens of free man- 
 hood than the ten thousand Greeks who, after the defeat and 
 death of Cyrus, whom they had come to support, on the plains 
 of Mesopotamia, cut their way through army after army, 
 crossed one mountain range after another, and many an un- 
 fordable river, maintaining an equally bold front to the savage 
 nations who tried to intercept their retreat and to the pursuing 
 Persian hosts seeking to overwhelm them, until at last they 
 emerged, wearied and decimated, but unconquered, on the 
 Klack Sea ? In the wonderfully disciplined force of Hanni- 
 bal, the greatest general of antiquity, his Spanish mercen- 
 aries were of splendid merit, but his best and finest force, 
 on whom in the ultimate emergency he placed his reliance, 
 was the flower of the youth of Carthage, who followed his 
 standard for patriotism, not for silver. In more modern 
 times what are the most remarkable instances of the tri- 
 umph of discipline and obedience ? At once arises in our 
 memory the picture of the army of Swedes and North Ger- 
 mans, an arm}' of stern, sober, conscientious men, with which 
 Gustavus Adolphus, the hero of the North, broke to pieces 
 the mercenary hosts of Tilly and Wallenstein, until then, 
 with their alternations of partial discipline and fierce license, 
 
15 
 
 regarded as the most formidable forces in Europe ; or, turn- 
 ing to England, we think of the regiments of Puritans and 
 Independents whom Cromwell, after the self-denj-ing ordi- 
 nance, organized from the previousl\- uncertain train bands 
 of the Roundheads — an arnn- against which the ca\aliers of 
 Prince Rupert dashed themselves in vain, and which stood like 
 an unassailable rock against every foreign and domestic storm. 
 Let us take an instance of to-da}-. l^ut a few 3-ears ago the 
 Egyptian, emasculated by centuries of oppression, caring little 
 whether he died by the sword or under the lash of his task- 
 master, was called upon to encounter the. fierce Arabs of the 
 desert following the standard of the Mahdi. He had hardly 
 courage to flee, but lay down to submit to death at the hands 
 of his enemy. What do we see now, after barely a generation 
 of just rule in Egypt, and the training of the Egyptian soldiery 
 under English officers? The same Egj'ptian, under General 
 Kitchener, at Firket meets face to face, and overcomes the 
 foe, whom fifteen years ago he had not courage to resist. In 
 modern civil life, comrades, the need of obedience is not often 
 apparent to us ; each of us is able to go his own wa)- and fol- 
 low the course dictated by his interest or pleasure, without 
 immediate or irreparable disaster being apparent as the result 
 of liberty carried to license. It is only in some emergency, 
 or catastrophe in the course of our usually smooth exist- 
 ence, when tempest, fire, flood, or shipwreck breaks down 
 the usual protections of society in modern life, that we see 
 how helpless the disunited efforts of indix'idual man are, and 
 how help and protection must be found in united and disci- 
 plined action, based on obedience to some competent guide or 
 leader. But these emergencies, happih-. are comparatix'ely so 
 rare that man}- ma}' go through a peaceful life without meet- 
 ing one, and when they come they are apt to find men with 
 their character as well as their muscles, flabb}- and untrained 
 for the exigence of the time. In the shipwreck, when men are 
 crowding into boats, perhaps too few for all, and the loss of 
 those few is threatened by the struggle, what salvation is there, 
 unless there be present, discipline as well as native courage — 
 men trained both to command and to obe\- ? Therefore, 
 
r6 
 
 comrades, can we not say that history and experience teach 
 that tlie lessons of disciphne and obedience which we learn 
 as nowhere else in the stern school of war, are teachings 
 well worth a great sacrifice ? 
 
