AN ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 N. P. HALLOWELL, '61. 
 
 DELIVERED ON MEMORIAL DAY, 
 
 May 30, 1896, 
 
 at a meeting called by the graduating 
 class of harvard university. 
 
 H*\'V^n,-^''-\ 
 
 BOSTON: 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 
 
 1896. 
 

 Copyright, 1896, 
 By N. p. Hallowell. 
 
 'Vcc^V^ A^, ^ , 
 
 mnibersits Press: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 
 
THE 
 
 MEAl^mG OF MEMOEIAL DAY. 
 
 DELIVERED ON MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 30, 1896, AT A MEETING 
 
 CALLED BY THE GRADUATING CLASS OF 
 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
 
 As we stand before the tablets in yonder hall and read 
 the familiar names of our old classmates and comrades in 
 arms, there is somewhat of satisfaction in the thought that 
 there never was an internecine struggle in which principle 
 played so great, passion so small a part as in the war of 
 1861-65. In making this broad and general remark it is 
 not necessary to forget the crimes committed in Kansas 
 and in Missouri by the guerilla chief Quantrell, the massa- 
 cre of unarmed recruits at Fort Pillow by General Forrest, 
 the intended indignity put upon the body of Colonel Shaw 
 at Fort Wagner, and the pitiless cruelty of the Anderson- 
 ville pen ; but, in spite of these somewhat serious excep- 
 tions, it remains true that one of the characteristics of the 
 war was the absence of personal antagonism. Every vet- 
 eran within sound of my voice will readily recall familiar 
 examples coming within his observation and experience 
 illustrative of my meaning, — how the opposing pickets 
 would begin by chaffing each other, and would end by a 
 pleasant interchange of courtesies : the rebel would crave 
 a little quinine or other medical store of which he was 
 
4 THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 
 
 always in sore need; the Yankee would accept a bit of 
 tobacco, of which the supply at times was scant. 
 
 Those whose good fortune it was to be in Sedgwick's 
 division on tlie day of Fair Oaks will remember the pas- 
 sage of the Chickahominy on Sumner's floating bridge, — 
 a structure held in position against the rising torrent only 
 by the weight of the marching column ; and they will 
 remember, when the further side was reached, how the 
 victorious rebel battalions, on the point of sweeping 
 Casey's division into the river, butted against this un- 
 known and unexpected reinforcement, and met with a 
 bloody repulse. When darkness closed upon the field of 
 battle, the ground was thickly strewn with rebel dead and 
 rebel wounded in every stage of suffering. To add to the 
 discomforts of the situation, a drizzling rain set in. As 
 the men of Sedgwick's division were about to dispose of 
 themselves for the night, and to get what protection from 
 the elements they could with the rubber blankets they 
 had slung round their shoulders that morning when they 
 broke camp, a colonel of a certain Massachusetts regiment 
 walked down the ranks, and made a call for rubber 
 blankets with which the rebel wounded might be covered. 
 Not a rubber Avas held back ; so far as one could tell, 
 every blanket was handed in, and the exhausted men of 
 that regiment, who had marched and fought from midday 
 until sundown, stood up in the rain through that dreary 
 night without a murmur. 
 
 When General Grant, at Appomattox, with a nicety of 
 feeling and simplicity of statement which were the certain 
 marks of that great captain, said to the surrendered foe, 
 " Retain your side-arms ; keep your horses, — they will be 
 needed for the spring ploughing," he not only stamped his 
 
THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 5 
 
 own character with the noble attribute of magnanimity, 
 but at the same time gave fitting expression to that spirit 
 of humanity which always pervaded the old Army of the 
 Potomac. 
 
 Generals Grant and Sherman, and Sheridan, too, never 
 failed to draw a sharp line of distinction between a traitor 
 and a fighting rebel. The one is a thing greatly to be 
 despised ; the other, a person much to be respected. 
 Jefferson Davis, Howell Cobb, Floyd of Virginia, and 
 Thompson, the Secretary of the Interior, — one a United 
 States senator, three members of President Buchanan's 
 cabinet, — while still under oath of oflTice, conspired to 
 overthrow the government they had sworn to maintain. 
 They scattered our navy over remote waters of the globe ; 
 they stationed our little army in the far distant posts of 
 Texas ; they crammed our munitions of war into the ar- 
 senals of the South ; — Secretary Floyd even put the hand 
 of a thief upon the trust funds of the. United States. 
 Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, and 
 other men of their kind, handed back their commissions 
 to the government first, and cast their lots with their 
 respective States second. Whatever was good in the lives 
 of such men is the common inheritance of their children 
 and of ours. 
 
