And now you will excuse me from further speech when I have said again that I am profoundly grateful to the people of Galesburg and this vicinity, and to these, my comrades in arms, who have so warmly opened their arms to welcome me to-day. [Cheers.]
Reunion First Brigade, Third Division, Twentieth Army Corps.
In the afternoon General Harrison attended the reunion of the First Brigade Association, of which he is President. This brigade was the General's command in the late war, and comprised the Seventieth Indiana Regiment, Seventy-ninth Ohio, One Hundred and Second, One Hundred and Fifth, and One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Illinois. Many veterans were present from these regiments. Among the prominent participants were: Generals Daniel Dustin and E. F. Dutton, Sycamore, Ill.; Gen. F. C. Smith, Galesburg; Gen. A. W. Doane, Wilmington, Ohio; General Miles, Col. H. C. Corbin, H. H. Carr, N. E. Gray, Dr. P. L. McKinnie, and Colonel Sexton, Chicago; H. H. McDowell, Pontiac; Capt. Edward L. Patterson, Cleveland; Capt. F. E. Scott, Brokenbow, Neb.; Capt. J. T. Merritt, Aledo; Major M. G. McLain, Indianapolis; Capt. J. E. Huston, Clearfield, Iowa; James M. Ayers, R. M. Smock, Colonel Mannon, Major Jack Burst, Wm. Eddleman, C. D. Braidemeyer, Capt. T. U. Scott, Capt. T. S. Rogers, C. P. Curtis, Captain Bodkins, and others. Congressman Thos. J. Henderson and many of the above-mentioned officers made brief speeches during the reunion. General Dustin occupied the chair pending the election of officers for the ensuing year. General Harrison's re-election as President of the Association was carried amid cheers, and as he appeared to assume the presiding chair the veterans gave him a rousing reception.
The President then addressed the brigade as follows:
Comrades—The object of my visit to Galesburg was this meeting which we are to have now. I should not, I think, have been persuaded to make this trip except for the pleasure which I expected to find in meeting the men of the old brigade, from most of whom I have been separated since the muster-out day. We have had a great demonstration, one very full of interest, on the streets and in the park, but I think we are drawn a little closer in this meeting and understand each other a little better than in the larger assemblages of which we have made a part. It is very pleasant for me to see so many here. I cannot recall the names of all of you. Time has wrought its changes upon the faces of us all. You recognize me because there were not so many colonels as there were soldiers—fortunately, perhaps, for the country. [Laughter.] I saw you as individuals in the brigade line when it was drawn up either for parade or battle. It is quite natural, therefore, and I trust it will not be held against me, that you should have a better recollection of my features than I can possibly have of yours. And yet some of you I recall and all of you I love. [Applause.] When you were associated in a brigade in 1862 we were all somewhat new to military duties and life. The officers as well as the men had come together animated by a common purpose from every pursuit in life. We were not so early in the field as some of our comrades. We yield them the honor of longer service, but I think we may claim for ourselves that when our hands were lifted to take the enlistment oath there was no inducement for any man to go into the army under any expectation that he was entering on a holiday. In the early days of the war men thought or hoped it would be brief. They did not measure its extent or duration. They did not at all rightly estimate the awful sacrifices that were to be made before peace with honor was assured.
I well remember an incident of the early days of volunteering at Indianapolis, when the first companies in response to the first call of President Lincoln came hurrying to the capital. Among the first to arrive was one from Lafayette, under the command of Capt. Chris. Miller. They came in tumultuously and enthusiastic for the fight. These companies were organized into regiments, which one by one were sent into West Virginia or other fields of service. It happened that the regiment to which my friend Miller was assigned was the last to leave the State. I met him one day on the street, and a more mad and despondent soldier I never saw. He was not absolutely choice in the use of his language—all soldiers were not. I think the First Brigade was an exception. [Laughter.] He was swearing like a pirate over the disgrace that had befallen him and his associates, growing out of the fact that he was absolutely certain that the war would be over before they got into the field, and left in camp a stranded regiment, having no part in putting down the rebellion.
Well, his day came presently, and he was ordered to West Virginia, and among the first of those who, under the fire of the enemy at Rich Mountain, received a bullet through his body was Capt. Chris. Miller. When these regiments of ours were enlisted we were not apprehensive that the war would be over before we had an adequate share of it. We were pretty certain we would all have enough before we were through. The clouds were dark in those days of '62. McClellan was shut up in the Peninsula; Buell was coming back from Alabama; Kirby Smith was entering through Cumberland Gap, and everything seemed to be discouraging. I think I may claim for these men of Illinois, and these men of Indiana and of Ohio—if some of them are here to meet with us to-day—that when they enlisted there was no other motive than pure, downright patriotism, and there was no misunderstanding of the serious import of the work on which they entered. [Applause.]
Those early days in which we were being transformed from civilians into soldiers were full of trial and hardship. The officers were sometimes bumptious and unduly severe—I am entering a plea in my own behalf now. [Laughter.] The soldiers had not yet got to understand why a camp guard should be established, why they should not be at perfect liberty to go to town as they were when on the farm and the day's work was over. It was supposed that an army was composed of so many men, but we had not learned at that time that it was absolutely necessary that all those men should be at the same place at the same time, and that they could not be scattered over the neighborhood. There were a good many trials of that sort while the men were being made soldiers and the officers were learning their duties, and to know the proper margin between the due liberty of the individual and the necessary restraint of discipline. But those days were passed soon, and they passed the sooner when the men went into active duties. Camp duties were always irksome and troublesome, but when they were changed for the active duties of the march and field there was less need of restraint.
I always noticed there was no great need of a camp guard after the boys had marched twenty-five miles. They did not need so much watching at night. Then the serious time came when sickness devastated us and disease swept its dread swath, and that dreadful progress of making soldiers was passed through when diseases which should have characterized childhood prostrated and destroyed men. Then there came out of all this, after the sifting out of those who were weak and incapable, of those who could not stand this acclimating process, that body of tough, strong men, ready for the march and fight, that made up the great armies which under Grant and Sherman and Sheridan carried the flag to triumph.
The survivors of some of them are here to-day, and whatever else has come to us in life, whether honor or disappointment, I do not think there are any of us—not me, I am sure—who would to-day exchange the satisfaction, the heart comfort we have in having been a part of the great army that subdued the rebellion, that saved the country, the Constitution, and the flag. [Applause.] If I were asked to exchange it for any honor that has come to me, I would lay down any civil office rather than surrender the satisfaction I have in having been an humble partaker with you in that great war. [Applause.] Who shall measure it? Well, generations hence, when this country, which had 30,000,000, now 64,000,000, has become 100,000,000, when these institutions of ours grow and develop and spread, and homes in which happiness and comfort have their abiding place, then we may begin to realize, North and South, what this work was. We but imperfectly see it now, yet we have seen enough of the glory of the Lord to fill our souls full of a quiet enthusiasm. [Applause.]