The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-02

Washington, June 1.-(Special) )-For- mo. Secretary of the Navy Herbert makes public the following correspondence;
 Washington, May IS, 1907
 Dear Sir-A recent number of the Montgomery (Ala) Advertiser copies an account from the Fredericksburg Star of May 2S. of the erection of a "Monu- ment to Commemorate the Services of the Twenty-third New Jersey Volunteer ln- fantry in the Battle of Salem Church, Virginia, May 8, 1868, and l have noted win unmxed pleasure that while on one of the plates upon the monument are in scribed the words
 ITO the memory of our heroic dead comrades who gave their lives for their countrys honor on the battlefield, this table is dedicated" upon another plate Is thsi inscription: "To the brave Ala bama boys, our opponents oh this field of battle. whose memory we honor, this tablet is dedicated"
 I was with my regiment, the Eighth Alabama and was it's ileutenant-colonel in the bloody fight which you and your Sbrave soldiers have so fitly commemor- afel. Indeed the Eighth Alabama was on the south side of the plank road, and therefore almost immediately confronted your gallant regiment. Being the old est surviving field officer of the five Ala bama regiments that participated in that memorable struggle, l feel that l may appropriately assume on behalf Of the Alabama boys whose memory you and your brave soldiers so chivalrously eXtol, to extend to you and the other surviVors of the Twenty third New Jersey, as do hereby the heartfelt thanks of the 1ttrtr llla n,1afa Xxhn q that battle.
 When you and 1 recall the forty-four years that have passed since Salem Church, and congra tulate ourselves as all patriots do upon the wonderful changes that time has wrought In public senti- ment. north and south, it is but natural that we should recur to the words of Daniel Webster, at the dedication of the monument on Bunkers Hill: "Heaven has bounteously heightened out your lives that you might behold this glorious day" That sentence has thrilled the hearts of generation after generation, but to me the simple words inscribed by your regiment on the monument to their heroic dead at Salem Church. are more eloquent than any uttered l1 the immortal orator at Bunkers Hill. Webster was address ing the survivors of one army, the Amer ican army of the Revolution; your monu- ment speaks to all the survivors of the two great armies that fought ashlnSt each other in the civil war It is a fitting last word in the lessons of that great wark 1t is plain now that 1t was not lust of power that nerved the hearts of Jerseymen at Salem Church, and also that it was not any wicked desire to de- stroy American liberties that prompted Alabamians to do battle that day. Both armies were fighting for American insti- tutions as they understood them. Since t tho Snlolxe Of battle has lifted. all this. in the sunlight of peace, has become clear, and the tablets on your monument at Salem Church now remind the sur vivors of both armies that 1t is among the choicest of heavens bounties that their lives have been heightened out until they behold this glorious day in which American liberties are safer than ever before. for disunion is no longer think able; the people of the United States are more united today than they ever have been at any time since the gun was dis charged at Lexington, the sound of which echoed around the world.
 The brave soldiers of the Twenty-thlrd tNeU Jersey are not the first, either fed eral or Confederate, that have done honor to those who were their opponents in the civil war. Many an orator. thank God, both northern and southern, has delighted his audience by patriotic senti- ments along this line. But so far as I know, the gallant regiment which you had the honor to command at Salem Church, is the first to inscribe upon an