 What shall I next speak of, my feomrades ? The education 
 of the quality of valor — courage, that distinguishing manly 
 quality without which character, however beautiful otherAvise^ 
 is weak and contemptible, and which, in its superb development,, 
 so lights up a character as to make us look with admiration 
 even at one who deserves the name of villain. Their splendid 
 valor and gallant death makes us look with admiration even at 
 a Richard the Third or a Macbeth, a Cortez or a Pizarro, de- 
 spite their crimes. It is often said that courage is a natural 
 quality which one man possesses and another lacks, and that 
 no education or development is needed for it ; but history 
 and experience, I think, teach us otherwise, and that for the 
 greater number of mankind this is not the case. There are 
 many splendid cases, and I am glad to say I have seen not a 
 few of them among the ranks of our beloved regiment, of 
 men who seem not to know what fear is, whom danger does 
 but stimulate, and peril delight, — natural-born soldiers, whose 
 valor needs restraint rather than development. But I think 
 we must all agree that this is hardly the common and usual 
 case, among men brought up among the conditions of 
 modern life ; whatever it may have been in earlier days, when 
 every man had to look to his good sword and strong right 
 arm for the protection of his family from wrong and insult 
 and his property from spoliation. In these days, when we 
 rightly trust to the law and the police for the protection of 
 our lives and homes, there is danger that the courage of our 
 hearts as well as the muscles of our arms may be atrophied 
 for want of use. Whatever may be a man's native courage, 
 he cannot surely know whether or not he be brave until 
 he has been tried, and therefore cannot have the confidence in 
 his own courage without which the good effect of his valor 
 may be half lost. The man who fears perhaps he may be 
 frightened when danger comes, is half lost ahead}-, although 
 a splendid wave of courage ma}' redeem him, when the peril is 
 
present. The habit of courageous action can be developed 
 even in a man nervous and timid at the start, and he may 
 learn he possesses valor from the fact that he finds he can 
 force himself to act bravely. Courage, too, is contagious, and 
 the magnetic touch of elbow of soldier to soldier, and the 
 valorous atmosphere around him ma}' inspire even the timid 
 and weak with the spirit of the soldier. I am speaking now, 
 be it understood, of men who have a true, brave nature es- 
 . sentiall}', which, although liable to fear from lack of habit of 
 danger, or from physical or nervous infirmity, may be devel- 
 oped and educated into cool and deliberate courage. 
 
 And probably this may be justh- concluded to be the 
 natural condition of most men who in civil life have never 
 had an occasion of testing their bravery or steadfastness, 
 and who up to the last moment before the ordeal of battle, 
 may in their heart of hearts have entertained a doubt as to 
 how they would meet the crisis when it came. To these the 
 discipline of war, the magnificent example of the old and 
 tried soldier, or of the fortunate natural hero b)' nature a 
 stranger to fear, is a noble education, and when the essence 
 of the nature is sound and the heart true, this instruction 
 rarely fails to develop and confirm the manly virtues, and 
 perfect the character with a full reliance on its own courage. 
 It only can fail in the few cases where the fibre of the moral 
 character is too feeble to endure and profit b}- the discip- 
 hne of the soldier's life. I speak not here of cowards, prop- 
 erly so-called; such were few and far between among the 
 volunteers whom the call of patriotism drew to their countrj^'s 
 banner in the early years of the war. There was little temp- 
 tation for such to seek enlistment in those days, though the 
 case may have been different in the later period of the draft, 
 and of huge bounties. There is alwa}-s a residuum in every 
 nation, even in ours, of such men, whom no incentixe of 
 honor, shame, or feeling can make into soldiers. True cow- 
 ardice, in my judgment, is not ver}- far remo\cd trom that 
 excessive individualism of which I spoke awhile since, and 
 perhaps is the ultimate result of it ; that is, it is based on 
 egotism and selfishness. The man truK' and absolutely self- 
 
i8 
 
 ish and cold of heart, to whom his own ease, comfort, and 
 prosperity, is far more than honor, or the welfare of friends 
 and countr)', can logicalh' hardly be anything but a coward; 
 though by the strange complexity of human nature he may 
 sometimes be endowed with a recklessness of danger to which 
 his nature has not true claim, and then is apt to become a 
 dangerous wild beast in the community. 
 
