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 DKLIVERED BY 
 
 HON.GEORGEC.HAZLETON 
 
 Ox\ 
 
 DECORATION DAY, 
 
 AT 
 
 ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, 
 
 WITH OTHER PAPERS. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C: 
 National Republican Pbinting House, ; 
 
 1880. ^^ 
 
OR^TIOISr 
 
 DELIVKKED V.Y 
 
 110^. GEORGE C.HAZLETON 
 
 ON 
 
 DECORATION DAY, 
 
 AT 
 
 ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, 
 
 "JVlky :2_9, i8cSo. 
 
 ■yT 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 WITH OTHER PAPERS. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C: 
 National Ricpubmcan Printing House, 
 
 1880. 
 
 r 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 Preface '■ 3 
 
 Oration — Hon. Geo. C . Hazleton ^ 
 
 Opening Remarks— Dep't Com'd'r C. C. Royce 
 
 Elegy — William Winter 
 
 V 
 
 K^^ 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In compliance with the kind request of friends, I 
 present in this more permanent form my oration deliv- 
 ered at Arlington, Virginia, Decoration Day, May 29, 1880. 
 It presents, as I believe, a truthful review of the great 
 struggle which ended in the triumph of the Union cause. 
 It is intended as a declaration of principles which underlie 
 all free governments; and it is made in that spirit which 
 should characterize their assertion and maintenance until 
 they become the controlling power throughout our Re- 
 public. 
 
 G. C. H. 
 
Virtue'alone outbuilds the Pyramids 
 
 Her monuments shall stand \A^hen Egypt's fall 
 
ORATION 
 
 Veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, Ladies 
 AND Gentlemen : Tliere is m the hiiniaii heart a natural ven- 
 eration for all that is heroic and self-sacrificing in the history 
 of the human race. The world is full of monuments which 
 commemorate public and private virtue. The mouldering 
 sepulchre, consecrated by the undying eloquence of l*ericles, 
 is still associated with the most brilliant of all victories in 
 Athenian history. The peasants of the Tyrol think there is 
 no monument in all the world like theirs and no memory 
 half so dear as that of Andreas Hofer. Amid the cantons 
 of free Switzerland the hero of the old iegwfi is to-day a 
 bright reality; and in Scotland, from the borders to the crags 
 of the highlands, the sword of Wallace still gleams and the 
 memory of Bruce is still cherished. At Westminster Ab- 
 bey the English people for eight centuries have crowned and 
 buried their royal rulers, and within that gray old tomb of 
 the aristocracy have been gathered through successive ages 
 the illustrious remains of those who had built for themselves 
 a still more enduring monument in learning and philosophy, 
 in art and literature, and of those who had been the "cap- 
 tains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates 
 and the ornaments of courts." 
 
 However much we may desire to linger among the hon- 
 ored dead of the old ^^'orld, we turn instinctively this morn- 
 ing to a heritage of our own, more precious than all, the great 
 cemeteries and the many lonely graves upon our owe free soil, 
 set apart and consecrated forever by a free people as the sa- 
 cred places of the Republic, wherein repose the remains of 
 forms once manly and brave, who surrendered up their lives 
 a willing sacrifice to the cause of liberty and Union. These 
 graves — who shall number them ? These dead— who shall 
 
6 
 
 tell their story? From the far southwestern borders of Texas 
 to the pine-clad hills of Maine, and from the source of the 
 mighty river of the great Mississippi valley among the lakes 
 of the North, until it pours its resistless flood into the humid 
 gulf of the South are sown, as if broadcast, the white stones 
 marking the last resting-places of our heroic dead. 
 
