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 UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/orationbeforereu01grou 
 
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 A.tf 
 
 ORATION 
 
 BEP0E3 TKK 
 
 RE-UNION SOCIETY 
 
 OF 
 
 VERMONT OFFICERS, 
 
 m THE 
 
 REPRESENTATIVES' HALL, MONTPELIER, VT., 
 
 November 4, 1869. 
 
 By Gen. WILLIAM W. GROUT, 
 
 BARTON, VT. 
 
 EUTL\ND: 
 
 TUTTLE & CO., PRINTERS. 
 
 1869. 
 
 u.«b.(l.. 
 

Joint Resolution 'providing for the "printing of Gen. William W. 
 Grout's oration before the He-union Society of Vermont Officers. 
 
 Whereas, The oration of Gen. William W. Grout, delivered 
 before the Re-union Society of Vermont Officers during the present 
 session, would be, if preserved, a valuable acquisition to the history 
 and literature of the State ; therefore *" 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, That the Clerk 
 of the House and Secretary of the Senate be., and are hereby directed 
 to procure the printing of one thousand copies thereof, for the use of 
 the General Assembly. 
 
 G. W. GRANDEY, 
 
 Speaker of the House of Rep. 
 GEO. N, DALE, 
 
 President pro teni of the Senate, 
 
MILITARY RECORD OF VERMONT. 
 
 Mr. President and Comrades, and Ladies and Gentle- 
 men: 
 
 Vermont, the first-born into the family of States, 
 achieved her existence through the military prowess of 
 her people. She was the legitimate child of war. This 
 was true, not only of her population, at the time of her 
 admission into the Union, but was equally true of her 
 territory, which, from time immemorial, seems to have 
 been set apart as a species of martial arena dedicated to 
 hostile expeditions and enterprises. The aboriginal tribes 
 even were wont to regard it as neutral ground. The 
 fierce Pequots upon the south, the warlike Iroquois on 
 the west, and the blood-thirsty Cossucks and wild tribes 
 of St. Francis on the north and north-east, had, for how 
 many centuries, no tongue or pen can tell, looked upon 
 these Green Mountains as a sort of charmed yet fated spot; 
 common, as a hunting and battle ground, to all, but safe 
 as a home for none. Hence upon the exploration of this 
 part of the continent, the territory of Vermont, except a 
 narrow strip along Lake Champlain, was found uninhab- 
 ited by human kind. Constantly traversed by the sur- 
 rounding tribes in their hostile expeditions against each 
 other, it must have been the theatre of the most appalling 
 Indian conflicts — and had come to be regarded, as is the 
 brief space between contending armies, daugerous ground; 
 
6 
 
 nor was this condition improved during the colonial period, 
 but much the same state of things was continued. 
 
 In the early dawn of the seventeenth century, the spirit 
 of adventure and discovery being at its height in Europe, 
 Sir Jacques Cartier, the celebrated French navigator of 
 St. Malo, discovered Canada and the St. Lawrence ; and 
 straightway the French crown, under the law of nations, 
 laid claim to all that vast territory drained by the St. 
 Lawrence and its tributaries, including, of course, the 
 great chain of lakes. Later, the pious Marquette, to 
 whom, equally with Champlain, " the salvation of one 
 soul was of more consequence th^n the conquest of an 
 empire," bore the cross of the Jesuit fathers westward 
 even to the banks of the Mississippi, the mouths of which 
 were afterwards discovered by LaSalle, another French- 
 man, which, under the same law, gave the great valley 
 to the French also. Meantime the English had taken 
 possession of the entire A tlantic seaboard from Maine to 
 Georgia, and had pushed their settlements northward into 
 the interior towards Vermont, as far as Greenfield. With 
 the French thus upon the north and the English upon 
 the south, and they old-time enemies, and not only at war 
 at home, but from the very first fiercely contending for 
 the supremacy here in the new world, the territory of 
 Vermont during that series of Indian and colonial wars 
 which run through nearly a century and a half, was still 
 dangerous grouni; the pathway of advancing and retreat- 
 ing armies, and the lurking place of their savage allies. 
 It was still uninhabited. No set of men had then been 
 found brave enough to undertake the work of wresting 
 from nature's grasp these rugged hillsides and mountain 
 slopes; and it was not until 1759, when, in that decisive 
 *• contest for empire " on this continent, before the walls 
 
t 
 
 cf Quebec, between Wolfe and Montcalm, Englard was 
 victorious; and the treaty of Paris followed, ceding 
 Canada to Great Britain, that the territory of Vermont 
 was relieved of these dire influences of war and her colo- 
 nization undertaken ; chiefly by bold adventurers, who 
 had taken note of the capabilities of her soil and climate 
 in their marches and countermarclies across her territory, 
 during the wars that had preceded. 
 
 These men, under grants from a Ivoyal Governor, had 
 carved out for themselves homes in this mountain wilder- 
 ness, and had here set up in peace their Lares and Penates. 
 Suddenly, hov/ever, this territory, which no one during 
 the centuries back, not even the Indian tribes had dared 
 to own, so excited t'le cupidi;./ c" ouitciders, that it was 
 deemed common prey for the surrounding colonies, and 
 was claimed in part by New Hampshire and BlaGsachu- 
 setts, and wholly by New York. And, as if this region, 
 so long shunned by man and left to the wild antics of 
 war, would not, without strife, be subject to civilization, 
 these claims, which as all know were resisted with spirit 
 by the brave men whose firesides were at stake, culminated 
 in a series of disputes characterized hy violence and 
 bloodshed — and this brings me to say, that for more than 
 a quarter of a century before the admission of Vermont 
 into the Union, her people held the attitude of armed 
 resistance to the encroachments of an unwarrantable 
 jurisdiction. 
 
