Year: 1879

Rs familiar as the names OF the cities of our
own State. will not trespass upon this field
| to which others will do complete and ample
| justice, bat Bull Run, Balls Bluff. Yorktown,
West Point, Fair Oaks, Peach Orchard, Savage
Station, Glendale. White Oak Swamp, Malvern
Hill. Antietam, Charlestown, Fredericks-
burg, Haymarket Gettysburg, Bris-
tow Station and Mine Run carry with them their
! taken III it Eby the First Minnesota. To our
posterity we would compare Gettysburg with
| the equally decisive battle of Waterloo, Vicks-
burg with Salamis. Lookout Mountain with
| Thermopyla, and Sherman's famous March to
the Sea with the retreat of Xenophen' s immor-
| tai ten thousand and high in the annals of
military achievements, side by side with the
| names of the most illustrious commanders of
ancient and modern times, Caesar, Alexander,
Napoleon and Frederick of Prussia, we would
point with pride to the record of our Grant,
our Sherman and our Sheridan, who obtained
ing courage of regiments like the First Mime
| sota whose cheeks did not blanch nor hearts
quail when they met the shock of battle.
When the Congress was set on fire by the
Merrimack, in the mouth of the James River,
of the 434 men of her command only one-half
Newport News. The dead were buried at that
place, and their remains lie among those Of
scores of Union soldiers. On toard in the
form of a cross, at the head of one of the lat
ter whose name and history were unknown,
was placed this most touching and poetical
epitaph:


"A soldier of the Union mustered OUT


Your term of active service is completed.
You have been honorably discharged, but at
each years reunion your numbers are less.
This year, with Others of the First, the gallant
Sully has been called away, to JOIN the brave
who lost their lives when he led your regiment
at Savage Station. Malvern Hill, Harrison's
Landing. On the roll of Company K, of your
regiment, is the name of a cousin of mine,
through whose correspondence l received my
most vivid and practical ideas of army ex-
perience in camp, on the march, and in the
heat of battle. From him learned the story
Of the two days fight at Ge!tysburg.the thrill
ing narration of the crisis in the second days
battle, when Hancock pushed to extremity, to
gam five minutes time ordered the First Min
nesota, alone and unaided, to charge whole
division of the rebel army. To-day history
points with pride and admiration to the un-
questioning and unfinchlng courage of 400
men of the Minnesota First marching to
tain DEATH against and into the fire of 6,C00
of the rebel army, against such overwhelming
numbers that as you met you could only hold
their centre, while to right and left they swept
around your flank, enfilading your ranks with
terrible death. To their surprise and rage, as
we'll as the admiration of unborn generations,
you held your advance until the supporting
columns of Hancock's corps wheeled into
position and released and rescued you.


Out of the jaws of death.


Out of the mouth of hell,


All that were left OF you,


Left of Four Hundred.


The day was saved, and the few survivors Of
that terrible sacrifice were enrolled among the
immortal heroes of the ages. After this bat
tie sympathized with my relatives GONZALES
cence in Philadelphia hospital, and still later,
in Winona county, saw him enter into a sue
- IL L
constitution succumbed to an apparently
triling cold and he, too. was finally mustered
out.


am sure You will bear with me moment
longer, to say in this connection, with honest
pride, that my father served faithfully through
the war as a private soldier in the Ninth Min
nesota regiment, and that he too resumed his
citizens dress only to meet in a more insidous
form the death he dared invite upon the field
of battle, and he, too, was mustered out of this
life of war and bloodshed and into the realms
of the prince of peace. In the words of How
ards eulogy, over your own sully would say
of each of these and of hosts of their brave
comrades who died with their faces to the foe:
"a man who loved duty better than life, and
never faltered or failed in the hour of trial,
farewell. Peace to thy ashes and rest to thy
SOUL"


To-day we look upon these men as our COM
rades, our friends and our relatives, and think





our lives. The next generation will look back
upon them as the heroes of a his oric rebel
lion. and in the perspective of distance given
by time, their judgment will be clear and i'm
partial, unbiased by personal favor or preju-
dice. It is only to- the mellow light of time
that true and correct conclusions can be
reached. ~s


All correct and profitable vision demands a
degree of pc spective. The painter warns you
back little from his finished picture that you
may gather from it more IF the reflected rays
of light, and with one sweep of your eyes grasp
both the thought of his picture and the beauty
and harmony of its every detail. Homer was
unknown and unhOnored by the age he lived
in; he was stranger to the man he walked
with and talked with, as if his very nearness in
outward presence diverted their gaze from his
rare genius. But in after times lie moved in
upon the world like great orb of light through
the open portals of reflection and communion
and those who sat under the magic of his far
shining beams, were the first to know and
honor his title to the laurel wreath of fame.
The scholar of to-day, with long reach of CEN
turies coming in to fill the space between him
and old Rome, knows Rome more minutely and
more broadly than Rome knew herself. COM
prehends more fully Roman law and Roman
literature and Roman life. and the direction
and scope of Roman influence. And when that
day comes, when honor will be fully done to
whom honor is due, the soldiers Of the First
Minnesota will be among the immortal throng
OF those to whose fame poets will vie in sing
ing praises, and to whose memory affection
admiration will erect in the hearts of the citi.
zens of this commonwealth monuments even
more enduring than towering shafts of polished
marble. Soldiers, welcome to Waseca.