 There are, too, three score great National Cemeteries in 
 which are gathered all that remains of those who were de- 
 nied the final boon of a grave by their own streams or on 
 their own hillsides. In them are gathered the scores of 
 thousands who fell where only heroes fall, at the front, where 
 hissing bullet and shrieking shell tell that brave men are 
 daring all the terrors of deadly battle, for principle's sake. 
 Almost a score of years have past, and yet what memories 
 some of these great cemeteries recall. Pittsburg Landing 
 and Seven Pines, Stone Eiver and Antietam, Vicksburg and 
 Gettysburg, Chattanooga and Fredericksburg, Marietta and 
 Cold Harbor. To mention but these few names is to bring to 
 mind the grandest struggle ever waged in freedom's behalf; 
 to attempt to tell that in them lie the dead of a full hundred 
 of mighty battles would be to give the histoiy of one of the 
 longest and costliest wars, in life and blood, ever waged by 
 man. 
 
 Nor can I pause here ; there are still four more kindred to 
 themselves, over whose mention the heart shrinks and the 
 tongue well nigh refuses utterance — Florence, Richmond, 
 Salisbury and Andersonville — the saddest spots on earth, 
 where moulder away by thousands, brave prisoners of war, 
 murdered by starvation, whose ghastly visages thrilled death 
 itself with horror, whose skeleton shadows darken the walls 
 of war memories forever, and for whose torturing of body 
 and mind there can be no excuse, and no atonement on earth 
 or in heaven. It were better for humanity if this sad picture 
 could be veiled from the sight forever. 
 
 Taken altogether, then, the National Cemeteries are the 
 tokens and the evidence af the priceless inheritance which 
 we enjoy. They constitute the source from which a free 
 
people shall draw their }>roudest iiis}>iration, and they shall 
 remain, cherished and i)rotected by a grateful Nation, the 
 hallowed shrines of Liberty so long as she shall maintain in 
 this broad land her empire and her home.'y'Not alone then 
 to Arlington, but to all these a grateful people bring to-day 
 their .yearly tribute of love and flowers. 
 
 The conflict of arms in which over a quarter of a million 
 of American freemen sacrificed their manly lives, and which 
 you of the Grand Army of the Rejmblic happily survive, was 
 the natural and irresistible result, — the culmination in war 
 of a long civil conflict over i)rinciples which underlie free 
 government, and which constitute the very foundations of 
 civilization and human progress. It came like storm-clouds, 
 surcharged with heat, long-gathering, which at last burst in 
 bolts of fire and falling floods, to purify the earth and air. 
 
 The issue between the two forces closely drawn and well 
 defined, compassed the territorial integrity of the Govern- 
 ment ; the destruction of the Union and of liberty itself. 
 The one sprung to arms upon the abstraction that the right 
 of secession was reserved to the States, and upon the theory 
 that by right, capital should own its labor, control it, buy it, 
 sell it, debauch it. The other came to the fields of war with 
 the conviction entrenched within its heart that the Union 
 was inseparable, that labor should be its own master, wear 
 no shackles, and stand erect before the law of government, 
 and before God and man, honorable and honored. Liberty, 
 then, must cast her fortunes with the Union cause, or perish 
 on our continent. Under the legis of the doctrine of State 
 rights slavery could recoil within State lines and exist for a 
 time ; but smitten with the fear of death by circumscription 
 or elimination by the growth of free sentiment in the North, 
 it had become aggressive, and had sought to make its senti- 
 ments and its power national. With an eye to its own ag- 
 grandizement it had gained political ascendency in the Re- 
 public through the complicity and alliance of partisan friends 
 in the free States. By converting to its own use the rich 
 lands of the South in great plantations, and by the absorp- 
 
