iiiiiiliilii,, E234 .D29 .-^^ . *^ .. ••. c» * '<>. .^r.^'^ **iafe*- ^e^ A^ /^Va^ -^^^ cv^ .^iiafe*'. -e '\ '»«•' ^ > V •1*°- ^<=;:*. jj' 'bv" •--..^^ .♦^'V ^ V v*^^ ,^*^<^^ v-o' »* ^•«-' *jj;SS?:i«*'- o .'^ % '-^^O^ «>*.^;^B'- '^ol.*^ /^fi^-. "-^Ao^ • aV *^..** :Mjk. \.J^ :W^: **..** .-iiJ^'. V.^-^ -1* .^'% %/ •' o Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2010 witii funding from Tine Library of Congress littp://www.arcliive.org/details/dedicationofrliodOOperr ADDRESSES DELIVERED AT Valley Forge, May 29, 1921 V PUBLISHED BY THE Society of Colonial Dames IN THE State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE DEDICATION OF THE RHODE ISLAND BAY IN THE CLOISTER OF THE COLONIES WASHINGTON MEMORIAL CHAPEL Valley Forge, Pennsylvania May 29, 1921 Snow & Farnham Co., Printers 45 Richmond Street Providence, R. I. V. Address by Rt. Rev. James DeWolf Perry, D.D. Right Reverend Sir: — In this place where a century and a half ago the men of the thirteen colonies turned defeat to victory and saved the cause of American independence by the sufferings they endured and the sacrifices that they made, their sons and daughters have gathered today to offer their tribute of grateful remembrance. In the heart of every State which had its part in that great struggle, the winter of 1777 has been remembered among the sacred chapters of our national history and the ground on which we stand has been revered as holy ground. Through all the years while the country refrained from erecting here any monument until the time should be fully ripe, she was yet building on the foundations laid here the ideals which have constituted the structure of our national life. Now these have taken a form which fittingly and beauti- fully symbolizes the story of Valley Forge. The Union of our nation consists not in written documents nor in institutions, but in human lives bound together in singleness of purpose, at the cost of sacrifice, for the attainment of the common good. So these walls bind together into one great structure the memo- rials of the several Commonwealths. As Rhode Island gave her sons, Nathanael Greene and Varnum, Christopher Greene and Angell, Waterman, Brown, and the men of the First and Second Regiments of Infantry to support the life of the nation, now as proudly and as gladly does she give her part in the Cloister of the Colonies to perpet- uate the memory of their deeds. But there is more in the memorial than the record of past achievement. It bears witness to a lasting resolve born once in the heart of America and reborn in every heart that is worthy of the name American. The leadership of him whose name this chapel bears, as it once gathered the hopes and aspirations of a whole nation, still represents the principles which America will not abandon. The dedication by each State of her part in this memorial is the rededication of her will and of her moral power to the ideals of George Washington. For embodying that name in this chapel, the symbol of his faith, the whole country owes to you, Sir, and to the founder and trustees of the Valley Forge Memorial, a debt of lasting gratitude. With deep appreciation of the service which you have rendered and which in turn you have invited at the hands of all the thirteen colonies, the Society of Colonial Dames, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Daughters of the American Revolution, on behalf of the citizens of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, present this bay of the Rhode Island Colony to the glory of God and in perpetual remembrance of the brave sons of Rhode Island who here suffered that their country might endure. Address by Reverend Augustus Menden Lord, D.D. Every man knows moments when an event or experience of his boyhood or youth, recalled by some unforeseen recombi- nation of associations, leaps out of the growing dimness of the past into the clear light of memory. The experience, the event, lives again for him with startling '^ vividness. He sees its every detail, as if it happened only yesterday. He realizes its significance for him, its happy, or its tragic, consequence, its wide reaching influence, as he could not realize them when he was face to face with the event itself. For the moment the years that have since passed are as if they had not been ; the event of long ago which in them had counted for nothing and was rapidly slipping into oblivion, now pours the whole treasure of its spiritual content into the immediate present issues of his life; establishes a vital and direct con- nection with the commanding motives of his conduct; thrills his heart, exalts his will, kindles his imagination. Now I feel sure that something very like this happens also in the development of a nation, the unfolding of the destiny of a people. There too hours of illumination, eras of open vision, are among the most important elements of growth. And this open vision, this field of lighted life, includes the past as well as the present and the future. At such times a nation is intensely conscious of its past, sees its past more clearly, and sees clearly more of its past, than under the ordinary conditions of ordinary years when it is travelling along the lower levels of cautious comfort and unadventurous safety, and when it sees little beyond the short stretch of highway clouded by the rising dust of petty anxieties and cares. In the midst of such an era of open vision we as a people stand at this hour. And that may be said, with especial emphasis, of those of us who are gathered at this hallowed spot on the eve of Memorial Day. Until five years ago Memorial Day for a