Yale University Library

39002028023449
:!orthrop, Cyrus.
/address delivered in the vi.uditorini!i,
ot. Paul, I.:in:iesota.
St. Paul, 1^09.

Otfe^

846n_

From the Library of
SIMEON E. BALDWIN, Y '6i
Gift of his children
HELEN BALDWIN OILMAN
ROGER SHERMAN BALDWIN, Y '90
1927

YALE UWiVP
MAR 7 1930
LIBRARY

ADDRESS DBLIVBRBD BY

Honorable Cyrus Northrop

IN THE AUDITORIUM
St. Paul, Minn.

In Commemoration of Memorial Day
May 31, 1909

CckS^G

n

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:
The policy of our country has generally been a peaceful one and
I hope it may continue to be such to the end of time. But we have
been compelled to fight on several occasions, and once or twice we
have engaged in war that was not necessary. Our independence was
secured only by an exhausting war of nearly eight years, at the end of
which the country was without credit, its resources utterly exhausted,
the people so poor that they could with difficulty get the necessaries of
life, and the currency in which the soldiers had been paid so worthless
that it had ceased to be even paper money and had become once more
simply paper. Under such conditions it is not surprising that many peo
ple doubted whether independence even had not been too dearly pur
chased, and that in the general misery no adequate provision was for a
long time tnade for the relief of those who had fought and bled that the
nation might be free. But in time the country rallied from its despond
ency. Prosperity of a humble sort became general. The merits of the
soldiers of the Revolution came to be appreciated, and no man in the
community had a truer patent of nobility, when I was a boy, than the old
Revolutionary soldier. Thirty-five years passed by and the states had
become a nation, under one Constitution. Population had increased, in-
Tlustries had multiplied, new settlements had sprung up, new territory
of vast extent had been acquired and the nation felt strong enough to
have the courage of its convictions. And so when Great Britain insisted
upon exercising certain powers not consistent with our equal rights as
a sovereign nation, the national heart was easily fired by the eloquence
of patriotic statesmen, and once more we engaged in war with the
mother country.
Our navy, small and insignificant, won much glory by achievements
that were most remarkable under the circumstances, and our army
though perhaps less successful except at the Battle of New Orleans,
which was fought after peace had been agreed upon, acquitted itself with
credit and gave proof that the Americans could fight. This war was less
destructive to American prosperity than the Revolutionary war except
so far as it affected the commerce of New England and the nation was
better able to do justice to its soldiers than it had been at the close of

the war for Independence. So that the soldiers of the war of 1812 fared
fairly well at the hands of the nation. Thirty-five more years passed by
and the nation had grown strong. New states had been admitted to
the Union. Texas having secured its independence had been admitted to
our Union. The people were largely homogeneous, and not seriously
divided on any important question except that of slavery. A disagree
ment with Mexico as to the proper boundary between that country and
Texas was made the occasion of a war with Mexico, a war undoubtedly
brought on in the interest of slavery-extension, but which, in the official
utterance of our President Polk, was declared to have been begun by the
act of Mexico. In this war American soldiers under Scott and Taylor
exhibited the greatest bravery, and carried our flag in triumph over every
battle field, and ultimately hoisted it in the capitol of the country. A
vast area of country was transferred to us as the result of this war,
partly because we had conquered it and wanted it, and partly because
having got what we wanted we were generous enough to pay some
millions of dollars for the privilege of keeping what we had got — an
example which led later to our paying Spain some millions of dollars
for the conquered Philippines. We had secured what we wanted, for we
were strong. But we paid for it not merely the millions of dollars
handed over to Mexico, not merely the lives of soldiers, who died on
Mexican soil. The status of the newly acquired territory as respects
slavery became at once the occasion of violent discussion and though
this was temporarily allayed by the compromise measures of Mr. Clay,
so that the great men of the Senate, Webster, Clay and Calhoun, who
had been the foremost figures in public life for half a century, died in
peace, not seeing the evil that was coming, yet not a half decade had
passed away before the struggle was renewed with new intensity and
added bitterness and North and South stood facing each other with fiery
determination not to yield, both of them realizing that the "irrepressible
conflict" of Mr. Seward was no unmeaning phrase, and that Mr. Lincoln's
solemn declaration that "no nation can exist half free and half slave"
had so much of truth in it as to make it necessary for our nation to say
which it should be— all slave or all free— and before the question was
settled we had paid the penalty of all our wrong doing, if blood and
treasure can ever pay. We honor the soldier of any war who fights for
the flag, though the flag be carried out of the country in the interests
of glory rather than of safety— and so we remember the heroes of
Buena Vista and Cherubusco and Chapultepec though they fought against
a neighboring republic in a war of questionable justice. They followed