tionjofall industries, it had forced vast numbers of its free 
 middle classes into the border free States, and, strange as it 
 may seem, there to strengthen by political alliance the power 
 from which they had been compelled to flee. It had ex- 
 tended its lines and outposts, carried its sentiment and its 
 flag into the new States of the Pacific coast, into the great 
 territories, and among the Indian tribes ; it had drawn into 
 its service a large portion of the press of the North ; it had 
 invaded the army and the navy, and soiled the ermine of 
 .the courts. It trusted no man who was not known to be as 
 faithful to its interests as the needle to the pole. It sought 
 the subversion of freedom and its own national aggrandize- 
 ment through the power of party organization. For thirty 
 years dominant in the Republic, with adherents in every 
 State of the Union, connnanding the allegiance of its north- 
 ern wing by lavishing favors, tempting ambition with the 
 lionors and emoluments of oflice, dispensing the patronage of 
 a great Government with royal generosity, until at last, 
 when it saw that popular will, which intended to restrict it 
 to its constitutional limits, give promise of success in the free 
 States, and leaving the gallant Douglas to lead his forlorn 
 hope, it merged conspiracy into open rebellion, and carried 
 the platform of the Charleston convention into the organic 
 structure of the confederacy at Montgomery, there confront- 
 ing the civilization of nineteen hundred years with the 
 atrocious declaration : " Build we here a new government 
 whose corner-stone i^ human slavery." 
 
 They had not bartered for treachery in vain. From an 
 Executive who was bound by an oatli, recorded on earth 
 and in heaven, to execute the law ; who held the same rod 
 of empire that had been wielded with successful power in the 
 hands of Jackson, came the cowardly response, " The Re- 
 public surrenders. The republic is dead both b}^ the express 
 provisions of its constitution and by implication. Whether 
 Congress has the constitutional power to make war against 
 one or more States and require the Executive of the Federal 
 Government to carry it on by means of force to be drawn 
 
9 
 
 from the other States is a question for Congress to consider. 
 It must he admitted that no such power is expressly given, 
 nor are there any words in the Constitution which imply 
 it." Standing here amidst these graves at Arlington, I 
 would not be mijust to the living or the dead, nor am I 
 when I declare that the attempted betrayal of the cause of 
 the colonies by Arnold furnishes but a faint parallel in in- 
 famy to this. And now Lincoln came — the calm, patient, 
 but heroic representative of a new dispensation. He found 
 the rebellion organized, consolidated, defiant ;, the Govern- 
 ment stripped of its resources by the consent and com[)licity 
 of the outgoing administration, and the red hand of rebel- 
 lion on its throat. 
 
 The crisis presented its stern alternatives — war was one ; 
 the surrender of the popular will, by which he was fairly and 
 constitutionally elected, and to whatever demands the rebel- 
 lion in arms might dictate, the other. One force or the other 
 must conquer. God did not make room for two separate na- 
 tionalities between the lakes and the gulf. No peaceful line 
 of division could be indicated or imagined. Any such line 
 would be a line of war itself, crowned with forts and brist- 
 ling with bayonets ; a line of constant incursions both North 
 and South; of waste and of blood; a situation ending in mil- 
 itary despotism and enveloping all in ruin. 
 
 The rebellion, beyond a doubt, compassed the subversion 
 of the whole Nation to its power and its control ; first, by 
 its superiority in the art of war ; second, by defection in its 
 favor in the free States growing out of long continued polit- 
 ical alliance. In its organic act it made no provision for 
 the location of a permanent scat of government, and con- 
 tained no reference to territorial limits. Washington was 
 the key to all its ambitions, and its objective capital It 
 early declared, " If Maryland secedes the District of Colum- 
 bia will fall to her by reversionary right, the same as Sump- 
 ter to South Carolina, Pulaski to Georgia, and Pickens to 
 Florida. When we have the right we will demand the sur- 
 render of Washington, just as we did in the other cases, and 
 
10 
 
 will enforce the demand at every hazard and at whatever 
 cost." Montgomery and Richmond were only the approaches 
 to a seat of power that commanded the continent, and if be- 
 sieged, taken and held, crowned the cause of rebellion with 
 success. The loss of our constitutional seatlof government, 
 in such a war, would have been far greater than that of Paris 
 or Versailles to France, or Berlin to the German empire. 
 And this was fully comprehended by each of the contend- 
 ing forces. 
 