 When the colonists first remonstrated and then revolted 
 against the unjust exactions of England, it was no new 
 subject to the hardy independent pioneers upon the New 
 Hampshire grants. They had before that petitioned the 
 crown and remonstrated with grasping governors in vain 
 
8 
 
 and had already drawn the sword, and for the mainten- 
 ance of their rights, had, through their chosen leader, 
 declared themselves " ready to retire to the caves of the 
 mountains and wage an eternal warfare against human 
 nature." The spirit of resistance to the mother country 
 which had been ^' aroused in Massachusetts by that sanest 
 of madman James Otis; in Virginia, by that bold and firey 
 patriot Patrick Henry, and in South Carolina by the lofty, 
 fearless and eloquent Gadsden," was more than answered 
 in Vermont by the record then already made, by the 
 invincible Allen and his brave Green Mountain boys, 
 against the New York Sheriffs and Surveyors, as well as 
 against Col. Reid's tenants and the Durhamites. 
 
 The very genius of liberty itself seems to have been 
 derived by these men from the free mountain air, ^hich 
 they breathe, and from the wild and rugged surroundings 
 of nature, in the midst of which, they dwelt. They were 
 from the very first of that class of devout disciples of 
 liberty, whose patriotism took a practical turn and whose 
 faith in bayonets and bullets was more than orthodox. 
 Hence, when the colonists raised the continental standard 
 and the tide of war, first under Carleton, and then under 
 Burgoyne, swept up from the St. Lawrence and overrun 
 our northern border, the Green Mountain boys, forgetting 
 for the time all minor wrongs, promptly changed front 
 and gave battle to the common enemy ; and as the result 
 Ticonderoga, Crown Point and Bennington were among 
 the trophies of Vermont valor in the ^rst war of the 
 Republic. 
 
 In 1812, Vermont, not stopping to consult the oracle 
 of party spirit, but answering the puerile order of a 
 misguided executive, with the same patriotic formula that 
 Epaminondas did his superstitious monitors of old, again. 
 
" Her sword bravelv dra-ws, 
 
 Asking no omen but her country's cause." 
 
 Asking not even the pardon of an offended Governor and 
 commander-in-chief in and over the State. In that crisis, 
 to the credit of Vermont, her sons, with something still of 
 the spirit of Allen and Warner, disregarded that ill-timed 
 proclamation, •• to forthwith return to the respective 
 places of their usual residence within the State," and 
 replied in that remarkable language: '-We shall not 
 obey your Excellency's order for returning ; and would 
 inform you that an order or invitation to desert the 
 standard of our country will yiever be obeyed by us, 
 although it proceeds from the Governor and captain 
 general of Vermont." 
 
 Thus, in 1812, did Vermont boys aptly meet manifesto 
 with manifesto, and in observance of the only law for the 
 true soldier marched to the sound of the enemies' guns 
 at Plattsburgh ; and, after the brisk little cotillon on 
 that bright September morning, Sir George Provost, 
 deeming '' discretion the better part of valor," under cover 
 of the following night hastily packed his kit, and with 
 his British regulars, like the Arabs, 
 
 '• Folded his tents 
 
 And silently stole away." 
 
 Thus did Vermont soldiers, in spite of an unwilling 
 Executive, fight their way upon the record into the second 
 war of the Republic ; and afforded our gallant little State 
 the proud distinction of having furnished a large part 
 of that raw militia, before which, a superior number even, 
 of veteran troops, trained to war under the Duke of 
 Wellington, had hastily retreated. Glory enough, sure, 
 for Vermont in that war. 
 
 In the slight skirmish with Mexico, the enlightened 
 public sentiment of Vermont; already well educated in the 
 2 
 
10 
 
 school of equal rights, could feel no special pleasure in 
 responding to a call from the constituted authorities for 
 troops. Our people looked upon the war as waged for 
 the extension of human slavery, and the opening up of 
 new marts for the trade in human blood ; against which 
 every noble impulse of the Vermont heart revolted. 
 Nevertheless war had been declared, the flag of our 
 country had been unfurled and the honor of the nation 
 was at stake. Vermonters saw this, and could not 
 suppress the feeling, that the war, after declaration, was 
 their war ; the flag when unfurled was their flag, and the 
 honor that was at stake was their honor. Neither could 
 they consent that the record of the State, so brilliant in 
 previous wars, then in their keeping, should sufler stain 
 or blemish through their defection. Perhaps they had 
 in mind the proud position accorded their State in the 
 geography of their school boy days ; which, while it made 
 New Hampshire famous for her mountain scenery, Maine 
 for her lumber, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Con- 
 necticut for their manufactures, said of Vermont that she 
 was " celebrated for the part taken by the Green 
 Mountain boys in the war for independence." However 
 this may be, she at least did her duty. She voted men 
 and money for the war ; she filled her quota from the 
 bravest of her sons, but few of whom lived to return to 
 the State. Among the number thus laid a sacrifice upon 
 her country's altar was the gifted, lamented Ransom. 
 