 With some little pride, which I know you will excuse, 
 I shall read a letter written by the schoolmaster of Robert 
 E. Lee, my kinsman, Benjamin Hallowell, a venerable 
 Quaker, late of Alexandria, Va. Mr. Hallowell writes: 
 " Robert E. Lee entered my school in Alexandria, Va., in 
 the winter of 1825-26, to study mathematics preparatory 
 to his going to West Point. He was a most exemplary 
 student in every respect. He was never behind-times at 
 
6 THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 
 
 his studies; never failed in a single recitation; was per- 
 fectly observant of the rules and regulations of the institu- 
 tion ; was gentlemanly, unobtrusive, and respectful in all 
 his deportment to teachers and his fellow-students. His 
 specialty was finishing up. He imparted a finish and a 
 neatness, as he proceeded, to everything he undertook. 
 One of the branches of mathematics he studied with me 
 was conic sections, in which some of the diagrams were 
 very complicated. He drew the diagrams on a slate ; and 
 although he well knew the one he was drawing would 
 have to be removed to make room for another, he drew 
 each one with as much accuracy and finish, lettering and 
 all, as if it were to be engraved and printed. 
 
 " The same traits he exhibited at my school he carried 
 with him to West Point, where, I have been told, he 
 never received a mark of demerit, and graduated at the 
 head of his class." 
 
 Lee's record as a soldier is almost as perfect as his 
 record as a schoolboy. In the long list of battles which 
 he planned and fought there is only one not worthy of his 
 genius. " When the Army of the Potomac had forced its 
 way through siege and battle to within sight of the spires 
 of Richmond, it was rolled back upon the James in a 
 seven-days' conflict." Hard pressed, our divisions gathered 
 themselves together upon the plateau of Malvern Hill, and, 
 encircling their lines with artillery, stood at bay. Lee 
 came on, flushed with success, hot with pursuit, and hurled 
 his brigades, first, one upon our lines there, then another 
 here, all without concert of action. Five thousand rebel 
 dead and wounded were the penalty of his rashness. It 
 was McClellan's best, Lee's worst, fought battle of the war. 
 Lee never repeated his mistake ; nor did McClellan. 
 
THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 7 
 
 There are few pages in history more pathetic than the 
 beginning and the ending of Robert Lee as a rebel. He 
 was the favorite of General Scott. At the instance of 
 President Lincoln, the command of the armies of the 
 North was offered to him. But neither the confidence of 
 Lincoln, nor the affection of Scott, nor the instincts of his 
 better nature could prevail. Out of an agony of conflict 
 with himself he came to the fatal conclusion to draw his 
 sword against his country. When defeated and crushed, 
 he rode from Appomattox to his home; and from his 
 home he was soon borne to his grave. There was no 
 great bodily ailment. The man had simply died of a 
 broken heart. 
 
 You may think that I have lapsed into an eulogy of 
 rebels. And indeed it is pleasant to dwell upon the 
 virtues of our old friends, the enemy. And yet there 
 should be neither mental nor moral confusion as to the 
 real meaning of this Memorial Day and this Memorial 
 Hall. I unite with the late William J. Potter, of the 
 Class of 1854, who warns us not to be caught by the senti- 
 mental sophistry that since there were heroism and fidelity 
 to conviction on both sides, we may commemorate those 
 virtues of both armies as American, and thereby try to for- 
 get there were ever two armies or two causes. Fidelity 
 to conviction is praiseworthy ; but the conviction is some- 
 times very far from praiseworthy. Slavery and polygamy 
 were convictions. Such monuments as Memorial Hall 
 commemorate the valor and heroism that maintained cer- 
 tain principles, — justice, order, and liberty. To ignore 
 the irreconcilable distinction between the cause of the 
 North and that of the South is to degrade the war to the 
 
8 THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 
 
 level of a mere fratricidal strife for the display of military 
 prowess and strength. War, horrid war, waged for its 
 own sake is ignoble, brutal ; but when waged in defence 
 of convictions which deserve to prevail, then indeed may 
 war be glorified and sanctified by the sufferings and lives 
 of its victims. So long, then, as there is a distinction 
 between the principles of liberty and those of slavery, may 
 monuments to Confederate dead be erected on Southern, 
 not on Northern soil, and may this Memorial Hall stand 
 for those Harvard men who fought for liberty, and not for 
 those who fought for slavery. 
 
 The courage necessary to face death in battle is not of 
 the highest order ; that of the non-resistant is of a better 
 kind. Some forty Friends, called Quakers, of North Caro- 
 lina, were forced into the rebel service. Their religious 
 convictions would not let them figlit. They refused to 
 drill or carry a musket. They were prodded with bayo- 
 nets, strung up by the thumbs, knocked down with the 
 butt-ends of muskets, lashed on the bare back, starved in 
 jails until, in some instances, death ended their sufferings. 
 You and I, my veteran friends, were courageous, I dare 
 say ; but to sustain us we had the vicissitudes of camp 
 life, of the march, and of battle. The women who stayed 
 at home to work, to endure, and to suffer in silence, — 
 they, too, were courageous. 
 