 In this great contest the rebellion iired the first gun, andthe 
 Nation the last. But the first shook the free States to their 
 very center ; shivered party lines and crystalized anew the 
 patriotism of the people of the J^orth. Each of the contend- 
 ing forces underrated the strength of the other. The Regu- 
 lar Army was demoralized and divided in sentiment. The 
 people must save their Government, or it must fall. Lib- 
 erty hath ever found her defenders among the yeomanry of 
 the land, and to the ISTation's defense in this hour of immi- 
 nent peril, from every class and condition of life, they came 
 to the magnificent number of over two million two hundred 
 and fifty thousand of men, who served nearly two years and 
 a-half each. 
 
 There was another and a deeper meaning to this conflict. 
 Two civilizations found themselves face to face in a gigantic 
 struggle for the possession of a continent. The civilization 
 of the North was the outgrowth of long and patient industry; 
 of resources gathered by constant hardship, and saved by 
 the most rigid economy; a civilization of schools, churches, 
 cities and workshops; of skilled, intelligent and trained labor 
 in shop and field ; patient in all things and enduring all 
 things — the grand result of the development of that germ 
 of power, planted at l*lymouth Rock, augmented in its 
 growth through wilderness and hardship and storm, out- 
 ward and onward by the sturdy emigrant from the despot- 
 isms of the old world ioininiJi: its march and shariufj; its for- 
 tune. From this development came a l*resident and cabi- 
 net leaders, worthy of the great cause they held in charge, 
 
11 
 
 y Lincoln, Chase, Seward, and the tireless Stanton, who came 
 not too late for service as Carnot came to Napoleon. From 
 this came also a corps of generals fresh from the homes and 
 altars of the people, as learned in the civil polity of free Gov- 
 ernment as in the art of war ; with no dreams of ambition 
 beyond the faithful service required to maintain that gov- 
 ernment and the dearest rights of man, men whose names I 
 need not mention in your presence, for they are enshrined in 
 the hearts of the American people. From this source came 
 the armies of the Union, representing the learning of the 
 profe^'sions, the skill of the artisan and the industry of the 
 farmer. It embraced all classes, from the scholar who could 
 read the language of the stars and trace the constellations of 
 the heavens, to him whose only learning was duty to his 
 country. These soldiers could make books, print newspa- 
 pers, build bridges and construct canals, build navies for the 
 sea and railroads for the land. Indeed, the armies of the 
 Union svere the embodiment of fertility of resource and en- 
 durance of hardships ; they were organized for efficiency and 
 for victory. In this, and not in greater valor, consisted our 
 superiority over the armies of the rebellion. It was this that 
 enabled us to maintain our armies in the field, better fed 
 and paid, better led and armed, better clothed and cared for 
 than any army of any war in the world's history. The very 
 law of free labor which the leaders of the rebellion had de- 
 s[)ised became in the end the Nation's defense and the rebel- 
 lion's destroyer. 
 
 To the southern armies great praise has been awarded for 
 holding the field so long and so well against the power of 
 the National Government. Far be it^from me to detract in 
 the least degree from the difficulty of their undertaking and 
 the strength and endurance they evinced in protracting the 
 great struggle. On the other hand, is it just to ourselves, to 
 you, veterans of the war, to the inanimate dead here buried, 
 that we should underrate the great work we undertook, the 
 obstacles we overcame and the magnitude of the success we 
 achieved ? The problem was a mighty one to solve. Eigh- 
 
12 
 
 teen millions of people, schooled only in the arts of peace, 
 undertook to overcome and subdue ten millions of people in 
 their own homes and mountain fastnesses ; amid natural bar- 
 riers of great strength ; in a territory considerably larger 
 than the combined countries of Austria, France, the British 
 islands, Italy and Germany ; a territory that must be encom- 
 passed both by land and by sea. Four millions of this num- 
 ber were the most docile and faithful laborers in the world, 
 working unrequited day and night u}ion the broad and fer- 
 tile fields of the South to maintain the families at home and 
 the armies in the field. This population of the slave States 
 was solidified in the interest of the rebellion, except from 
 the mountains of East Tennessee, where a love for the Union 
 was still cherished and where the fires on freedom's altars 
 still burned, there came men stalwart and brave to our 
 standard, as the illustrious cojlumn of Platteans, came to 
 the aid of their natural allies on the fields of Marathon. 
 