 Such, in brief outline, is the military history of Vermont 
 previous to the late slaveholders' rebellion ; when, of a 
 sudden, with hardly a note of warning, the glare of battle 
 lit up Sumter's walls. Instantly, as from profound 
 sleep, the nation was aroused from the lethargic r^^pose 
 of a long peace ; the enervating influences of which had, 
 
11 
 
 in Vermont, disarmed and disbanded her entire militia, 
 save a few independent companies ; in which as the type 
 of the Vermont soldier, to slightly amend the great Poet, 
 " the native hue " of Vermont's early resolution " was 
 seemingly sicklied o'er with the pale cast " of home guard 
 effeminacy. Whether really so or not, let the bloody 
 record of the 34,000 men who went out from Vermont, 
 leaving home and its endearments, friends and their 
 society, and voluntarily endured the ennui of the camp, 
 the fatigue of the march, the loneliness of the solitary 
 midnight watch, the chill of the bivouac, the disease and 
 death of the hospital, and all the indiscribable horrors of 
 the battlefield make answer — yes, let that record, so 
 replete with glory, make answer. But here I shrink from 
 the task before me. How shall I in fitting words pass in 
 review the heroism, the endurance, the sufferings, the 
 gallantry and indomitable bravery of those men % How, 
 also, suitably portray the sacrifices, the heart-longings, 
 the mental struggles, the keen anguish, the deep sorrow, 
 the tears and the prayers of Vermont homes, during those 
 four eventful years, which, though still fresh in the 
 memory of all, yet already seem like a dream or a tale that 
 is told. 
 
 I shall not undertake to give a detailed account of the 
 different Vermont organizations, nor of the special claims 
 of each to honorable mention. This field has been already 
 fully canvassed in previous addresses before you — and^I 
 shall content myself in the brief space to which, by the 
 proprieties of the occasion, I am limited, with some hasty 
 allusions to those crises of the struggle in which Vermont 
 troops participated. But first, a word about the character 
 of that struggle. 
 
 In lamenting the death of those twin patriots of the 
 
12 
 
 Revolution, Adams and Jefferson, ( which it will be 
 remembered occurred on the fifteenth anniversary of our 
 independence,) Webster said : " No age of the world will 
 ever come in which the American revolution will appear 
 less than it really is ; one of the greatest events in human 
 history. No age will ever come in which it will cease to 
 be seen and felt, on either continent, that a mighty step, 
 a great advance, not only in American affairs but in 
 human affairs, was made on the 4th of July, 1776." The 
 cardinal truth which has made that day immortal, (but 
 which, from some of his after utterances, it would seem 
 Mr. Webster must have forgotten,) was that " all men 
 are created equal." * 
 
 That was the proposition that echoed round the world 
 with such alarming emphasis, shaking thrones, and 
 carrying consternjition and dismay to titled dignitaries 
 and highborn aristocrats everywhere. What else could 
 it have been ? Certainly not a mere declaration of inde- 
 pendence by the colonies from home rule, for that was no 
 new thing in history. Since the quarrel between the 
 herdmen of Lot and Abraham and the division of the 
 world which followed, there is hardly a chapter in human 
 affairs, either sacred or profane, in which man is not 
 found constantly setting up for himself But never 
 before was the equality of man declared. This alone 
 lifted the declaration above the common level of every-day 
 philosophy, and must have been the " mighty step " 
 alluded to by the great statesman. And it was truly a 
 " mighty step " for any set of men to assert as one of the 
 fundamental principles of government, that " all men are 
 created equal." The poor equal to the rich ; the weak 
 equal to the strong ; the common people equal to the 
 nobility ; even the beggar in rags equal to the king in 
 
13 
 
 courtly apparel, who the world had been taught ruled 
 by divine right. All who bore God's image " created 
 equal " before the law. Equal in those inalienable rights, 
 life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yes, all created 
 equal heirs of liberty. So said the declaration. As an 
 abstract proposition it was true, but in point of fact it 
 was a splendid lie. The millions of human beings held 
 IQ the galling fetters of a worse than Egyptian bondage, 
 pronounced it false. It was simply a declaration, such 
 as lawyers make, which, as every one knows, without 
 proof, goes for nothing. The fathers did not supply the 
 proof in support of this bold allegation. Ihey attended 
 only to the '■'• law side " of the case ; and when they closed 
 the testimony on that point with Cornwallis, at Yorktowu, 
 supposed they had made good in all essentials their 
 declaration and were entitled to judgment in chief. This 
 was a great mistake. All was quiet, however, for a little 
 time, but soon difficulties arose. The silver-tongued 
 Clay suggested compromise, and 36° 30' was agreed 
 upon as a substitute for the declaration. Only think of 
 it, north of that imaginary line it was agreed " all men 
 were born free and equal." South, some to freedom, and 
 alas ! some to slavery. The higher law-men cried sin 
 and invoked the judgment of God. The slaveholder, girt 
 about with cotton, and waxed strong and insolent, very 
 soon snapped his lingers at the line 36° 30 ^ and through 
 a truckling judiciary tacked on Dred Scott as an amend- 
 ment ; which made the declaration read, " the negro has 
 no rights which the white man is bound to respect." 
 Meantime public opinion throughout the civilized world, 
 always a little cynical, and not without something of 
 justice, towards what it had termed the hollow preten- 
 sions of this country to liberty, said that judgment had 
 
