The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-08-19
OLD G. A. R. COMRADES.
"Reminiscences of War Times-By
 Chaplain Allen of the 26th c, V.

"Reminiscences of War Times-By
 Chaplain Allen of the 26th c, V,
 At the reunion of the 26th c. V, at Norwich August 12th Chaplain Allen spoke as follows:
 Comrades of the 26th regiment: we were put nine months men in war of four years duration. We stacked our arms and turned our backs to the ene- my July 25, 1868, the month of the bat tie of Gettysburg, the high tide of Confederate success. Three years was the standard time of enlistment, What right had we to go home? Had we earned our exemption from the perils of further service? Soon after leaving Port Hudson going up the, Mississippi river we met transports bringing down division from General Grants force at Vicksburg, where they had been pounding on that place pretty much as we had been on Port Hudson, and the greeting they gave us as we met in mid-river was hello, you dollar pound fellows-referring to bounties-hello, you dollar pound fellows; going home? They looked upon us as little better than deserters, and l thought it appropriate to this occasion to institute a comparison between the service that fell to our lot and our three years com rades,
 Comparisons are said to be odious, but not so in this case.
 "Every Connecticut organization per formed faithfully the duty that fell to it's lot. There is no blot on the record of Connecticut troops or commanders And let the standard of comparison be the highest that can be had, the lives that,we gave to the cause of our coun- try. Our state placed in the field on the basis of a three years term of en- listment 50,625 men. The killed and mortally wounded in baatte, missing and believed to be killed, and accident al deaths were 2,200, or at the rate of IA 1-3 men to every thousand each year. Now the Twenty sixth did not have it's thousand men, It was regiment of the minimum strength, numbering $40 men. In its service before Port Hud- son it lost in killed or mortally wound- ed fiftytwo men. the normal loss for Connecticut troops of four years and three months service for the nunbeno of men the 26th contained.
 "The number of deaths from disease and southern prison pens was 9490, or at the rate of twenty-three men for each thousand each year The Beth lost eighty-four men by disease. and by the same arithmetic we find it is the aver age loss Of four years and two months of the service of Connecticut troops
 "So, comrades, the service we gave, measured by the highest standard at tainable. the lives it cost, was not nine months service, but one of four years or more or through the whole war. And it is not out of place to men, tion the 142 wounded, armless, legless. blind, maimed in every conceivable way. War is no holiday affair. and we felt it's heavy hand with terrific force. The casualties and distress of four years of war were crowded into the six months from February to August, veritable cyclone of death. So when we left the service we had earned our discharge, we were entitled to return to our homes and the peace thereof. | Comrades of the 18th regiment, I greet | you as soldiers. who did your full share in the suppression of the rebellion and for the restoration of the Union."