The National tribune., 1910-08-25

regiment of Coils. Potter and Barker.
which lost 12.4 per cent of its original
enrolment killed in battle, or one man
in every eight. The 18th y. II. left 181
dead from Fredericksburg to Bermuda
Hundred to mark its stubborn defenses
and fierce assaults
Closely following, with more than II
per cent of their original enrolment
killed in battle, or one man in every
nine. are the I'd. Sd, 9Th, 7th, 9Th and
18th n. H. other regiments only es-
capped by small percentages.
How little these dry bones of statis-
tics. these rafting skeletons of facts,
hint at the soul. the flesh and blood Of
innumerable exalted deeds of heroism
and self-sacrifice during four years of
bloody strife.
Some genius will one day win i'm
mortality by adequately picturing on
printed page or painted canvas the
gaunt and bronzed veterans of the I'd
N. H., Injured to war on the Peninsula,
lining up under the heroic Marston,
with the 1st and 11th Mass. and the
struggle with the Confederates at the
Second Bull Run. Its resistless assault
took 1t over the rebel works, but when
the sun went down on that burning
August day one-half of those who had
followed the Granite State flag had be-
dewed the thirsty soil with their blood.
Another Victor Hugo will some day
send down for the readers of all time
the wonderful story of the Sd and 7th
n. HIS awful combat on the rampartS
of Fort Wagner, in the darkness of the
night, amid the crashing of the huge
cannon on the feet and Fort Sumter
and the bursting of giant shells. When
human vaIor could do no more, they
suIlenly retired from the fort which
~ r, rt-itt hi tIatr
dead leader, Col. Putnam, with 300
gallant New Hampshire boys stretched
beside him.
The 9Th n. H lost more than make
up the total casualties of some Euro
pean wars. It's loss at the Second Bull
Run alone would have given promotion
and reputation to half dozen English
Generals.
great picture by some future Meis-
sonier to adorn your State House to
teach generations yet to come the lofty
valcr of their forefathers and the cost
of saving the Nation will be that of the
grim arm's-length fight of the 11th n.
H. over the awful death pit at Spotsyl-
vania with the rifles of the combatants
blazing in each others faces for hours
Far more deadly than the bullets OF
the enemy were the ravages of disease
among youths suddenly transferred
from the healthy highlands where they
had been reared to the er-breathing
swamps of the South. Thus we have
such appalling death rolls by disease as
1873 in the 4th, 242 in the 7th. 25S in
the Sth, 254 in the 9th and 221 in the
10Th regiments. In the single month
of August. 1864, the 18th N. H. lost "a
by death.
These overwhelming disasters were
met with the same high fortitude as
the shock of battle, and New Hamp-
shire character shone as grandly in the
fetid heat of Louisiana jungles as on
the laundering hills of Gettysburg.
While I am here by invitation to
meet the survivors of New Hampshires
brave sons. L do not want you to think
for moment that 1 am saying that
New Hampshire put down the rebel
lion- Far from it. But the war was
such an immense thing that no one can
comprehend 1t in its entirety. The best
we can do is to study from time to time
some portions of 1t as we are doing
to-day.
It is the glory of our American man.
hood and our institutions that we de-
veloped everywhere such a high plane