The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1903-11-26
THE MINNESOTA VOLUNTEERS.
Monument Erected In St. Paul to Memory
of Minnesota Volunteer. ~" z.

Monument Erected in St. Paul to Memory
of Minnesota Volunteer. ~. e,
At the dedication of the soldiers
and sailors monument at St. Paul
last week Henry A. Castle, who de-
livered the address paid the following
tribute to the loyalty and heroic deeds
of the Minnesota volunteer:
"This monument is a tribute to the
loyalty, the devotion, the valor and
the unreasonable sacrifice of those
who died, and of those who with cog
nate singleness and sacredness of con-
secration testified their willingness to
die that the nation might live, that
the flag might be exalted, that all men
within the nations expanding bound
aries, beneath the flags far-futtering
ribands of lily and rose, might be for
ever free. It is the tribute of surviv-
ing contemporaries, anticipating the
assured verdict of a grateful posterity
lifting into the air and sunshine of
the better, grander days to come, an
apotheosis of sublime ideals.
est. Paul here plants on solid
foundations and rears in enduring
material her testimonial to the BRAY
cry and patriotism of the men who
fought in the war for the suppression
of the great rebellion-those who died
for the land of their love and those,
surviving, who have so lived that it
might be a land better worth living
in and dying for, through the dimless
ages. All share in this commemora-
tion-soldiers who were enrolled in
the States illustrious organizations
and soldiers from sister states of the
loyal North, or loyal soldiers from
the border, who have since found here
congenial happy homes. All have
joined in building for Minnesota the
stable fabric of a christian civiliza-
ton: all have united in establishing
the standards of an enlightened citi-
zenship.
''As in war, they fought not for
Minnesota or Illinois or Kentucky,
but for the Union of all in one, so in
the days of prosperous peace, they
have merged their pride of locality
in the nations glory and in the aug
menting prestige of their adopted
state. They are Americans all, and
all are loyal, proud, enthusiastic Min
nesOtans.
"Hence, to the soldiers and sailors
of the Union: the native and the nat
uralized: the original and the affili-
ated; the officers and the enlisted men;
the humble and the exalted the pres
ent and the absent; the known and the
unknown; the living and the dead, we
dedicate this monument.
''All are alike nameless on this
shaft but none are forgotten or
ignored. Sleeping in unmarked
graves far away, living obscure in
distant regions or on foreign shores,
all have their part and lot in this OBJ
;servance. All are remembered, all
are honored here. And we leave this
shining monolith as an inadequate but
unequivocal memento to their I'M
sWerving faithfulness and of our I'M
swerving faith in the holy cause for
which they fought.
1.-The tender for the call for troops
was accepted by Minnesota April Is,
1861, and enlistments began in St.
Paul. At the head of the enlistment
paper was signed the name of Josias
r. King, who thus became the first
Union soldier of the civil war. He
rose by well-earned promotions to the
rank of captain in the First Minnesota
infantry; he made a distinguished
record as soldier: he survives: he
is present to-day, and his life-like
effigy in bronze appropriately crowns
this monument.
In the aggregate this State furn-
ished 25, 052 Union soldiers during the
war. This was y per cent of her pres
idential vote in 1860 and IA per cent of
her entire population in that year. It
is an honorable, perhaps on unequaled
record. Of that enrolment $500, or
10 per cent were killed or died in the
service, and, probably, as many more
died after their discharge as the direct
result of wounds received or disease
contracted therein.
minnesota not only rendered the
first volunteers to suppress the Rebel
lion, but she furnished the first three
year. regiment that reached the seat of
war, and a regiment which sustained
the greatest proportionate loss in the
greatest of that conflict or in any bat
tie of any war in modern times.
1.-The people of the North and the
South have become compact and
homogeneous Americans. They have
outlived and passed beyond the old