The Press., 1884-06-05
Issued Every Thursday Evening.
DECORATION DAY IN STAFFORD.

DECORATION DAY IN STAFFORD.
 The deceased veterans of the war of the rebellion had fitting ceremonies Of honor to their memory on the day set apart Never before was the day so generally honored here. Business was generally suspended. The morning was spent ill arranging flowers, aud in preparation for the parade of the afternoon. Also the Catholic and other cemeteries aside from the Stafford Springs cemetery were visited and the graves bedecked. At 2 o'clock the procession formed in front of the Con- gregational church, the order of march being Citizens Cornet Band veterans of the war not connected with the G. A. R. post Winter Post G. A. R. ; Torrent Engine Go. school children with flowers; citizens in carriages. Beside those of the procession hundreds of people marched alongside to the Stafford Springs cemetery. Charles Winter, for whom the o. A. R. post was named, where prayer was offered by Rev. MT. Hawkins, the ritual of the post was read, and the veterans separated into little groups, and visited each soldiers grave, after which the line of march was taken up for the return, marching through the principal streets.
 Comrade Fitzgerald bore in the process sion tattered silk guide flag, which was carried by the 2d Rhode Island cavalry from 1861 to 1865, and which attracte q much attention.
 Soon after seven p. m. the procession reformed in front of the Congregational church and escorted the speaker, Hon. w. B. Simonds of Collinsville, to the hall. A large gathering here attended the even- ing's exercises. The stage was handsomA- ly decorated with flags, and upon it beside quartette of male singers (Messrs. Dim ock, Crane, Melbourne and Sweet, with B. F. Taylor organist, were the speaker, Rev. Mr. Hawkins who offered prayer Rev. J. F. Hawley who announced the or. der of exercises, prefacing all with little speech, which fitted into the occasion to 2 nicety, Post Commander H. c. McLaugh lin, Post Commander D. o. Dimock of Tol land, Hon. l.. H. Fuller of Putnam, A. H Simonds, chairman of committee of ar engagements, Hon. B. c. Dennis, and oth CTS. The singing of the glee club was { nice feature of the exercises. MT. Simonds address commanded close attention, are is given entire. Many of his old comrades were in the audience, Major Simonds be ing of the 25th Conn. regiment, in whicl was company from Stafford.
 THE ADDRESS.
 Comrades and Friends It is witt pleasure that perform the duty which il l fo oirrbt ic for 1olN C love to assist in the duties of the day dedi cated to our heroic dead.
 I esteem it one of the great blessings o my life that I was permitted to take part however little, in suppressing the slave holders rebellion, and then permitted t live and see what is so far accomplished C the results of the victory of freedom.
 do not esteem it blessing to myself or to any one else, that the war whic gave that victory had to be.
 do not esteem 1t any sort of blessin! that the conditions existed which mad that war necessary.
 But, since it was necessary, since it wa inevitable, I am grateful that I took par in it, on the side of the union, and that still live to see some of its results mature, and others maturing.
 A thought that has not rarely struck me with the yearly occurrence of this com memorative day, is that this war appear ill very different light to us who were i it, and of it-and now mean the friend at home as we'll as the soldiers at the iron than it does to the younger and late war. I am but little past forty years C l. age, my hair is not extremely gray, but ,, see and hear around me generation ,,bo,,, +hic ic olraa6v a lo0ap1 nf tb ;- past, matter of history, while it is burr ed into the memory of its survivors wit e letters and scars of fire.
 n To me, and to every other survivor ( those days, the war is an ever preser + thing it is, at least, only thing of yts terday.
 I can never forget with what straug awe the news fell upon us, in the streets ( e nay native village, that rebel canon La e fired on Sumter. The awful strangenes of the thing did not wear away for weeks g It was many weeks before we could realiz IL that war-war of which we had only req in books, or rumors of which had bee Il faintly echoed to us from distant cline '- was actually upon us, and that we were ,s be called upon to send out from us. .S fight for the union, sons and brothers, hu
 bands and fathers, some of whom coul
 never return to us.
 The little knots that gathered in tn streets of our northern towns to discus :. the situation, felt like men who walked aA ID talked and acted in the mazes of nightnar f The departure of our ''three months men " did not break the spell. That had all til 7 pomp and circumstance of a military pag ,s ant and parade; and though we all fe B. that it meant something more, that som
 thing more had little of accuracy or dei = nite understanding in it.
 speak for myself-and my personal e
 perience is but type of that which W.
 universal-when l say that the first tin
 my misty dread crystalized into defni
 understanding was when, on summer a
 ternoon, the corpse of what few days b
 fore was the active body of one of II
 laughing and mirthful schoolmates can
 back te us from the south on the mid-d
 train, was borne to our hillside buryli
 ground, and laid away till the resurrectie Y morning. O This brought home to us the reality = what before was dread anticipation, al
 gave us definite fore-taste of the lol
 horror that was to follow.
 Then dragged along four years and = half of daily and nightly anxiety, of lon
 ing heartaches, of gloom occasionally ligf
 ed by flashes of hope that were more lur
 than cheerful, duplicated in every toy
 and hamlet in the land, the details
 which can never be written by reason
 their miohty volume and number.