The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1903-09-17
THF BATTLE OF ANTlETAM
FITTINGLY COMMEM0RATED
Today BY Citizens of New Jersey Honor Of the States oesAddss
by President Roosevelt Makes No Mention Of General Mcclellan.
Son of New jersey Commander Of Union Forces.

and glory of that memorable day; and
congratulate you, Governor Murphy,
, because on that day you had the high
good fortune to serve as a lad with
credit and honor in one of the five
regiments which your state sent to
the battle. Four of those regiments,
by the way, served in the division
commanded by that gallant soldier,
Henry w. Slocum, whom we of New
York claim as our own. The other
regiment, that in which Governor
Murphy served, although practically
an entirely new regiment, did work
as good as that Of any veteran organ
ization upon the field, and suffered
proportionate loss. This regiment was
at one time ordered to the support of
a division commanded by another
| New York soldier, the gallant Gener
al Greene, whose son himself served
as a major-general in the war with
Spain, and who is now, as police COM
| missioner Of New York rendering as
signal service in civil life as he had
already rendered in military life.
II the issue of Antietam had been
other than it was, it is probable that
at least two great European powers
| would have recognized the indepen-
| dence of the COnfederacy; so that
you who fought forty-One years ago
have the profound satisfaction of feel
ing that yOu played well your part
| in one of those crises big with the
fate of all mankind. You men of the
Grand Army by your victory not only
rendered all Americans your debtors
forevermore, but you rendered all
humanity your debtors. If the Union
had been dissolved, if the great edi
fee built with blood and sweat and
tears by mighty Washington and his
| compeers had gone down in wreck
| and ruin, the result would have been
| an incalculable calamity, not only for
cur peOple-and most of all for those
who, in such event would have seem
ingly triumphed-but for all mankind.
The great American republic would
have become a memory Of derislon;
and the failure Of the experiment OF
self government by great people on
a great scale would have delighted the
heart Of every foe of republican insti-
| tutiOns Our country, now so great
and so wonderful, would have been
split into little jangling rival nation
Of oh hi
bloody and contemplate It was be-
cause you, the men who wear the but
ton of the Grany Army, triumpned
in those dark years that every Ameri-
can now holds his head high, proud
in the knowledge that he belongs tO|
a nation whose glorious past and
great present will be succeeded by an
even mightier future; whereas had
you failed We would all of us, north
and south, east and west, be now
treated by other nations at the best
with contemptuous tolerance; at the
worst with overbearing insOlence.
Moreover, every friend of liberty,
every believer in f-government, ev-
cry idealist who wished to see hrs
ideals take practical shape, wherever
| he might be in the world, knew that
the success of all in which he most
believed was bound up with the sue
cess of the Union armies in this great
struggle l confidently predict that
when the final judgment of history is
recorded it will be said that in no 9th
er war of which We have written rec
ord was it more vitally essential for
the welfare of mankind that victory
should rest where it finally rested.
There have been other wars for 1ndf-
vidual freedom. There have been
other wars for national greatness.
But there has never been another
war in which the isues at stake were
so large, looked at from either stand
point. We take just pride in the great
deeds of the men of 1875, but we must
keep in mind that the Revolutionary
war would have been shorn of we'll
nigh all it's results had the side OF
union and liberty been defeated in
the civil war. In such case we should
merely have added another to the Ia
! mentally long list of cases in which
peoples have shown that after win
ming their liberty they are wholly un-
able to make good use of it.
1t now rests with US in civil life to