 In magnitude and extent this great work finds no par- 
 allel in the annals of history. You may well be proud as we 
 recur to-day, after twenty years have passed by and our vis- 
 ion is clear and accurateTto the great line of operations which 
 existed and was maintained b}' the armies and fleets of the 
 I^alion in May, 1864. That time saw the armies of the 
 Union prepared for the final oflensive operations. One mil- 
 lion two hundred thousand men were under arms on land. 
 As they faced south the right of the Union line rested at 
 Santa Fe, New Mexico. Stretching eastward, it connected 
 with the centre at Vicksburgh, on the Mississippi. From 
 Vicksburgh the center of the line passed through Bridgeport, 
 Ala., through Chattanooga and Knoxville, Tenn., and Cum- 
 berland Gap, to the stations around Clarksburgh, in West 
 Virginia, where it joined the left of the Union line, or those 
 forces operating in connection with the armies in front of 
 AV^ashington. From West Virginia the left of the line ex- 
 tended to the vicinity of Fortress Monroe. The whole con- 
 stituted a line of operations of about one thousand six hun- 
 dred miles long. Along this line every intersecting country 
 
13 
 
 road had its picket post ; each railway bridge its block-house ; 
 every great highway its frowning fort ; and each line of mili- 
 tary operations its army. Nor was this all. Commencing 
 near Fortress Monroe, the work of the Union sailor began. 
 Away southward, around stormy Ilatteras, down along the 
 low, swampy coasts of the Carolinas and Georgia, around the 
 great peninsula of Florida to the harbor of Pensacola, and 
 thence along the Gulf coast past Alabama and Mississippi, 
 Louisiana and Texas, to the Mexican frontier at the mouth 
 of the Rio Grande, stretched the tireless, sleepless line of the 
 Union blockade, almost two thousand miles long. Every 
 harbor on this enormous line was sealed, every inlet and 
 creek, every bay and bayou was watched by day and pick- 
 eted by night. Operating with this great fleet were two 
 large armies, one in the Carolinas and one with ISTew Orleans 
 as its base on the Gulf. Taking no step backward, this 
 mighty line moved forward to certain victorji; and when this 
 was achieved, and the autliority of the Government estab- 
 lished, these armies inured to war, and stronger for duty 
 than ever before, leaving the fruits of their victories to the 
 statesmanship of the Nation, melted away into the civil 
 pursuits of life to appear no more in army array forever. 
 
 Since then peace hath produced grand results. The great 
 people who solved the problem of war have been engaged in 
 preserving the principles which it vindicated, and in making 
 forever permanent in their government the fruits of it^ic- 
 tories. Not in the extension of National domain through 
 conquest, by which sin the old nations perished, but in the 
 practical and successful solution of the problem of free self- 
 government in that broad territory which we now have, 
 rests the glory of tlie jn-esent and the security of the future. 
 
 There have been other wars in the world's history which 
 have decided the fate of nations, but greater than all was 
 this which eliminated slavery from a continent, enthroned 
 freedom in power, and placed the Republic of the new world 
 at the fore-front of the nations of the earth. 
 
 In March, 1861, I stood at the east front, of the capitol, 
 
14 , 
 
 among the vast assemblage that witnessed the first inaugu- 
 ration of Abraham Lincoln. In its rear and on its flanks 
 were shotted batteries of artillery. The atmosphere was 
 hissing hot with hostility to the incoming administration 
 and toward the Government of the fathers. I saw that day 
 a gang of slaves, men made in God's image, driven in chains 
 up Pennsylvania Avenue, like a herd of brutes under the 
 master's lash. Now, the shining towers of Howard Univer- 
 sity, the freedmen's seat of learning, greets the white mon- 
 ument to Washington as it rises higher and higher into the 
 heavens. I look over this broad land, and other and kindred 
 institutions appear to bless the freedmen's way to " life, lib- 
 erty, and the pursuit of happiness." 
 