14 
 
 already been too long suspended ; that the American 
 people hid utterly failed in their declaration, and ought 
 to have suffered non-suit and been turned out of court 
 long before. Such was the situttion when, in 1860, the 
 people, with conscience and pride both stinging to the 
 quick, by solemn verdict declared, in the election of 
 Abraham Lincoln, that no more free territory should be 
 passed over to slavery. Slavery defiantly answered, 
 vested rights, the divine sanction and secession, and 
 appealed to arms. Thus came up to the last tribunal of 
 earthly resort, the arbitrament of the sword, the " equity 
 side " of this great question in the declaration, which for 
 more than fifty years had shook the fabric of this govern- 
 ment to its very base ; and which, before it was finally 
 settlcil at Appomattox, invoked the largest chancery 
 powers of the great heart of a great man, and taxed to the 
 utmost the physical resources, the patience, the tenacity 
 and the courage of the Ameiican people. It was sought 
 for a time to carry on the war constitutionally ; for the 
 preservation of the Union alone, wholly ignoring the 
 declaration ; but, like the ghost of the murdered Banquo, 
 this g eat question would not " down ;" not even at the 
 bidding of senates, and cabinets, and commanders. It 
 shook the " gory locks " of 4,' 100,000 slaves in the face of 
 Abraham Lincoln, and called the great chancellor himself 
 to witness that he '' made of one blood all the nations of 
 men." Right at last prevailed, and the proclamation 
 which followed, striking off the shackles of the enslaved, 
 returned to first principles, reiteratt^d and made practical 
 the truth in the declaration that " all men are created 
 equal ;" straightway the constitution, by amendment, was 
 made to conform therewith, and suddenly, as light after an 
 
15 
 
 eclipse, England's boast, through her gifted Mansfield, 
 became our boast. 
 
 " Slave-* cannot breathe in our land, if th^•ir lungs 
 Ile<'eive our air, that m'ment tliey are free." 
 
 Such was the character of the struggle from the 
 Vermont standpoint. Our p' ople from the first looked 
 upon the contest as one of ideas and principles, and as 
 but the closing out of the Revolution of 'T6, in which the 
 fathers but half did the work ; making it a revolution 
 not merely in the external forms of administration, but 
 in the great principles which underlie the very foundation 
 of government itself And such has been the constancy 
 of Vermont to these principles of liberty and equality, 
 ever since she opened the revolution on the 14th of March, 
 1775, by breaking up the Royal Court at Westminster, 
 (which, by the way, Massachusetts never could understand, 
 was before the affair at Lexington in the April after,) and 
 such her devotion thereto that for years she has been 
 pointed to as " the star that never sets " As an incidental 
 outcropping of these principles, her judiciary long since 
 decided, on requisition for the return of a fugitive from 
 slavery, that before a Vermont court, nothing &hort of a 
 bill of sale from God himself would give man title to his 
 fellow man. 
 
 Imbued with such sentiments, and signalized with such 
 a birth and early history as we have seen, and crowned 
 too with such heroism in former wars ; who need inquire, 
 what of Vermont during that struggle 1 vvho could 
 doubt that Vermont would thiow her whole soul into the 
 conflict 1 Who could doubt that when the clarion of war 
 should sound, Vermont would be ready for the fray ? 
 
 To prove this, need I recount how from hillside and 
 valley, and mountain fastness Vermnnters rallied at the 
 call — how the farmer left his plow, Putnam like, to rust 
 
16 
 
 ia the furrow ; how from every department of industry in 
 the State, and from every walk in social life ; how from 
 the cottage and the villa men came forth with the blessing 
 of mother and sister, of wife and lover, the fair ones ever 
 emulating the lofty example of the revolutionary matrons, 
 who '' took down from its hanging place on the wall the 
 trusty firelock, and handing it to husband, brother, or 
 son, said, go and in God's name strike for liberty." Need 
 I follow these men to the field, and remind you that 
 Vermont, with her armor on, was in the first battle of the 
 war ; and how, ever after, wherever Vermont troops were 
 stationed, whether in the department of the gulf, beneath 
 a burning sun, in the midst of malaria and fever, or with 
 the oft-beaten but never defeated Army of the Potomac, 
 through the blood and carnage of her forty battles ; 
 whether in the valley under Sheridan, or at Port Hudson 
 under Banks ; whether in camp or on the march ; whether 
 giving or receiving battle ; how everywhere, at all times 
 and under all circumstances, Vermont soldiers did their 
 duty, and preserved unsullied the ancient honor of the 
 State ? Need I recite the deeds of these brave men upon 
 the Peninsula, at Antietam, Fredericksburgh, the Wil- 
 derness, where the " old brigade," through a terrible 
 slaughter which cost more than a thousand men, saved 
 the 2d Corps from capture, and the left wing of the army 
 from ruin ; Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and the final 
 conflict which drove the enemy from their entrenchments 
 in front of Ptichmond 1 Need I follow Early in that 
 stealthy but rapid march on Washington in July, 1864, 
 by which he expected to surprise and capture the capitol, 
 but how he found the 6th Corps, " with Vermonters 
 ahead and the column well closed up," only twentj-four 
 hours from Lee's front at Petersburgh, 150 miles away, 
 
