The Portland daily press., 1879-06-09
General Hamilton's Defense.
An Old Soldier Who Has Right to Be
Heard.

General Schuyler Hamilton has the follow
ing letter published in the New York World
in response to the criticism on his remarks on
Decoration day:
To the Editor of the World:
Sir: hand you with this a copy of my re-
marks made at the foot of Abraham Lincoln's
statue, May 30, 1879. The Tribune published
garbled report of my peroration. 1t refused
on application to publish my remarks in full
Upon their garbled quotation from my remarks
the Post has animadverted about the taste dis
played. Another paper has thanked God
there was only one Schuyler Hamilton in New
York. You have put it to the right issue
patrlouc wrath" | was General Scott's
A. ID. G. in Mexico was run thro' with
lance at Mora Flores. I was shot down and
left for dead at Monterey under Zach Taylor
have had my skull fractured for many inches
long doing duty for our old flag of which 1
wrote the history. marched as private in
the New York Seventh, April 49, 1861, when
Lincoln called for help to save the
capital of the nation. 1 cut the first
telegraph wires under Ben Butler cut in the
war to put down the rebellion. have been
burned fifty-four times up and down my spine
by doctors to help me for the wounds won in
battle for the Union. have carried three
inch band of oiled silk in the back of my neck,
seton the doctors call it, thirteen months. /
have had the same thing in my right arm for
many months. never stole public money. 1
would not accept any place. But for my re-
marks on Decoration day / might have been
probably placed on the retired list u S. A. at
S2,5OO or $4,000 per annum. 1 would not be
placed there by rebel votes. l am in earnest
L am lover of my country and also lover of
the colored men. L was nursed by colored
men and women.
l thank General Johnston for his conduct
am sorry in honor and conscience cannot
hold up his hand. But am tired of 'Let us
have peace" where there is no peace.
generosity to the north-God forbid we
should need it from rebels! can tell my story
OF generosity to the South. Andrew johnson,
one time accidental President when Lincoln
was assassinated, was military governor of
tennessee when was placed in command of
Rosecrans' reserves at Nashville. He gave me
a billet to occupy the house of John Morgan,
the raider, in Nashville, Tenn. / sent nv
baggage there in the morning. 1 went to the
house in the evening. A procession of widows
and children, like the widows of Troy, met me
protect them. L was L believe, the third
ofcer In rank in that army. 1 told them to
hold it. was ill almost unto death. Never
less, | would go into a tent though it
was November and snow on the ground
said, keep my billet it will protect you. I
have not come here to make war on widows
and children. If the foot of war should ever
come near my wife and children l hope some
generous enemy will do as do" Major Lew
IS, Andrew Jackson's aide-de-camp at New
orleans, elghty-nine years OF age, day or two
afterwards rode sixteen miles to see me lying
sick on my campbell in my tent to thank me
for those words. He had with him a large
committee of leading gentlemen to ask me to
be military governor of Nashville. He said,
speaking for the committee, "Those words of
yours have done more for the Union cause than
victory, Do become governor of Nashville"
L said was too ill.
am we'll known at the SOUTH I am no
fraud 1 do what 1 do because 1 realize the
only way for settling "Our Poland" is Gods
way-an exodus from slavery. will give time
and money to help it on; not much of the mon
ey for l have it not.
Publish my remarks and do me Justice The
New York Tribune has refused to do SO. The
New York Herald finds it too late for publica-
ton and declines it. L propose to carry the
war to Africa.
can get it published in Massachusetts or
Ohio will If you decline to do so.
Yours truly,
SCHUYLER HAMILTON.
REMARKS MADE BY MAJoR-GENERAL SCHUYLER
HAMILTON ON MAY 80, 1879, DECORATION DAY.l
COMRADES: 1 have been invited to address
you; have somewhat to say to you. Last year
on Decoration Day, here at the foot of Abra-
ham Lincoln's statue, introduced to you the
Hon. Frederick Douglass, the orator of the
day. made silly, namby-pamby speech I
advocated the practice of decorating with
flowers the graves of the rebel dead equally
with those of our comrades who fell by bullets
moulded by treason against the Union. My
heart was not in it, 1t was in fit of sentimen-
tai generosity, excited by the misrepresenta-
tlons of prominent rebels, and remembered
Grant had said, "Let as haze peace" Bryant,
Longfellow and Wordsworth were quoted from
and misapplied. beg to apologize for those
remarks
L would now, here at the foot of Preside MT
Llncoln's statue, advocate that no member of
the Abraham Lincoln Post lay leaf or flower
on the grave OF rebel They were traitors in
1871 they are traitors now. They have been
all winter long plotting treason and secession,
or state sovereignty, as they and their abettors
are pleased to call it, in the halls of Congress,
and trying to overwhelm our noble President
who has shown himself so brave and intelligent
IN resisting their aggressions on the people of
the United States, whose material properties
meanwhile languish.
L would, l say, advocate to-day that no
member OF our post, or of the Grand Army of
the Republic, lay leaf or flower on rebels
grave. 1t IS desecrating the graves of those
who gave their lives for the Union. 1t is
wrong toward the colored race for whom our
arms won liberty. 1t is by mean treason,
fraud and murder of their former slaves the
rebels have the majority they have in Con-
gress.
The same hearts burn and the same arms
can be FURNISHED we welded in 1S61-65, and
many of us live to WELD them. Thank God
we have not yet to decorate the graves of
Grant or Sherman or Sheridan or Hancock. In
no war ever fought was such generosity shown
as by the defenders of the Union in 1865 Grants
magnanimity at Appomattox it seems now was
a mistake. We will not, however have to
WELD these arms-though it may be well to
burnish them. There is better way. 1t is
not the ballot-box; there is too much fraud
there. 1t is to raise a fund by 8 cent contri-
button of every Union man, woman and child
in the Union to help on an exodus of the ne
groes to where they will be fact and not in
name only free men. Then we will see what
will become of the rebel majority in Congress
Then we will see what will be left of the
Southern chivalry, who have no hearts of
grace in them, when the negro left them and
they have to ''root hogs or die." Why, the
South would be all over the howling wilder.
ness it was, from Atlanta to the Sea, after