growing number of the people of the United States seemed to be losing its sig- nificance. Here am I, for instance, a man past middle age, born during the war for the Preservation of the Union. That war was not a vital reality for me. I could not envisage it, or recall it as a part of my living experience. Year by year I saw the diminishing group of the veterans of that war as they marched to decorate the graves of their fallen comrades. I saw the increasing number of those of a younger generation who could not share the memories of these men; who had known no experience of heroic fellowship in their own lives out of which they could sympathize with these memories, who had never known the ardor of that greatest love out of which a man lays down his life for his friends. For them Memorial Day was merely another holiday. So year by year I watched the passing of that pathetic group who carried in lonely hearts their devotion to vanished comradeships, while all around them eddied the unheeding multitudes of holiday makers and pleasure seekers. Then on a people unsuspecting and unprepared, absorbed in getting and spending, suddenly broke the great world war, and in our generation also Memorial Day came to its own. Today, moreover, that flame of devotion kindled anew on the altar of patriotic service, that shining vision of our own immediate personal memories, lights up a passage in our coun- try's history more remote than that to recall which Memorial Day itself was inaugurated. We visualize to ourselves the young men from Rhode Island who with their comrades from the other American colonies marched into camp and threw up the intrenchments here at Valley Forge in that bleak December of 1777. They are of the same fellowship of the spirit as those of 1861 and 1914; young men most of them in each instance; for always it is youth that pays to war the tribute of supreme self sacrifice. At one point, too, our own immediate contact with the heroism of the youth of today serves to interpret, to make live again with special vividness, the heroism of the young men of the War of the Revolution. We commemorate at Valley Forge not the heroism of battle, but the heroism of endurance; endurance of hunger, cold, disease, death after long lingering pain. To be brave and faithful under those circumstances is often harder than to be brave and faithful on the field of battle in the face of the foe. The experience of our men in the trenches of France parallels and interprets in many partic- ulars the experience of the men who endured the privation and agony of that terrible winter in the huts and trenches of Valley Forge. The dreary, deadly monotony of life in the trenches, the horrible discomfort, the sordidness and dirt, the cold and hunger, the nights without sleep and the days without food, the devastating diseases due to unavoidable overcrowding and exposure, and not least the strain, long drawn out from day to day and month to month, of just standing and waiting on the initiative of an enemy superior in numbers and equipment and discipline; meantime drilling, drilling, drilling, but never permitted to fight a great aggressive battle, only defensive outpost skirmishes here and there, — this, after all, was the supreme test of thousands of the hastily gathered and insuffi- ciently trained unprofessional soldiers of people unprepared for war, upon whom war had been forced, that rallied to the defence of civilization on the beleaguered fields of France. Their endurance of that test was one of the great factors, sometimes I am disposed to think the greatest factor, the turning point, in the winning of the war. You remember the letter which Hugh Britling wrote to his father in Wells' novel, "Mr. Britling Sees it Through:" "I never dreamt before I came here how much war is a business of waiting about and going through duties and exercises that were only too obviously a means of prevent- ing our discovering just how much waiting about we were doing. War is an exciting game. It excites once in a couple of months. And the rest of it is dirt and muddle and smashed houses and spoilt roads and muddy scenery and continued vague guessing of how it will end, and waste of life and waste of days." I have seen actual letters from Rhode Island boys I knew which voiced precisely the same sentiments. And those letters have made real to me the story of Valley Forge, have individualized that story for me, have made me realize it in the likeness of individual men, as I never could realize it other- wise. I know now that the War of the American Revolution was won, and that it might have been lost, at Valley Forge, as truly as at Yorktown. These letters, too, have interpreted for me, have made almost contemporary, letters from those Rhode Islanders of long ago written at Valley Forge, from which it seems fitting to quote today. Two regiments of Rhode Island men were sent to Valley Forge under the leadership of Col. Christopher Greene and Col. Israel Angell. They were stationed in and near the Star Re- doubt; and, after a short time, at the suggestion of Gen. Varnum, who later represented Rhode Island in the Con- tinental Congress, were consolidated into a single command. Just before Christmas, 1777, Gen. Varnum writes from Valley Forge : "For three days in succession we have been destitute of bread and two days without meat. Blankets are so scarce that many after working all day had to sit by the fires all night to keep from freezing." In this connection, Arnold, the Rhode Island Historian, notes that "The Rhode Island troops suffered more than others from sickness at Valley Forge owing to