 One of tlie best examples of courage, combined with 
 dignity, self-respect, and self-control, was the conduct of 
 our colored troops in the nnitter of pay. They were prom- 
 ised the same pay and in general the same treatment as 
 white soldiers. No one expected the same treatment in 
 the sense of courtesy, but every one believed a great nation 
 would keep faith with its soldiers in the beggarly matter 
 
THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 9 
 
 of pay. They were promised $13 per month. They were 
 insulted by an offer of $10. Massachusetts resented the 
 insult, and endeavored to remedy the wrong by offering to 
 make good the difference between the $13 promised and 
 the $10 offered. The State agents with money in hand 
 visited the camps on Folly and Morris Islands, and pleaded 
 with the men by every argument, by every persuasion they 
 could command, to accept State money. In vain. They 
 were soldiers of the Union, not of a State. They would 
 be paid by the United States in full or they would not be 
 paid at all. The nation might break its faith, but they 
 would keep theirs. Every mail brought letters from 
 wives and children asking for money. In some instances 
 homes were broken up and the almshouse received their 
 families. At times our regiments were driven to the verge 
 of mutiny. In point of fact, the Fifty-fifth did stack arms 
 one morning, not in an angry, tumultuous way, but in a 
 sullen, desperate mood that expressed a wish to be 
 marched out to be shot down rather than longer hear the 
 cries from home and longer endure the galling sense of 
 humiliation and wrong. But better counsels prevailed, 
 and a grand catastrophe was averted by the patriotism and 
 innate good sense of the men, added to the sympathy and 
 firmness of the officers. One poor fellow, a sergeant in 
 the Third South Carolina, induced his company to stack 
 arms on the ground that he was " released from duty by 
 the refusal of the Government to fulfil its share of the 
 contract." He was logical, but it was in time of war. 
 The only thing to be done, was done. He was court-mar- 
 tialled and shot. In the scathing words of Governor 
 Andrew, " The Government which found no law to pay 
 him except as a nondescript and a contraband, neverthe- 
 
10 THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 
 
 less found law enough to shoot him as a soldier." Seven 
 times were our regiments mustered for pay. Seven times 
 they refused and pointed to their honorable scars to plead 
 their manhood and their rights. The men of the Fifty- 
 fifth for sixteen, of the Fifty-Fourth for eighteen months, 
 toiled on and fought on without one cent of pay. At last 
 they won — won tlirough long suffering and patient endur- 
 ance, won through a higher and rarer courage than the 
 courage of battle — a victory that is not inscribed on their 
 flags by the side of Wagner, James Island, Olustee, and 
 Honey Hill, but which, none the less, fills one of the best 
 and brightest pages in the history of their race. 
 
 Among the names inscribed upon the shaft on Soldiers' 
 Field is that of Robert Gould Shaw. How he and Russell 
 and Simpkins and other brave men went down in death on 
 the bloody slopes of Wagner, is known to all. Colonel 
 Shaw was then twenty-five years of age. How young it 
 seems now ! His clean-cut face, quick, decided step, and 
 singular charm of manner, full of grace and virtue, bespoke 
 the hero. The immortal charge of his black regiment reads 
 like a page of the Iliad or a story from Plutarch. I have 
 always thought that in the great war witli the slave power, 
 the figure that stands out in boldest relief is that of 
 Colonel Shaw. There were many others as brave and 
 devoted as he, — the humblest private who sleeps in yon- 
 der cemetery, or fills an unknown grave in the South, is as 
 much entitled to our gratitude, — but to no others was 
 given an equal opportunity. By the earnestness of his 
 convictions, the unselfishness of his character, his cham- 
 pionship of an enslaved race, and the manner of his death, 
 all the conditions are given to make Shaw the best histor- 
 ical exponent of the underlying cause, the real meaning of 
 
THE MEANING OF MEMORIAL DAY. 11 
 
 the war. He was the fair type of all that was brave, 
 generous, beautiful, and of all that was best worth fighting 
 for in the war of the slaveholders' rebellion. 
 
 It is an awe-inspiring sight, — the charge of men upon a 
 fort to be stormed or a battery to be taken. The popular 
 conception of a charge is a rush. There is indeed a final 
 rush, should there be any survivors to make it. But to 
 my mind the grandeur of a charge is in the quiet advance 
 which precedes the final struggle. One does not run 
 through life ; no more did Pickett double quick his mile or 
 more over the open fields of Gettysburg. His lines came 
 on slowly, majestically. They were ploughed with solid 
 shot; blown into shreds by bursting shells; decimated 
 by canister in fi'ont, by musketry on flank. At every step 
 those torn ranks would shrivel and shrink. The survivors 
 closed in on their colors and calmly walked to their fate. 
 For one brief moment they struck the Union centre, and 
 then — they were no more. 
 
 Comrades, who are the remnant of a once mighty host, 
 we must thus march shoulder to shoulder. There is work 
 ahead for each one of us ! Our ranks are thinning. A 
 comrade drops out to-day, another to-morrow. Peace to 
 them ! But, steady, men ! Close in on the colors ! With 
 old-time courage oppose a bold front to the foe, until the 
 last survivor shall hand over the standard to these younger 
 men, and rejoin his comrades in that land where there are 
 " neither wars nor rumors of wars." 
 
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