the flag and fought bravely in its defense. But we have a deeper rever
ence for the men of the Revolution and the soldiers who put down the
Great Rebellion, because they fought, not for aggression, but for the life
of the nation, fought, not because they were compelled to, but volun
tarily, offering up the best years of their life, and even life itself, that the
Great Republic might live to be the happy home of uncounted millions
whom they never knew and who would never know them.
Go back with me now to the fall of 1860. Abraham Lincoln of
Illinois has just been elected president. Three other candidates were in
the field. Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, who of right should have been
supported by his entire party, but whom the advocates of slavery and
the secret enemies of the Union in his own party, refused to support;
John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, the candidate of those Democrats
who opposed Douglas; and John Bell of Tennessee, ^n old Whig, the
candidate of the Union men who were not Democrats and who were not
yet ready to be Republicans. Under these conditions, with the Demo
cratic party split into two sections, the election of Mr. Lincoln was
almost inevitable. I suppose that the followers of Breckenridge, even
before the election, -were conscious of some scheme for secession and
that they deliberately betrayed Douglas and made Lincoln's election
probable, in order that, with a Black Republican in the Presidential Chair,
they might more easily fire the Southern heart, and induce their states
to secede. Yet even thus, Mr. Lincoln was elected by a minprity of the
people, though he received 180 electoral votes to 133 for all Others. Of
the popular vote Lincoln received 1,857,610, Douglas 1,391,574, Breckin
ridge 850,083 and Bell 646,134. No state that voted for Mr. Lincoln
would have gone against him if the votes for Douglas and Breckinridge
had all been for one of these candidates. But if there had been no split
in the party and all had been heartily united on Douglas no doubt the
vote would have been much larger and possibly the result would have
been different. Be that as it may, Abraham Lincoln was elected presi
dent in the constitutional way; and the Southerners most ardently at.
tached to slavery could not have more efficiently aided his election than
they did if they had desired it.
Of course as soon as Lincoln was known to be elected there was
trouble, and of course that trouble began in the state of South Carolina,
whose lawlessness and attempts at nullification brave old Hickory,
Andrew Jackson, had so promptly suppressed in 1833. Within twenty-
four hours after the polls closed for the presidential election — and
remember Mr. Lincoln could not enter upon the duties of his office till

four months later— South Carolina had begun the work of seceding from
the Union and a month and a half later, December 20th, 1860, slie
formally passed "an ordinance to dissolve the Union between the State
of South Carolina and other states united with her under the compact
entitled the Constitution of the United States of America." One of
Souh Carolina's leading statesmen, Mr. Robert Barnwell Rhett, said at
this time and said truly: "The secession of South Carolina is not an
event of a day. It is not anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's election,
or by the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. It has been a matter
which has been gathering head for thirty years."
Of course it had. Lincoln's election had not taken the South by sur
prise. They were ready. They knew just what they meant to do and
they did it at once. Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana
and Texas had all seceded from the Union before the end of January,
1861. Seven great states of the Union, containing millions of people,
had thus apparently settled the gravest question of the century in six
weeks. Ah! how little they knew what was coming! How little they
dreamed of the uprising of the North that should carry the old flag back
in triumph over their whole territory and wipe out slavery itself as with
the besom of destruction — wipe out the very idol at whose altar they were
now offering the adoration of treason and rebellion.
A confederacy was soon formed and a government established at
Montgomery, Alabama. Jeffdrson Davis was made President of the
Confederacy a fortnight before Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office
as President of the United States. Mr. Davis made twenty-five speeches
on the route from his home to Montgomery to enthusiastic crowds, and
was welcomed on his arrival at Montgomery by a vast concourse. It is
worth while at this distance of time to recall some of the things which
he said as showing the perfect confidence with which the South had gone
into the secession business.
On leaving his home, Jackson, Mississippi, Mr. Davis said: "It may
be that we shall be confronted by war, that an attempt will be made to
blockade our ports, to starve us out; but they know little of the Southern
heart, of Southern endurance. England and France would not allow our
great staple, cotton, to be dammed up within our present limits, the starv
ing thousands in their midst would not allow it. We have nothing to
apprehend from blockade. But, if they attempt invasion by land, we
must take the war out of our territory. If war must come, it must be
upon Northern, and not Southern, soil."
Again in a speech at Stevenson, Alabama, Mr. Davis paints a