 I see your dusky faces now amid this great multitude of 
 free men and free women. You have come to Arlington, to 
 these shades of the mighty dead, with gratitude in your 
 hearts and with sweet wild flowers in your hands to strew 
 upon the graves of those who in the ranks of war helped 
 break your chains and give to you a sovereignty higher than 
 prince or throne could give. Their work is finished. If 
 you cannot in the future as a race acquire and possess the 
 elements of maniy power, if you cannot bring in time as 
 the fruits of your redemption, knowledge, wealth, self-reli- 
 ance and that courao;e and manhood which know its rio;hts 
 and knowing dare maintain, then your part as citizens in 
 this free Government will be a mournful failure. The Na- 
 tion, with abiding confidence in your capacity to accomplish 
 all this, takes youby the hand this day and bids you try. 
 
 To the development of all the war secured, the way is 
 opening broader and broader with the onward march of 
 time. How can the vanquished of the South long hate the 
 generous victor that shares with him in full the fruits of 
 victory ? How shall he complain of the generous condition 
 upon which lie is allowed to return, after four long years of 
 warfare against the Government, to stand upon an equality 
 with every citizen of the Republic who has been faithful in 
 all things to her interests? The friends of those who fell in 
 the rebellion, obedient to the natural affection of the human 
 
15 
 
 heart, build monuments and strew the sweetest flowers that 
 springtime brings upon the graves of their departed heroes ; 
 but the flowers will wither, and the monuments, in time, 
 will crumble and perish, as a new South, blest by freedom 
 and progress, shall take its inspiration with us, from these 
 graves, where sleej) forever lier best and truest friends. 
 
 "Virtue alone outbuilds the pyramids — 
 Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall." 
 
 The future is full of hope and promise. The cause of 
 freedom will hold its place and move onward to higher re- 
 sults, 
 
 I stood but yesterday in the great presence of the statue 
 of emancipation in Lincoln Park, an ideal to me of one of 
 the grandest deeds in all mankind's history. I seemed to 
 hear him, whose martyred life went out for liberty, declare, 
 "Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, I 
 invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the graci- 
 ous favor of Almighty God," as he broke the chain to let 
 the oppressed go free. 
 
 I saw the freedman with severed manacle, type of a 
 race of slaves redeemed, catch the first thrill of freedom's 
 inspiration as the great deliverer bade him " rise." 
 
 I saw the armies of the Union sweep the fields of bloody 
 war as lio-litnino- cleave the air. 
 
 I saw the Constitution of the fathers built in compromise 
 transformed by the power of war and peace into the fullness 
 of freedom's magna-charta, in whose light the God-given law 
 of equality for man stood resplendent. 
 
 I heard the highest court on earth, the arbiter of Amer- 
 ican law, remove a former decree and declare the eternal 
 principles of freedom to be the law of the Republic forever- 
 more. 
 
 I saw the Union of the States, united in bands of love 
 and harmony, devoted to freedom and progress, carrying in 
 its right hand length of days and in its left riches and honor, 
 and over all I read the immortal words of Bancroft : " At 
 the foot of every page in history may be written — God 
 Reigns." 
 
EEMAEKS 
 
 OP 
 
 Deft Com'd'r C. C. Royce. 
 
 Commander C C. Royce called the assemblage to order in 
 the following words : 
 
 The ceaseless tread of Time in his encircling round has 
 again brought us to the threshold of the temple of patriot- 
 ism. We pause a moment to renew our vows of allegiance 
 to an undivided country, to recall and rehearse the valor and 
 sacrifices of an array of patriots, and above all, amid tlie 
 tender buds and fragrant blossoms of a re-awakended spring- 
 life, to pay a memorial tribute of respect and affection to 
 those thousands whose mortal remains abide not only in this 
 beautiful cemetery, but all over the land, and which serve as 
 a constant reminder of the value of the heritage committed 
 to our care, and the priceless lives sacrificed to preserve it. 
 