17 
 
 on the ground, disputing his passage into the city ; and 
 how foiled, the rebel general sulkily withdrew to the 
 valley, and was afterwards slightly hurried at Winchester 
 and Cedar Creek; and how, uncivil though it was, the 
 Vermonters are said to have had a hand in the hurrying 1 
 Need I more than name to Vermont soldiers Gettys- 
 burgh, where for three days everything hung trembling 
 in the balance ? The importance of that battle in both a 
 military and political point of view, however much 
 augmented, can never be exaggerated. Lee, flushed with 
 his signal victory over Hooker at Chancellorsville, had 
 boldly taken up his line of march for the great centers 
 of wealth and population in the free States, and proposed, 
 by giving the North a taste of war, to conquer a peace on 
 Northern soil. The political horoscope was deemed 
 favorable for this coup de main. The anti-war party was 
 everywhere active. Many openly, and more covertly 
 were demanding peace and denouncing the war as a 
 failure. The mob in New York had already organized 
 in resistance of the draft, and were awaiting the 
 arrival of their brethren from Lee's army, then in 
 the heart of Pennsylvania, The military situation, too, 
 was most dismal ; the Army of the Potomac beaten at 
 Bull Run, driven from the Peninsula, fooled at Antietam, 
 and again badly beaten at Fredericksburgh and Chan- 
 cellorsville, in which two last battles there was an aggre- 
 gate loss of more than 30,000 men, and not an inch of 
 ground gained ; had, sober, but undismayed, followed Lee 
 into Pennsylvania and were sullenly hanging upon his 
 rear and flank, covering Washington and Baltimore. In 
 no other quarter was the sky more propitious. Along 
 the coast our armies were at a stand-still; Milroy had 
 been overwhelmed at Winchester. Grant, then but a 
 8 
 
18 
 
 major general and in the infancy of that career which has 
 since rivalled the fame of the brilliant Duke of Marlbor- 
 ough, who, history says, never besieged a city he did not 
 capture nor fought a battle he did not win, still stood 
 before the frowning entrenchments of Vicksburgh. 
 Though himself confident, the country doubted. Banks, 
 in the heart of a hostile region remote from his base, was 
 confronted by a force superior to his own, and could only 
 await events in other quarters. Such was the political 
 and military situation when, on the 1st of July, 1863, 
 Lee, deeming his battalions invincible, resolved to wipe 
 out the Army of the Potomac, the only hindrance to his 
 splendid schemes, and suddenly turning, fell like a thun- 
 derbolt upon the 1st Corps, under Reynolds, at Gettys- 
 burgh. This was a signal for the concentration of the 
 Army of the Potomac ; and the gallant Sickles, who had 
 positive orders to hold Emmitsburgh "at all hazards," 
 and be ready to concentrate on Pipe Creek, a line fifteen 
 miles to the rear, at neither of which places was there any 
 enemy nor anything to do, promptly pushed his corps in 
 the direction of the fighting, and reached the field in season 
 to save the remnant of the 1st Corps from utter annihila- 
 tion, and the 11th Corps the necessity of further "tall 
 running " for that day at least. About the same time the 
 2d Vermont Brigade, under our own Stannard, took up 
 its place in the thinned ranks of the 1st Corps. The 
 darkness which closed in upon the disasters of that day 
 was not more oppressive than the gloomy forbodings 
 which filled the hearts of the American people. The 
 fragment of the army then in line also shared, in a measure, 
 those forbodings. The 10,000 killed, wounded and 
 missing in that first day's work was fully one-eighth of 
 Meadp's entire force, only about one-third of which then 
 
19 
 
 confronted the enemy. The whereabouts of the rest of 
 the army, with its commander, was unknown, at least to 
 the men and subordinate officers. Unless it came up, the 
 second day could be but a repetition of the first. 
 
 Welcome disturbances to the weary sleepers that night 
 were the short, sharp commands, " halt," '' front," " right " 
 or " left dress," as the case might be, which commands 
 run through much of the night and intervals of the next 
 day until about 4 p. m., when, by a forced march of 36 
 miles, the 6th Corps, " Sedgewick's gamecocks," '* with 
 the Vermonters still ahead," wheeled into line and the 
 Army of the Potomac was ready for battle ; in fact, then 
 more than an hour briskly engaged. And here, in passing, 
 a word about the accidental manner in which it became 
 engaged, as at least new to some. 
 
 Meade reached the field during the night after the first 
 day's fighting, and in the morning overlooked the situation 
 and was dissatisfied. He thought Pipe Creek a better 
 place. Sickles had the day before sent word to Meade 
 that he had gone to the relief of Howard at Gettysburgh, 
 and suggested the propriety of concentrating at that point. 
 Thus the responsibility of that selection was largely upon 
 him, and with true manliness, himself took the only weak 
 place in what must be conceded was a naturally strong 
 line for a defensive battle ; and it should be remembered 
 that we were then on the defensive. Under these circum- 
 stances Sickles, perhaps made a little anxious by the 
 adverse judgment of Meade, and because, too, of the 
 exposure of his position, thought to improve it by occu- 
 pying a ridge in his front and moved out for that purpose. 
 But the practiced eye of Lee it seems had caught this same 
 ridge or threatening round-top hill on our left, which in 
 turn threatened the whole federal position; and had 
 
20 
 
 ordered Longstreet to take possession of it which he was 
 then in the act of doing. Thus in manceuvering for the 
 crest of this ridge, Sickles, with his corps and the whole 
 left wing of the army, hecame unexpectedly engaged, to 
 the great chagrin of Meade, who was still intent upon 
 falling back to his favorite position near Taneytown. 
 Some have spoken of this step on the part of Sickles as 
 unfortunate. In my judgment history will record it 
 otherwise. It is not my purpose, however, on this occa- 
 sion to defend it ; my only object is to show how that 
 step precipitated the engagement, and prevented the 
 possible retreat of the army to Pipe Creek. 
 
 "A grain of dust, 
 Soiling our cup, will make our senses reject, 
 Fastidiously, the draft we did thirst for; 
 A rusty nail placed near the faithful compass, 
 Will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy." 
 