bright future for the Confederacy— but one no brighter than his fol
lowers expected. He says: "Your border states will gladly come into
the Southern Confederacy within sixty days, as we will be their only
friends. England will recognize us and a glorious future is before us.
The grass will grow in the Northern cities, where the pavements have
been worn off by the tread of commerce. We will carry war where it
is easy to advance — where food for the sword and torch await our
armies in the densely populated cities; and though the enemy may come
and spoil our crops, we can raise them as before; while they can not
rear the cities which took years of industry and millions of money to
build." These are prophecies which I have no doubt Mr. Davis believed
likely to be fulfilled. But a just and merciful God had otherwise
ordered. In these speeches Mr. Davis voiced the feelings of the South. The
South did not expect that the North would fight. If it did fight, they
felt confident that the South would prove to be more than a match for the
North. Indeed they looked upon the North as a nation of shopkeepers
unaccustomed to use arms and lacking the courage to fight; and they
really had no doubt that one fiery Southerner was quite the equal of
three or four Northerners. Under all the circumstances, prepared as
they were for the stuggle, it is not surprising that they should have
regarded the success of their secession movement as assured. The
North was slow to believe that the South was really in earnest in its
seceding; many believed that like previous political threats this was
intended to frighten the North into submission to the political ideas of
the South. Few indeed could at first believe that the destruction of the
Republic founded by Washington was really intended. Under these cir
cumstances the South was ready to act without restraint, without law,
while the North was hampered by the Constitution, by divisions into par
ties, by a feeling of uncertainty as to what was best to do, and by the
impossibility of at once unifying the sentiment of the people, as had been
done by violence and force at the South. The South was inferior in
numbers, but compact, united, resolute, seeing clearly what it wanted,
untrammeled by constitutions, laws or red tape, ready to do at a
moment's notice whatever might be necessary, not hindered 'from doing
anything by fear of public opinion, not needing to experiment to find out
whether peace might not be restored, occupying the inside of a circle
on the defensive, controlled in its counsels and its operations with a
unity as perfect as if all power were lodged in a single dictator. The

North on the other hand was divided and discordant, some opposed to
the war on any terms, some opposed to war unless waged according to
the Constitution, some opposed to war if it interfered with slavery, multi
tudes of its people strongly conservative and keenly sensitive to loss of
business, large' numbers more or less sympathizing with the South as
having been unjustly treated, all action hampered by constitutional pro
visions and formalities, no preparation whatever for a great war — the
army broken to pieces, the navy scattered, the treasury empty, the Presi
dent almost a prisoner in the capitol and obliged to feel his way most
carefully lest he outrun public opinion and bring on insurrection in the
North, and the response of the people to a call to arms for the preserva
tion of thei Union wholly uncertain. Tell me, as you look on this
picture and then on that, what will be the result of an appeal to arms.
Will you not say that the rebellion is too mighty, too well organized,
too strongly entrenched to be put down by the discordant and irresolute
North? Mr. Buchanan had continued to be President during the period fol
lowing the election down to the 4th of March. He had unfortunately
committed himself at first to the theory that no power existed under the
Constitution to compel by force a seceding state to resume her place in
the Union, and it is of God's mercy to us that in those three or four
months the Southern conspirators had not succeeded in binding the
nation hand and foot, so that resistance to their plans would be impos
sible. As it was, things drifted along — Jefferson Davis was seated in his
presidential chair awaiting results— just as Abraham Lincoln was jour
neying to Washington to take the oath of ofBce as President of the
United States. Even Mr. Lincoln had no idea of what was coming.
His inaugural address is a noble argument for union and a noble appeal
to his countrymen to maintain the Union. But it was powerless to stay
the storm. "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen," he said,
"and not in mine is the momentous issue of civil war. You can have no
oath registered in heaven to destroy the government; while I shall have
the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it." "We are not
enemies but friends." "We must not be enemies. Though passion may
have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." The South has
gone too far for these words of the new president to influence them—
and the beautiful prophecy with which the inaugural address closed has
waited till our own time, more than forty years, for its fulfillment, and
has at last, thank God, come true. "The mystic chords of memory,
stretching from every battlefield and patriot's grave to every living

heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus
of the Union, when again touched as surely they will be, by the better
angels of our nature."
There was a pause after Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. Attempts
at negotiation were made and failed. Fort Sumter, almost the last spot
held by the Government within the seceded states, was denied sup
plies by the authorities in Charleston and the great question to be
decided by the new administration was whether to relieve Sumter or
not — in a word whether to acknowledge itself beat.en or show some
indications of power and of -yvill to use it. It was decided to attempt the
relief of Sumter. This being known, the Confederates under General
Beauregard, by order of the Confederate Government, opened fire on
Sumter on the 12th day of April, 1861, and after a furious cannonade of
thirty-four hours, compelled Major Anderson to surrender. The flag of
the United States was lowered and that of the Confederacy was raised.
Mr. Davis, as" advised, had been successful in sprinkling blood in the
faces of the people and thereby consolidating Southern opinion. But
that was practically consolidated before.
What Mr. Davis had not reckoned on was the effect upon the North.
I well remember the hour when the telegraph flashed the news through
the country and with almost lightning-like speed the people in every
quarter of the North came together at once to, avenge the insult and to
defend the flag. "Yesterday there had been doubt and despondency; to
day had come assurance and confidence. Yesterday there had been di
visions; today there was unity." The President issued his call for 75,000
men and the loyal states promptly responded. Men of all races, and par
ties, and grades and classes volunteered. To the national unity and pa.
triotic devotion to country at this time Stephen A. Douglas contributed
as no other man at the moment could, and to his lasting honor be it said
did all a patriot could to strengthen the hands of his old rival Lincoln in
his efforts to save the Union.
If we could have known what the next four years were to bring to
us, surely "neither Confederate nor Unionist would have had any heart
for the impending struggle. We did not know. Only God knew — and
among the things which were to come which neither party expected,
which neither hoped for, and which only a fraction of one party desired,
was the destruction of slavery, the source of all our woe. We could have
bought all the slaves at full price and freed them more cheaply than we
did, if their owners would have sold them and we had been willing to
free them — but as it was, we poured out not only the full price in money.