 The old saying of Satan in the book of Job, " Whatever a 
 man hath will he give for his life," was a hasty and crude gen-* 
 eralization, proved untrue in many an instance. The Chinese 
 will sell his life to support his family. In the olden days many 
 a man endured \\\^ peine forte et dure, with weight after weight 
 piled upon him until he died, rather than plead, in order to 
 save his estate from confiscation, and transmit it to his heirs. 
 The martyr and patriot have shown on the scaffold and at the 
 stake that they willingly surrendered life rather than betray 
 religion, honor, or loyalty. The patriot soldier every day 
 stood ready to risk life for the preservation of his country's 
 liberty and laws ; but the saying is true of the class of men of 
 whom I speak, and such have no place among a patriot soldiery. 
 Such a man, the true coward, may indeed fight desperately to 
 save his own life in an .extremity, like a rat in a corner. He 
 may even learn by experience that in many cases it is as safe 
 to advance as to run away, since bullets are just as fatal when 
 entering from behind ; but he can nev^er become a true soldier. 
 His disease being of the heart, not of the mind or the nerves, 
 cannot be eradicated or cured, and at any time the true in- 
 grained selfishness of his nature may, on a favorable oppor- 
 tunity, assert itself and bring ruin to the army and the cause. 
 And this thought brings me to what I deem the true and 
 complete crown of the soldier's character as developed by the 
 stern discipline of warlike life — it is unselfishness — the abro- 
 gation of self; the devotion of life and all that makes life dear 
 to countr}' and nation in the first and highest place, and sec- 
 ondarily to the army, the regiment, the company, the comrade. 
 Our great Exemplar saj's : " Greater love hath no man than 
 this, that he lay down his life for his friends." The first prin- 
 ciple of the volunteer soldier's course, the very reason why he. 
 
19 
 
 laid aside the peaceful implements of his trade or husbandry, 
 was the conviction and realization that he was ready and willing 
 to lay down his life for his friends, for his country, the aggre- 
 gate and sum of those he loved, and whose prosperity and 
 unity were what made the life, the home, the family what 
 they are and have been in our beloved nation. 
 
 Therefore, in the very beginning the true soldier undertakes 
 to lay aside egotism, selfishness, and self-seeking, to curb the 
 rampant individualism of our day, and to seek the good of 
 others, of the great mass of his friends and brethren ; not in 
 the fierce pride of individual effort, but with patience, temper- 
 ance, obedience, and steadfast courage, as one unit in the great 
 body of which he is proud to be a part — the patriot army. 
 Even had the end before us been less noble and imperative, 
 even had our success in preserving the Union and the liberty 
 handed down to us by our sires been less complete, who can 
 dare to say that we fought and bled and suffered in vain ? The 
 struggle and the endurance, even apart from the achievement, 
 brought to the soldier, and to the nation of which he was a 
 part, its great reward in the development of character, in purg- 
 ing from the body of the people, as through fire, the gross ele- 
 ments of egotism, self-seeking, and corruption ; and bringing 
 out of the crucible of toil and suffering the t}'pe of perfected 
 manhood — the patriot soldier — patient, true, enduring, obe- 
 dient, valiant, and merciful — of \\hich our noble volunteer 
 army afforded so many splendid examples. 
 
 Comrades, our fighting days are almost over; we are all now 
 beyond the age when we could enlist under our countr}-'s 
 banner, save under some terrible emergenc)- which called on 
 every veteran to fire one shot more before surrendering his 
 life for his country. 
 
 If again a new danger, whether foreign or domestic, from 
 without or within, to our countr\''s unity or life, or to the na- 
 tion's honor or honesty threatens, God grant that a new 
 generation of our sons will be found ready and anxious to go 
 forth at the call of dut\- and rail}' to the flag of their countr)- 
 with the single-hearted devotion and \alor of the volunteers 
 of thirty }-ears ago. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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