 That movement of Sickles was the " rusty nail " which 
 drew to " wreck the argosy " of the rebellion. Only for 
 that, the battle of Gettysburgh might never have been 
 fought, for at that very moment Meade was in council 
 with his corps commanders, on the question of falling 
 back ; to which Sickles, though summoned, had not 
 reported, being busy with his change of position. A 
 second order, however, of a peremptory character, brought 
 him to headquarters, but he did not dismount. His corps 
 was already fiercely attacked in front and flank by Long- 
 street, which at once broke up the council and turned 
 attention to business. Thus was inaugurated the heavy 
 fighting of this the great pivotal battle of the war; and 
 for two days the rebel horde surged against the iron wall 
 of the Army of the Potomac in vain. For two days 
 anxiety and suspense were depicted on every countenance 
 in the land. Should the Army of the Potomac give way, 
 then all was lost. For two days the heart of the great 
 
21 
 
 loyal North stood still. -All hearts were turned to 
 Gettysburgh. The Vermont heart, too, was turned to 
 Gettysburgh. She was represented on that field by two 
 brigades of infantry and her regiment of cavalry, and 
 they were not idle. Time, however, forbids a detailed 
 statement of the gallantry of each organization ; besides 
 the records which each there made are known to all ; so, 
 too, is the honor and glory which Vermont there won, in 
 giving the finishing stroke to the victory known to all. 
 All know how, after two days stubborn fighting, during 
 which charge after charge in solid column had been 
 made upon our lines, 15,000 men, the flower of the Army 
 of Northern Virginia, until then held in reserve, were 
 massed for one Hnal desperate assault ; and how that 
 assault, that last terrible charge of Picket's division, the 
 topmost wave of that bloody struggle, the topmost wave 
 of the rebellion, came surging up to the south of Cemetery 
 Hill, and broke harmlessly at the feet of Vermont troops ; 
 on whose stern countenances was written, with something' 
 of Divine illumination, " Hitherto shalt thou come but 
 no farther ; and here shalt thy proud wave be staid," and 
 Gettysburgh was won. Where, according to the felicitous 
 expression of one* of your number, " the rebellion touched 
 high-water mark ;" even after which, according to the 
 eloquence of another,f "the wave was refluent." It 
 remains only to be observed that the exact spot, where 
 the rebellion " touched high-water mark," was the imme- 
 diate front of Stannard's brigade of Green Mountain boys. 
 This is not mere assertion — there is the best of authority 
 for it. Gen. Doubleday, who commanded the 1st Corps 
 on that day, testifying before the committee on the 
 conduct of the war, says : " The prisoners taken stated 
 
 *Col, G. G. Benediol. fCol. W. G. Veazey. 
 
22 
 
 that what ruined them was Stannard's brigade on their 
 flank ; and that they drew off all in a huddle to get away 
 from it." Bat it will be remembered that the Vermonters 
 did not let them get away, but captured prisoners largely 
 in excess of their own numbers, including two regimental 
 colors and a battle flag. 
 
 But the day was won, and the country breathed freer. 
 Next day, July 4th, Pemberton, apprehensive that Grant 
 might be inclined to celebrate a little on his account, 
 surrendered Vicksburgh. Port Hudson fell as ripe fruit 
 — Lee, lost no time in seeking the south bank of the 
 Potomac and, suddenly, the whole situation was changed. 
 Though much heavy fighting, really the heaviest of the 
 war remained to be done, yet, the rebellion had received 
 its death blow, and was everywhere on the wane. The 
 Mississippi was opened and its entire length patroled by 
 our gun-boats. Our navy along the coast took new 
 courage, and added new vigilance to the blockade. The 
 Army of the Potomac, forgot its early lessons of how to 
 retreat in good order, and ever after fought only to advance. 
 Our arms were everywhere successful. Early was rudely 
 helped out of the Shenandoah by Sheridan, who left the 
 harvests of that fertile valley, the granary of Virginia, 
 smouldering ash heaps. Lee, at Richmond, was at last 
 in Grant's firm grasp, from which no enemy ever escaped. 
 Sherman had swept down from the mountains to the sea, 
 everywhere burning what cotton he could not. transport, 
 and with torch and levelling ax, had, in the language of his 
 famous foraging order, " enforced a devastation more or 
 less relentless, according to the measure of hostility shown 
 by the inhabitants." Savannah had fallen, and Charleston 
 in turn, as he swept through the Carolinas, leaving 
 Columbia in flames as he passed. Then it was, that the 
 
23 
 
 rebellion, hungry and worn out, began to understand that 
 in provoking war it had verily, 
 
 " Tempted the fury of his three attendants : 
 Lean famine, quartering steel and climbing- fire." 
 
 But the rebel armies still held out, and the southern 
 people still clung to a cause that had really been doomed 
 since July 4th, 1863. The Lieutenant General, however, 
 was at last ready, and without going into particulars, 
 which would reflect a full share of glory upon Vermont 
 troops, let it suffice that Grant closed the war, as Napoleon 
 did the campaign at Austerlitz, " with a clap of thunder." 
 Lee surrendered April 9th; Johnston, the 14th; Dick 
 Taylor, the 19th which was immediately followed by the 
 rebel navy under Commodore Farrand and Kirby Smith's 
 army, in Texas. Thus, like a dissolving view, the rebel- 
 lion suddenly vanished into thin air ; and those who were 
 left of the 2,688,523 men, who, at the call of their 
 country, had come forth from peaceful vocations and 
 devoted themselves, with such singular energy, to the 
 havoc and waste of war, nearly as suddenly, glided back 
 again to a pursuit of the arts of peace ; one of the most 
 sublime spectacles in the history of the world. These 
 men had fought not for glory or gain, neither for ambition 
 of their own, or that of prince or ru!er, but for the integ- 
 rity and perpetuity of the Union and for the freedom of 
 men. They had left 400,000 of their comrades, 5,000 
 and more of whom were from Vermont, on the field, who 
 had bravely met death in some one of the many revolting 
 forms incident to war. Left a sacrifice for the sins of 
 the nation ; the price of liberty to a race — 
 
 " Four hundred thousand men, 
 
 The brave, the good, the true. 
 