 "They never fail who die in a great cause, 
 Though years elapse and others share as sad a doom. 
 They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts 
 Which overspread all others, and conduct 
 The world at last to freedom." 
 
 The grand theme which annually brings together this as- 
 semblage is freighted with a certain immortality in the 
 minds of those who participated in the dangers and priva- 
 tions of the late war, which stimulates their patriotism, en- 
 larges the circle of their sympathies for the wadow and 
 orphan, and serve to cement more closely the ties whicli were 
 welded together in the fire of battle. 
 
 We are here to-day pursuant to a beautiful and touching 
 custom established by the Grand Army of the Republic 
 twelve years ago. We come with hearts full of love for the 
 patriotic principles upon which our order is founded ; full of 
 
17 
 
 sympathy for the fate of the comrades whose martyred blood 
 appeals to Heaven in behalf of human liberty, and full of 
 affection for the dear old Hag so proudly waving above us 
 as the symbol of a great, free and united people. With 
 malice toward none ; with charity for all, we invite your 
 patient and interested attention to the services which will 
 follow, in the hope and full a ssurance that you will carry 
 with you to your homes fresh thoughts and reawakened 
 feelings of fraternity, charity, and loyalty. And right here, 
 on behalf of the organization which I have the honor to 
 represent, I desire to express our hearty appreciation of tlie 
 s^mipathetic and cheerful spirit of co-operation which has 
 characterized the officers and soldiers of the various army, 
 marine and militia organizations, in their participation 
 with us in our parade. Whatever of success may, in the 
 public mind, have attended our efforts is in a large measure 
 due to their kindly suggestions and cordial assistance. We 
 have with us again this year the officers and comrades of 
 Farragut Post, No. 1, of Portsmouth, Va. For this their 
 second pilgrimage to our National " Mecca," and for their 
 earnest zeal in striving to render bur services more abun- 
 dantly successful and imposing, we are sincerely grateful. 
 Let us now address ourselves to the sacred and interesting 
 duties of the occasion. 
 
ELEGY 
 
 By Wii-LiAM Wtnteu. 
 
 Mr. William Winter, of the New York Trifnme, was in- 
 troduced, and read tlie following : 
 
 If this were all, if, lost with those that perished — 
 O'er whom these wiuds of summer softly sigh — 
 
 Our hopes were buried with the hearts we cherished, 
 And life were nothing hut to toil and die ; 
 
 What sadder scene than this that blooms before us, 
 With Nature's garlands decked, could earth display ! 
 
 What mockery were this heaven that's bending o'er us, 
 Glad with the sunshine of the glittering May ! 
 
 But here, where late with naked branches striving — 
 Wet with the icy tears of wintry grief — 
 
 Across this lonely field of sorrow driving. 
 
 The angry tempest whirled the withered leaf; 
 
 Now swings the pendant bloom; now opening roses 
 Woo the soft zephyr with their bahny breath; 
 
 Boughs wave, birds sing, and silver mist reposes, 
 In bliss, above these emer.ald waves of death. 
 
 And sure His hand, that out of desolation 
 Can thus the arid wastes of earth relume, 
 
 N^e'er meant the crown of all His vast creation 
 One hour of woe, and then the eternal tomb ! 
 
 lint, were this all, were hope with being ended. 
 In these dark cells that shrine our sacred dead; 
 
 Were all our piayeis and tears in vahi exi)ended, 
 Our passion, labor, faith, forever sped; 
 
 Who would not yet, all selfish impulse spurning, 
 liive for mankind, and triumph with the just! 
 
 Who, from the field of honor Itackward tiuniing, 
 Would trail a sullied ensign in the dust ! 
 
