That the Eleventh did not accomplish all that the men composing it expected it would when it left Rhode Island is admitted. But that it did its full duty in the obedience of every order, who will deny? As another has so well and truthfully said in regard to the regiment, “it had not the ordering of its own destiny. It went where it was ordered to go, and performed the duty to which it was assigned, and left no stain to sully the fair fame and honor of the State or country.” While it is true that to some regiments better opportunities were furnished to achieve distinction and renown than to others, there is no reason to suppose that the Eleventh Rhode Island would not have done equally as well under the same circumstances.
I am not insensible to the fact that during the war, and for some time after it was ended, a feeling was entertained by some of the men who first went out in the three years’ regiments that the patriotism of the nine months’ men was stimulated by the bounties which were offered. In Rhode Island, so far as my knowledge extends, the largest bounty paid any one person was one hundred and fifty dollars. Would any old soldier, especially if he has a family or others dependent upon him, consider the sum mentioned compensation in any adequate sense to induce him again to become a target for rebel bullets? It cannot be denied that there were some men—unworthy the name of soldiers—who were induced by the offers of bounty money to enlist and take the chances of “jumping” the bounty, or of desertion, but by far the larger proportion of those who enlisted after the bounties were offered, did so because they were then enabled to leave those who were dependent upon them for their daily bread in such a condition as to keep the wolf of starvation from the door in their absence.
Every man who, from love of his country, left home and friends to defend the honor of the old flag in the hour of its assailment by traitorous hands was a true patriot and deserves well of his fellow-countrymen, and whether he served for a longer or a shorter period, or whether his service was performed in the army or in the navy, on land or on sea, he has, by the faithful discharge of his duty, honored the State which he represented far more than it can ever honor him, and of him a grateful and appreciative people will unite in saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”