but the blood of hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and the tears of
millions of mothers, and widows, and orphans. If was a great victory
but it was obtained at a great price.
To speak of the events of the war and the innumerable battles
would require a month instead of an hour. An army had to be gathered,
disciplined and. made into soldiers. It could not be done in a month nor
in a year. And so 1861 passed away. The sickening defeat of Bull Run
on the 31st of July sobered us and taught us the seriousness of the con
flict. The Battle of Ball's Bluff, with the death of the brave and eloquent
E. D. Baker, sent a pang of anguish through the country. 1863 came
and the hopes of the nation were kept alive for months by the capture
of Forts Henry and Donaldson in February; March 8th and 9th saw the
rebel ironclad Merrimac destroying the frigates Cumberland and Con
gress and threatening general disaster until itself disabled by the little
Monitor. March 7th witnessed the battle of Pittsburg Landing, where
more than 13,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded or missing, and
3,000 Confederates were buried on the field. June 1st, 1862, came the
battle of Fair Oaks, with a total loss of more than 10,000 men to the
armies. July 1st came the battle of Malveril Hill, with a total Union
loss in the seven days' fight of more than 15,000, and the same day Presi
dent Lincoln called for 600,000 more volunteers. On the 14th of Sep
tember came the battle of South Mountain in Maryland with heavy
losses; and on the 17th the great battle of Antietam, one hundred thou
sand men on each side, McClellan, Hooker, Porter and Burnside,
against Lee, Jackson, Longstreet and Hill, with a loss of more than
13,000 men on the Union side and a reported loss of about that number
on the side of the Confederates. September 23nd President Lincoln
issued his Proclamation of Emancipation to go into effect January 1st,
1863, in all states then in rebellion and so 1863 came to an end. There
had been much hard fighting— oceans of blood had been shed, but no
systematic progress had been made and for aught that appeared the
rebellion was as strong as ever. But the nation was gathering its
strength for blows that would tell and 1863 was a memorable year.
One Union general after another takes command of the army of the
Potomac and fails. General Hooker in command fights the disastrous
battles of Chancellorville the first few days in May, and at last retires
across the Rappahannock with a loss of more than 13,000 men. The
Confederates' hopes rise and a campaign in the North is planned The
army of Lee enters Pennsylvania. June 28th Hooker is relieved of the
Union command and Gen. George G. Meade is placed in command

July 1st, 3nd and 3rd the Battle of Gettysburg was fought between Meade
and Lee, a battle fierce, bloody and glorious, the Confederates were
defeated, visions of ruin to Northern cities vanished, and Lee retreated
to Virginia— but it cost the Union army nearly 25,000 men in killed,
wounded and missing, among theiii a large part of the heroic Minnesota
First Regiment, whose record that day will be remembered as long as
the country shall remain.
The next day, July 4th, Vicksburg with 31,000 Confederate soldiers
surrendered to General Grant. July 8th Port Hudson with 7,000 soldiers
surrendered to General Banks, and the Mississippi was once more open
to the Gulf. September 20th, 1863, the battle of Chickamauga,
was fought with a Union loss of more than 15,000. October 16th Gen
eral Grant was ordered to take command of the army of Cumberland
and Tennessee. November 23rd-36th came the battles at and near Chat
tanooga, the Union forces under Grant, with Thomas, Sherman and
Hooker, routing the Confederates under Bragg and forcing him to re
treat with loss of sixty pieces of artillery. March 13th, 1864, Lieut. Gen
eral Ulysses S. Grant was appointed to the supreme command of all the
armies of the United States, and henceforth there was unity in counsel
and in action.
Meanwhile the President had repeatedly called for more troops and
had ordered a draft. Riots of the most threatening and violent char
acter had broken out in New York, and for a time the .city was in the
hands of the mob. England had shown signs of an intention to recog
nize the Confederacy and it required the most skillful diplomacy on the
part of the government and the best eloquence of Henry Ward Beecher
in address'es to the English people to prevent her doing so. Hundreds of
battles from Virginia to Louisiana, some of them of great importance,
had been fought, no special mention of which can here be made. It is
March 13th, 1864, when General Grant takes command of the armies,
and turns his special attention to the brave but unfortunate army of the
Potomac. May 5th, 1864, begins the series of Battles of the Wilderness.
In the first battle General Lee furiously assailed the advancing Union
army, and at nightfall the fight was indecisive, and the loss heavy on
both sides, but Grant's army was in far better position for further fight
ing than in the morning.
The second day of the Battle of the Wilderness was May 6th. Both
leaders meant to attack, but Lee was about fifteen minutes ahead and
attacked with tremendous fury, all day, beginning at 5 A. M.; trying our
right, left, and center, one after another, and generally gaining a tem-

