Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1886-11-15
ELOQUENT WORDS

by E1"Speaker S1mOn0B at New Hart.
ford-The Graves of Gallant Com.
| rades OF the War.
At the presentation to the Grand Army
| portrait of the gallant Captain Edwin R. Lee
whose name the post bears, ex-Speaker ST.
monds delivered an eloquent and pathetic
address. In opening he recalled with tender
interest the death of an early friend, who fell
at the very opening of the war. Gin the still
| heat of the summer afternoon" he said, eve
| carried him up the hill to that village of the
dead, now immortalized in the verse of Rose
Terry Cooke, and laid him away forever from
sight. had learned my first lesson as to the
real meaning of war.
81 come to my next lesson. It was in the
early spring of 1862; the arbutus was in
bloom and kindly sun was shining. From
up and down this valley of the Pennington
and from off these rugged New England hills
our people had gathered in goodly number in
the little churchyard a mile or two to the
north of where we are assem- bled to-
night. I was numbered in this throng and
stood reverently by while there was con-
signed to his last resting place, with honors
well deserved, soldier who had but little
time before gone out from our midst in the
full flush of a glowing manhood, only to
fall in the first rush of battle, the battle of
Newbern, fought March IA, 1862. The
knightly soul whose body we thus laid away
to rest was Edwin r. Lee, captain of Compa-
ny D, in the Eleventh Connecticut regiment;
he whose features speak to you from this
tablet.
"My comrades, you have done well to
name your post from this dead hero, for he
was hero and came from heroic blood.
There were five brothers in this brood:
The eldest, Henry B. Lee. served for two
years and a half in the Seventh Connec-
ticut, rose to be lieutenant and was killed in
action at Deep Run, Virginia, in August,
1864. The second, William Wallace Lee,
enlisted in the Nineteenth Connecticut and
did good service in getting up that regiment,
only to be refused to go out with it by rea-
son of permanent physical hurt, and prob
ably it was better thus for during the war
and since he has served his country with
tongue and pen to better effect than might
have fallen to his lot as soldier. The third,
Edwin R. Lee, is he who was killed in his
first battle and lies buried at Pleasant VAL
ley The fourth, J. Austin Lee, was not
subject to military duty, but served in the
Nineteenth Connecticut as its sutler. The
fifth and youngest, Bradley D. Lee, was
quartermaster of the Nineteenth Connecticut
for the three years of its service and is now a
successful lawyer in the city of St. Louis.
"Surely they were fighting and pstrio-
tic brood. William Wallace Lee and Brad
ley D. Lee are the only survivors of these
five; and it is they who have had prepared
and who give to you this speaking likeness of
their dead hero brother. Speaking in their
name and acting in their behalf present to
you this portrait. Hang it on your walls,
keep it always before your eyes and let it, in
these piping times of peace, spur you on to
noble deeds and noble lives.
81 count not this sacrifice in vain. What
a magnificent country is this whose unity we
fought to preserved Again and again this
thought came to me during my late sojourn
on the Pacific coast. Nearly 1900
miles from home I found myself
among men of my race, speaking
my language, thinking my thoughts. feeling
my feelings and loving the same old flag.
No man Of any other race or nation can
make SO proud a boast. And even more
powerfully this feeling came home to ME at
the national gathering of the Grand Army of
the Republic in the city of the Golden Gate.
Standing on the shores of the Pacific ocean,
remembering that my home was by the At
lantic nearly a, 900 miles away, surrounded
by veterans from all the States and terrific
ries of this vast empire, and realizing that
we represented bat a single nation, one and
indivisable my heart swelled with all the
pride of the ancient Roman when he looked
ugon his city as she sat upon her seven
hills and from her throne of beauty ruled the
world. When the republic was in danger
common impulse drew her SONS from the
West and from the East, from the North and
from the South-yes, even from the Soulful
like the inrolling waves of tumultuous
SEAS The blood of Connecticut mingled with
the blood of California; together their chill
dren sleep in glorious if not in rarely name
less graves; their mingled ashes lave en-
riched that tree of liberty nnder whose CRATE
full shade repose sixty million of freemen.
Zone nag, one national faith and one
country is our common heritagel
"Thus feel and thus speak when 1 live
in the present, but when turn my eyes to
the future / count not this sacrifice in vain.
see the hand of God in all this great COM
motion, in all these rivers of blood and treas
ure.
"More than two hundred and fifty years
ago he led our fathers out of the despotisnn
of the old world across wild and trackless
ocean and into the primeval forests of this
western continent to begin the building of a
true democracy. When we had grown into
a nation he moved us to throw off the
shackles of monarchy; that was the war of
the revolution. In due time he caused us to
wipe out in blood aud tear the black stain of
human slavery; that was the war of the re-
bellion These baptisms of blood and fire
are not the end. We stand on the thresh-
old of wonderful future. When I at
tempt to peer into the future, though I see
even less than through glass darby, |
stand with awe-struck vision.
ST know not, neither doth any man know
precisely in what further dramas this nation
shall play part, but this do know, that it
is our destiny to solve great problems for the
human race. In a truer sense than we're the
Israelites of old we are the chosen people of
God, people chosen by him for the working
out of problems whose solution will lift all
men to heights the race has never trod. |
Grave and uncertain as is the future that lies |
before rs, face it with perfect trust in the |
power that guides and governs. We do well |
meanwhile to remember the lives and deaths |
of such men as he whose lips speak to us |
from this tablet. We shall be inspired |
thereby to live and die in the same spirit in /
which he lived and died.