their deficiency of clothing, which, although it was supplied as fast as possible from home, came too late." Lieut. William Jennings and Lieut. John Waterman of the Rhode Island command, both died of small-pox. The grave of the latter was marked at the time of his burial by a rough stone inscribed with his initials. Apparently no other grave was marked by a permanent memorial; a fact which is recorded on the beautiful shaft of white marble erected near the spot by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Of all the personal letters written from here in 1777-78, however, those that interest me most are naturally the letters of Rev. Enos Hitchcock, at that time Brigade Chaplain under Washington at Valley Forge. It is, perhaps, to his presence here in that capacity that I owe the invitation to speak to you today. For immediately on the completion of his service as Chaplain in the Continental Army, he became minister of the First Congregational Church in Providence, where I am privi- leged to be his successor. Writing from Valley Forge under date of May 15, 1778, he says: "Our troops are in high spirits after the distressing sufferings of the winter which nothing could equal but the unparalleled patience with which they are endured. The noble commander in chief, whose heart ached to see it, says they deserve everything from their country. I wish their merit might be rewarded. It gives me pain to see the nakedness of our soldiery. The clothing is but little of it come in yet. Numbers of our brigade are destitute even of a shirt and have nothing but the ragged remains of some loose garments for a partial covering. But this is more tolerable now than when it was colder. We have no prospects of clothing for more than three regiments of our brigade***great improve- ments are making in the discipline of the army, several hours a day being devoted to that purpose. Our strength increases faster in this way than by addition of numbers." It was for the development of that discipline, of course, that Washington withdrew his troops into intrenchments at Valley Forge, That discipline he established, in spite of the wiles of the enemy who tried to tempt him to fight before he was prepared ; and in spite of the impatience, the heart break- ing jealousy and lack of confidence, of many of his own fellow- countrymen, as exemplified by the notorious 'Cabal' in the Continental Congress which plotted to detach Lafayette from service with Washington, and even aimed to deprive Washing- ton himself of his Command and to put in his place Gates or Lee. Valley Forge marks the point of greatest strain and peril the darkest and most critical hour in the Revolutionary War. It also marks the hour in which was forged for American the sword of the spirit of that little army with which at last she won her freedom. We are proud of the men of Rhode Island who were part of that army, leaders like Gen. Nathanael Greene, whom Washing- ton trusted and loved, a friend indeed in the hour of Washing- ton's greatest need of friends; men of the rank and file of those two regiments who were eager and proud to follow such leaders. It is in memory of these men that we, a company of pil- grims from Rhode Island, are gathered here today to dedicate our assigned portion of this beautiful Chapel which fittingly bears the name of their beloved Commander in Chief. As he shared here in their hardships "which his heart ached to see," it is fitting that they should share in the noble beauty of the building which commemorates the glory of the achievement which they helped to make possible for him. In observing this ceremony of grateful memorial, however, there must be borne in upon our minds the thought which no doubt has suggested itself to every one of the successive groups of pilgrims from other states represented here by like memo- rials, the thought which found immortal expression in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address: / "In a larger sense" said Lincoln "we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. // is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remain- ing before us.'' To such a consecration of heart and will we yield our- selves at this hour. And our hope and faith is that whosoever hereafter enters this sacred place and stands in the presence of these memorials will be moved to a like self-consecration and self-dedication; that through all the coming years and centuries of our country's history this may be a place of pil- grimage to which many of its citizens may journey in days of prosperity and peace; and to which the thoughts of all its citizens may turn in hours of national strain and trial and utmost peril. Whosoever enters here disheartened and discouraged, whether for himself or for his country, who feels himself to have fallen on evil times, who finds himself beleaguered by hostile and triumphant circumstance, the tide of fortune setting hard against him, at his back passive misunderstanding and neglect and active envy and plottings, before him an oppo- sition flushed with success, strong in all the resources he lacks, whosoever enters here feeling himself to have reached the end of his strength, let him remember that company of dauntless men who here by sheer power of endurance, by unremitting devotion, held their own against all that was foreign to their faith and alien to their hope; who won through the darkest hour in the enterprise to which they had committed them- selves, snatched the spirit of a new nation alive from the very jaws of death, and made these wooded hills forever holy ground. 28 W v>^-^^ -.^ ••- "^o > ««"•*