10
porary advantage, but only to be finally repulsed by our troops. The
battles on this and the previous day were over ground so rough and so
thickly wooded that an enemy's movements could not be observed. On
this account the Confederates had a great advantage by reason of their
familiarity with the country. Artillery could hardly be used at all.
The rifle, bayonet and saber did the work. The result, however, was
that Grant held his ground and at the end of the fight pursued his plan
of advancing towards Richmond by a move on Spottsylvania court house.
In the battles of these two days each side lost about 15,000 men. Nothing
in the whole war more astonished the Confederates than did Grant's
persistency in advancing notwithstanding the fearful attacks made upon
him by Lee and the tremendous loss of men. Heretofore such blows
dealt to the Union army had not failed to produce change of plan and
ultimate retreat. With Grant it was different; and a few days later he
wrote to the Secretary of War the famous plan of the Campaign: "I
propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."
May 7th the two armies in nearly parallel lines are racing for
Spottsylvania court house. May 8th there was severe fighting at Spott
sylvania court house. Our troops carry a rebel position after heavy loss
and take position within two miles of the court house, Lee's army being
strongly entrenched a 'mile in front. May 10th occurred the first days'
battle of Spottsylvania court house, our army obstinately attacking, the
result not decisive and the loss on each side 10,000. May 13th Grant's
Second Corps under Hancock charged the left of the Confederate works
in a fog at dawn with the bayonet, and hardly firing a gun, surprised at
breakfast and captured within an hour a whole division, men and officers,
with 30 cannon. Hancock instantly charged on the second rebel line
and took it, thus gaining the key point to the refeel entrenchments. The
rest of the day was spent in furious assaults, — and by the Union army
to gain more ground. No further advantage was gained by either and
again 10,000 men on each side had fallen. The 15th of May was the
first day of rest for the army of the Potomac for twelve days. On the
18th, after fierce attacks upon Lee's lines, his position was found to be
impregnable and our troops withdrew after hea-vy loss. May 19th Grant
began to move his army to the left. May 31st the whole army con
tinued its flanking march towards Hanover, Lee having already gone.
On the 23rd Grant's army crosses the North Anna. On the 25th Grant
reconnoitred the strong position of Lee in front, and concluded he did
not like it well enough to attack. He again takes up the flanking move
ment on the left, towards the Pamunkey. On the 27th he reaches Han-

11
over within fifteen miles of Richmond, Lee again facing him. On the
15th of June General Grant's army crossed the James river— the whole
force having been drawn out from within fifty yards of the enemy's
entrenchments, moved fifty-five miles by the flank was carried across the
Chickahominy and the James, the latter 2,000 feet wide and eighty-four
feet deep, with a total loss from skirmishing and straggling of not more
than four hundred men. Henceforth the struggle between Grant and
Lee, lasting almost ten months, goes on about Petersburg, where there
are plot and counter plot, mine and counter mine, assaults and repulses
without number. Grant obstinately holding to his determination to take
Richmond and destroy the rebel army and Lee using to the last every
man and weapon and art he could command to ward off the impending
doom. Meanwhile events of the greatest importance had occurred else
where. The rebel General Hood, unable to repel the advance Of Sher
man into the South, led his army north into Tennessee, hoping to recall
Sherman by danger and destruction in his rear. He drove back such
forces as he encountered in his march until at Nashville he faced a
Union army under that brave and able General George H. Thomas— a
man ever to be honored not merely for his ability and courage as a
soldier, but because being a soldier of the United States he although
a southern man remained true to the flag of his country which he had
sworn to defend. At Chickamauga, with 25,000 men, of whom nearly
10,000 were killed or wounded before the battle ended, he held his posi
tion for six weary hours against the furious onset of 60,000 mad rebels —
and men called him afterward the Rock of Chickamauga. The battles
of Nashville, December 15th and 16th, decided the fate of General Hood
and Thofnas' effective pursuit of Hood's retreating army converted defeat
into rout. 6,000 prisoners were taken and forty-nine cannon and the
rebel army was reduced to half its former size before it made good its
escapcr-a loss of 20,000 men.
All this time staunch old Sherman, Grant's right-hand, the man who
though the true soldier every inch of him, did not like war, but very
graphically said, "War is hell," was .marching south to the very heart of
the Confederacy. Sherman had started from Atlanta to go through the
south to the sea. Cutting the telegraph behind him November 12th, he
started on the 15th on his famous "march to the sea.'' I need not stop
to recount the incidents of that famous march. It is a story which every
school boy for generations to come will love to read. You all know it.
He entered the city of Savannah, the southern limit of his expedition, on