 In tangled wood, in mountain glen, 
 
 On battle plain, in prison pen, 
 
 Lie dead, for me and you ; 
 
 Four hundred thousand of the brave 
 
 Have made our ransomed soil their grave. 
 
 For me and you, kind friends, 
 
 For me and you." 
 
24 
 
 And who can compass the grief or fathom the sorrow 
 which, for them, has since everywhere brooded over the 
 land ; and which, at their mention, still leaves the eye 
 moist and the voice choked. Their ashes are sacred, and 
 any eulogium which even the most finished eloquence 
 can offer, in their praise, is utterly futile. Words of mine 
 are certainly too feeble; and I can only say in the 
 language of another : 
 
 " Take them, O, God, our brave. 
 The glad fulfillerii of thy dread decree ; 
 Who grasped the sword, for peace. 
 
 And smote to save, 
 And, dying for freedom, Lord, died for thee." 
 
 Let us, then, turn from the dead to the living ; to those 
 who were fondly leaning upon the arm of these strong 
 men stricken down in defense of their country ; to 
 dependent woman, to decrepit age and helpless infancy. 
 These, the wards of the nation, must be, — already are 
 amply provided for, and must never be neglected. Those 
 too, in our midst, sad reminders of the shock of battle, 
 with an arm or a leg shot away, or still suffering from 
 disease unchecked or wounds unhealed, are equally objects 
 of tenderest care and solicitude. These last are still with 
 us, and long may they survive, to stir with their mute 
 appeals, the heart of our busy, thoughtless milUons, with 
 a constant response to the pleading lines of the Scottish 
 bard — 
 
 " Th« brave po'^r soldier ne'er despise, 
 
 Nor count him as a stranger ; 
 Reme'riher he was his c'outitry's stay, 
 
 In day and hour of danger.' 
 
 Let all '^remember " this, now that the danger is passed, 
 and anxiety and fear no longer act as spurs upon the 
 flank of drowsy gratitude — now, that, 
 
 '• Grim vi^agred war hath smoothed his wrinkled front, 
 
 And — instead of mounting barbed steeds, 
 
 To fright the pouli of fearful adversaries, 
 
 The soldier's arms are hung up as monuments; 
 
 His stern alarums changed to merry meetings, 
 
 His dreadful marcheB to delightful measurea." 
 
25 
 
 But here, I am admonished that my hour is passed, and 
 that I must detain you only a moment longer. I cannot 
 however, help adverting to some of the first fruits of the 
 peace, and to the glorious future of the Union, which we 
 now enjoy. The one achieved, and the other preserved, 
 through your valor. Who can contemplate without a 
 thankful heart, the rich heritage of civil and religious 
 liberty which a kind Providence has vouchsafed us '? 
 "Who too, who loves his country, and loves the race can, 
 without emotion, cast his eye down the future of this 
 vast ocean bound republic ; hereafter, to be in fact, what 
 it has heretofore only been in name, the land of liberty, 
 with no crouching slave in all our broad domain 1 Who, 
 too, can calculate the salutary effects of our example, the 
 magnetic influence of which, was felt in every quarter of 
 the globe, the moment the flag of treason went down 
 and again, as of old — 
 
 " These thirty and odd States, confederate ia one, 
 Held their starry stations around the western sun." 
 
 I say it was felt everywhere. Napoleon, quailing 
 before the bristling bayonets of our half million veterans, 
 who had just quelled the greatest rebellion which the 
 world ever saw, said, in reply to a little note from our 
 premier, give me a little time and I will get out of Mexico 
 — and he did ; and the result was in a few months all 
 that was left of the Mexican Empire, was carefully 
 embalmed and sent back to Europe, from whence it came 
 — and Maxmillian, the Arch Duke and Emperor, sleeps 
 with his fathers ; his untimely and violent death furnish- 
 ing ambitious princes a wholesome warning, that on this 
 continent at least, there is no right divine in a crown. — 
 Not only this but the masses throughout Europe read in 
 the re-establishment of our Union their own deliverance ; 
 4 
 
26 
 
 and breaking away from the traditions of centuries at 
 once raised the standard of reform. 
 
 In England, through the necessary concessions of Crown 
 and Parliament, the right of suffrage was extended, but 
 this failed to check the liberal wage, which, in its flood, 
 has since swept away two Tory administrations, and at 
 last placed a Gladstone at the head of the British Ministry. 
 
 The Scandinavian north too, our ancestral land, felt the 
 thrill of our victory. Germany, no longer willing to 
 brook Austrian despotism, welcomed Prussian interven- 
 tion ; and when the famous quadrilateral yielded, it was 
 a triumph, no less for German freedom than for the genius 
 of Bismarck. But what is still more noteworthy, Austria 
 herself in turn, seeing that the world really does move, 
 is emulating, even outrunning her neighbors in liberal 
 legislation, which always means liberty for the people. 
 Italy, in the German-Italian war, won for herself all that 
 Germany did, and again in 1867, rallying under her 
 Garibaldi, dealt a blow at the supremacy of the church, 
 in temporal affairs, which at once awoke the feeble, 
 incoherent mutterings of the Vatican, and started the 
 Pope's Nuncios, post haste, for the Emperor of the French ; 
 who, once a Republican, now wields an iron ceptre, and 
 is a standing apologist for tyranny. Almost the only 
 monarch in Europe whose government has not responded 
 to the triumph of liberty in this. But in France the early 
 dissolution of the Empire is looked for in the threatened 
 dissolution of the Emperor ; after which, if the signs of 
 the times may be trusted, the liberty-loving, enthusiastic 
 Frenchmen will make another attempt at the establish- 
 ment of civil liberty ; and let us hope a successful one. 
 
