The sons of Dartmouth have performed honorable service in the field. More than a score were soldiers of the Revolution. Among them John S. Sherburne, who lost one of his limbs; Absalom Peters, whose efficient service in Vermont contributed largely to the protection of our Northern frontier; and Ebenezer Mattoon, who by forced marches with his gallant men furnished cannon which "told" at Saratoga.
In the War of 1812-1815 they acted well their part. Eleazer Wheelock Ripley, at Lundy's Lane, after General Scott had been disabled (with the aid of the gallant Miller), wrested victory from an almost triumphant foe, on the bloodiest field of the war.
In that War, too, Sylvanus Thayer gained a measure of the renown which has rendered the name of the most efficient founder of the Military Academy at West Point illustrious in both hemispheres.
In the late War one of the most valuable coadjutors of two of its leading captains—Grant and Sherman—was Joseph Dana Webster.
In letters of living light we write many other names, among them Charles and Daniel Foster—par nobile fratrum—Samuel Souther, Charles Augustine Davis, Isaac Lewis Clarke, Calvin Gross Hollenbush, Valentine B. Oakes, Franklin Aretas Haskell, Arthur Edwin Hutchins, Lucius Stearns Shaw, Horace Meeker Dyke, Edwin Brant Frost, William Lawrence Baker, Charles Whiting Carroll, George Washington Quimby, George Ephraim Chamberlin, Charles Lee Foster, Henry Mills Caldwell, and Stark Fellows, who at Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor, and elsewhere, gave their lives in defense of the American Union.
No aggregation of volumes would adequately portray the whole work of Dartmouth's alumni. In quiet places, the great majority, day by day, and year by year, have performed their allotted tasks. In such places all over America, and in other lands, they have built their most enduring monuments. The calm lustre of their lives is almost as widely diffused as the morning light.
Eleazer Wheelock founded the college, in faith and hope, for the enlightenment and evangelization of future generations in that mighty storehouse of thought and action, central New England.
John Wheelock carried forward the work with energy and zeal, and a large measure of success.
Francis Brown gave a valuable life for the protection of his still youthful Alma Mater.
Daniel Dana was a man of kindred spirit, and not less devoted to his work.