12
the 23rd of December, with a loss less than 820 men on the whole march
from Atlanta. He marched north again taking Columbia and Raleigh,
the capitals of the Carolinas, on his way, and on the 18th at Durham
Station he received the surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston's army,
the main force of Confederates outside of Lee's army.
Nine days before this,, on the 9th of April, 1865, General Lee had
surrendered his army to General Grant and the long and bloody contest
of four years was practically ended. In the words of another, "Of the
proud army which dating its victories from Bull Run, had driven Mc
Clellan from before Richmond, and withstQod his best effort at Antietam,
and shattered Burnside's host at Fredericksburg, and worsted Hooker at
Chancellorsville, and fought Meade so stoutly, though unsuccessfully,
before Gettysburg, and "baffled Grant's bounteous resources and desperate
efforts at Spottsylvania, on the North Anna, at Cold Harbor and before
Petersburg and Richmond, a mere wreck remained."
On the 13th of April, the last of the soldiers of Lee were paroled and
permitted to return to their homes according to the generous terms
accorded them by General Grant. And the nation which had spent
billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives to put down a most
unrighteous and uncalled for rebellion looked on with a not unkindly
feeling for the brave soldiers of Lee as defeated, disappointed and
dispirited they scattered to look up if any were left their old friends
and to find if still standing their homes. The sky was again clear, the
stars in heaven were as numerous as they ever had been and from Maine
to California wherever there were men who loved their country, there
was joy in the land. The sun rose once more on a happy people, but
only once. The very next night, April 14th, the very day on which the
Union flag was again raised on Fort Sumter, President Lincoln was
assassinated. ,
No words can describe the unspeakable grief of the nation over this
appalling calamity. More tears were shed over Lincoln's death than over
any other man's that ever lived. He had carried his burden so bravely,
he had been so true and honest, he had kept so near to the people, that
everybody who loved the country had learned to love Lincoln; and to
have him shot down by the bullet of a miserable assassin in the very
moment of victory and peace seemed doubly cruel. It was, so universal
was the mourning, as if death had entered into every household in the
land. I wish I could draw a picture of this man so mourned in death and
so loved by the people today. Tall, homely, angular, with a face as

13
truthful as truth itself, he won the confidence of his hearers by his mani
fest sincerity and convinced them by his commanding argument. Un
affected and unpretending, with manners that had no polish beyond that
given by honest good-will, with no apparent consciousness of self-im
portance and even when President with no vanity or false assumption
of dignity, he had to the last the simplicity and genuineness of the
country man whom neither courts have fashioned nor society has cor
rupted. His sense of humor was keen. His power of illustration by apt
anecdote unequaled; and his logic unsurpassed. With all the natural
virtues of a true man, he grew iij reverence and spirituality under the
keen discipline of national disaster and danger and his faith grew
stronger and at last complete in the hour of national triumph. What a
lesson his life presents to the boys of America! Born in a hut, and
growing up to manhood with almost no opportunities to attend school,
he yet rises by the resolute determination to make the most of himself
and by the excellence of his character and the nobility of his principles,
to the highest position in the gift of the American people, and then, by
the grand manner in which he performed the duties of his high office
without forgetting for a moment that he is one of the people, and that
the government itself exists by the people, of the people, and for the
people, he passes through the gates of martyrdom into an immortality
of popular love. What a career — and what a man. He was no less
divinely raised up for his great work than was Moses, or Samuel, or
David, or Paul.
It is barely forty-eight years since the firing upon Fort Sumter by
the Confederate troops under command of General Beauregard opened
the Civil War. It is barely forty-four years since Abraham Lincoln
died. So many things have occurred since then, events of the greatest
importance in our national life have so crowded upon one another that
it does not seem possible that they could have all been pressed into so
short a period. But this half century just passing has been a history-
making time. The Civil War itself was most memorable. Millions of
men were in arms. The losses in battle were unprecedented. The
resources of every part of the country were strained to the utmost and
the results in the solidifying of the states into one nation and in the
destruction of the entire system of slavery which had seemed to be
impregnably intrenched behind the Constitution were more tremendous
than those of any other war which history records. A nation honors
itself when it honors the memory of the heroes who fought and died
for it. And we are assembled today to do honor to our heroic dead