 Spain, also, once the pioneer of all that was bold, 
 aggressive and civilizing, but for these last hundred years 
 
27 
 
 and more, given over to ignorance, vice and bigotry, has, 
 at last awoke from her degradation and imbecility, and 
 through the sword of Prim, and the trumpet tongue of 
 Caste] lar, is inaugurating an era of social and political 
 reform ; not an unimportant feature of which, is the 
 sending away the profligate and dissolute Isabella, and 
 the saying to the world, we have done with the Bourbons. 
 Cuba, too, sitting beneath the shadow of our institutions, 
 too near to withstand their influence, stimulated by our 
 example, and copying the lesson of the mother country, 
 asks to be free. These, comrades, are some of the effects 
 of your late victory upon the struggling millions, through- 
 out the world, who are panting for free institutions. But 
 who shall compute, for the ages, the blessings of that 
 victory, not only abroad but at home ; and who shall 
 measure its effect upon the future of our own country ? 
 It should be remembered that we are but in our infancy ; 
 only 93 years old. Greece saw a thousand years, and 
 Rome 1200 before the " Goth and Vandall thundered at 
 her gates ;" 
 
 "And massacre sealed her eternal night." 
 
 Proportioned only to our youth is our present greatness. 
 Who shall tell the future under our regenerated constitu- 
 tion ? As the shock of great battles usually arouses the 
 natural elements, and the roar of artillery is, after a little, 
 answered by the artillery of the clouds, which is followed 
 by the cool refreshing shower, always so grateful to the 
 wounded and weary combatants j so great wars almost 
 invariably arouse to new vigor the energies of man, and 
 when peace finally comes, the civilization which succeeds, 
 is always higher and better than the one which went 
 before. If war destroys, it also creates. If it exhausts, 
 it likewise makes strong. All know how the crusades, 
 
28 
 
 which for two centuries agitated Europe and left her in 
 titter prostration, were followed by the revival of letters? 
 which, four hundred years before, were buried beneath 
 that barbarian avalanche from the north ; were also closely 
 followed by Wickliffe, " the morning star of the reforma- 
 tion," who rose out of the dark night of that middle period, 
 asserting the freedom of conscience, and the emancipation 
 of mankind from the Papal See was begun. — And, if the 
 reaction which followed the terribly depressing effects of 
 the holy wars, lifted Europe out of mediaeval barbarism ; 
 what triumphs in art and literature, in religion, in law and 
 in liberty, may we not look for in this new era of the 
 republic; with every impulse of our teeming millions 
 quickened by the heroic, energizing influences of the late 
 war? Let us not, however, lose sight of the duties of 
 the present in any dazzling vision of the future. 
 
 Let us, rather, remember that upon each succeeding 
 generation, and now upon this generation, is devolved 
 the high work of preserving and transmitting unimpaired 
 our matchless institutions ; and if our opportunities and 
 privileges are great, in exact proportion also are our respon- 
 sibilities. Let us, therefore, for the work still before us, 
 gather wisdom from the past, and inspiration and courage 
 from the present ; and, like Varro, whose fidelity to Rome 
 nothing could shake, and who, in Rome's greatest trial 
 when the stoutest faltered, " did not despair of the com- 
 monwealth," let us, whether soldiers or citizens, never 
 waver in devotion to our country and the flag ; the proud 
 old flag — no less proud to-night, as here it hangs in 
 peaceful folds, than when flung to the breeze, amid the 
 thunder and hail of battle it beckoned you on to victory. 
 And though every conceivable disaster and peril overtake 
 the republic, let us never lose faith in the union of these 
 
29 
 
 States ; so lately assailed, but through your valor preserved, 
 and cemented anew with your blood and sufferings, and 
 the blood and sufferings of your comrades, both the living 
 and the dead — not idly vaunting the glories of that Union, 
 nor blindly asserting its perpetuity ; but trusting to the 
 republican doctrines of equality and self-government, and 
 to the intelligence and virtue of the people; let us, 
 comrades, under that union, strive to make the moral and 
 intellectual grandeur of the Republic equal to its material 
 greatness. Then, without arrogance, and with no disre- 
 gard of the laws of national life and longevity, can we 
 express the hope, that no poet, of this, or any future age, 
 may stand amid the ruins of this country, and ask of us, as 
 Byron did of Greece, when he drew his sword in defence 
 of religion and liberty in that classic but degenerate land : 
 
 " Shrine of the mighty, can it be, 
 That this ia all that's left of thee ?" 
 
1 ■ y 
 
 i 
 
 
 ) i.; A:T-: 
 
 L :n 
 
 
 SQ^MW 
 
 ' YERMONT. OEFICERS, 
 
 IIKPKESENTATIVES' HALL, 
 
 MOATrELlEll.n..!r, , ,; ^' 
 
 ■ ■ 1 
 
 November 4. 
 
 , 1869. 
 
 \ . By^(;i:x. WILLIAM 
 
 ■ - •^' • * ;-' \!;Tm\, 
 
 1 
 
 W. GR' 
 
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