19 
 
 Though Fate were cruel, human will undaunted — 
 Supreme o'er torture, regnant over time — 
 
 Can quell the bitterest foe that ever vaunted 
 
 This mortal frailty, which were Nature's crime ! 
 
 It may be — every generous trust forbidden — 
 That, while these beauteous orbs of ruin roll. 
 
 From the dark sleep in which the dead are hidden 
 A flower can wake, but not the human soul; 
 
 Yet, sweet is every love and every longing ; 
 
 Yet shines the dream of heaven in childhood's eyes 
 And troops of angel phantoms yet come thronging 
 
 To Fancy's vision, in the twilight skies : 
 
 Yet stirs the heart with nameless, vague emotion, 
 When mooidight sleeps upon the summer sea ; 
 
 Yet foi-est depths and lonely wastes of ocean, 
 And mountain voices set the spirit free : 
 
 And, borne on wings of glorious endeavor, 
 Man yet can soar above his baser clay — 
 
 Throned in high deeds, forever and forever. 
 That cannot die, and will not pass away ! 
 
 II. 
 
 High were their deeds o'er whom our hearts are weeping ! 
 
 Safe bides their fame, in all men's love and praise ! 
 Hallowed the moidd in which their dust is sleeping, 
 
 And sweet the memory that has crowned their days ! 
 
 Ah ! once for them young Hope unveiled her splendor ! 
 
 Ah ! once for them Time ran in golden sands ! 
 They knew aftection's accents, soft and tender ; 
 
 They felt the touch of loving lips and hands. 
 
 They saw the awful face of sovereign Beauty ; 
 
 White arms of proud Ambition lui-ed them on : 
 But in their hearts breathed low the voice of duty — 
 
 They heard it, and they answered : they are gone. 
 
 The midnight wind was cold upon their faces — 
 
 Pale in the silence of the crimson sod ; 
 But who shall paint through what resplendent spaces 
 
 Their souls sprang upward to the light of God ! 
 
20 
 
 No more for them, in summer twiliglit's glimmer, 
 Shall distant music smite the chords of pain : 
 
 No more, as evening shades grow slowly dimmer, 
 Shall wandering fragrance pierce the tortured brain. 
 
 No more of lingering doubt, nor stern denial. 
 Nor baffled toil, nor slow, embittering strife ! 
 
 But now, at once, the crown of earthly trial — 
 The long, long summer of eternal life. 
 
 Calm- fronted, staunch, expectant, and unshaken. 
 Who dares the worst that any fate can biing — 
 
 For him, by iron purpose ne'er forsaken. 
 The grave no victory has, and death no sting. 
 
 We can but serve: some by the instant giving 
 Of all that hand could do or heart could prize; 
 
 Some by a meek, laborious, patient living — 
 A daily toil, an hourly sacrifice. 
 
 We falter on, now hoping, now despairing, 
 And hour by hour drag out life's little span; 
 
 They passed, in one tremendous deed of daring — 
 They lived for Honor, and they died for Man. 
 
 Pile thick the amaranth and the myrtle o'er them — 
 For whom our laurelled banners Hash and flow — 
 
 Roses that love, and imnsies that deplore them, 
 And lillies, weeping from their hearts of snow ! 
 
 Breathe low, ye murmuring pines, ye whispering grasses 
 Ye dews of summer night, fall softly here ! 
 
 Be sorrow's sigh in every breezt; that passes, 
 And every rain drop be a mourner's tear ! 
 
 And oh, ye stars, ye holy lights that cumber 
 The deep of heaven, pour benedictions down ! 
 
 Shed your sweet incense on this sacred slumber — 
 Bright as our love, and pure as their renown ! 
 
 Breathe our farewell ! ah, very gently breathe it — 
 
 Fjike ocean's murmur in the coral shell. 
 And tender as the sea flowers that enwreath it — 
 
 Forever and forevermore, Farewell ! 
 
LIBRPRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 013 785 226 3