14
and to remember with gratitude the great services rendered by the
heroes who still linger among us. We are far enough now from the
conflict to be able to do justice to all, and to appreciate the heroism and
fortitude of even the Confederates who fought for what they deemed
justice, though they fought against the flag of their country and the
Union of the states!
We may well be thankful if the bitterness and hatred engendered
by the Civil War shall have disappeared in large measure at the end of
a half century. I know the North has grown more charitable and' I
think the South has also. We are realizing today as we have not realized
for fifty years past that we are one people, with one flag and one destiny.
This very year in Atlanta, Georgia, a city destroyed by Sherman's
army in its march to the sea, and rebuilt in these later years for a nobler
life than it had ever enjoyed before, there gathered in a great church,
on Sunday evening, a large audience of the Southerners called together to
listen to an address by the eloquent pastor of the church on Abraham
Lincoln; and accepting the invitation of the Grand Army of the Republic
to be present and hear the address, was the local organization of Con
federate Veterans who had come to hear the story of Abraham Lincoln;
and the eulogy pronounced upon the great President by the eminent
preacher of the South was worthy of the subject and carried a thrill of
delight all through the North and I hope all through the South. The
incident is but one of many that tell of a re-united country, and of a
people without division of sentiment, honoring the greatness of the
martyred President, who through all the years of struggle sorrowed
for the affliction of the South, as he did for the bereavement of the
North. The memory of this great, big-hearted President, is to be one
of the strongest bonds to unite North and South. And may I add what
it seems to .me but just to add that as the South learns to appreciate the
greatness and nobility of the character of Abraham Lincoln, so we of
the North are learning to appreciate the greatness and nobility of the
gallant soldier, Robert E. Lee, whose memory lies nearer to the Southern
heart than any other; and the gracious recognition of his merits by
the North touches the Southern heart today, even as the recognition
of Lincoln's nobility of chai'acter and purposes by the South fills the
heart of the North with delight.
With this growing appreciation of the bravest and best on each side
by both sections of the country now that South and North have in the
comparatively recent struggle with Spain and the Filippinos, fought
shoulder to shoulder for the common country, we may fairly congratu-

15
late ourselves on the coming unity of our country and may believe that
the awful struggle of 1861 to 1865 with its mighty accumulation of
bereavement, sorrow and suffering was not for nought, but was the
divinely appointed agency for the purification and salvation of the
country. The great Civil War is a thing of the past, thank God! And today
we rejoice in a reunited nation, grown strong in resources and in
power, commanding the respect of the mightiest nations of the world
and abundantly able to maintain its rights and to defend its honor
against the most powerful. But we do not forget, we can never forget
the men to whose patriotism and self-denial and courage we owe it all.
Whatever is possible we would gladly do to honor the men to whose
patriotism and bravery we owe the salvation of the country. And so
today we place flowers reverently on the graves of the dead and we
congratulate the survivors who still honor us with their presence. May
the dead rest in peace and in glory and may the living rejoice in the
prosperity and happiness of the country they redeemed.
"The laurel wreath for heroes dead!
And a cheer for all the brave
Who march with Lincoln's soul today
To liberate and save.''

Published and Distributed by the
PubHcity Committee of the
City of St. Paul

Date Issued

P^Otomount yale university library
Pamphlet llllllllllllllllllllllllll llll lliillillllllliy
Binder I I I I I 1 1 I II I
Gaylord Bros., Inc. Illlllillillllllllllllillillllllililllill'llll
Makers 3 9002 02802 34^
Syracuse, N. Y.
PAT. JAN 21, tSOS

I
If
fill!!!:

lip'l