[CLAYTON, IND., SEPTEMBER 13.]
Reunion of the Seventieth Indiana Regiment.
General Harrison, accompanied by Mrs. Harrison and Mrs. McKee, on September 13 attended the fourteenth reunion of the Seventieth Indiana Regimental Association at Clayton village, Hendricks County.
The Seventieth Regiment was recruited from the counties of Hendricks, Johnson and Marion. Of the one hundred and fifty-nine regiments sent to the front by Indiana, but few, if any, achieved a more honorable and distinguished record. It was the first regiment to report for duty under President Lincoln's call of July, '62, and was recruited in less than a month by Second Lieutenant Benjamin Harrison.
After the regiment had been recruited Lieutenant Harrison was elected Captain of Company A, and when the regiment was organized, August 7, 1862, Captain Harrison was commissioned its colonel. It left Indianapolis for the front August 13, 1862, and returned thirty-four months later, with a loss of 189 men. It participated in eleven engagements, including Resaca, Kenesaw, Marietta, Peach Tree Creek, Atlanta, Savannah and Bentonville. The regiment was a part of Sherman's army, and was attached to the First Brigade, Third Division, Twentieth Corps. For several years past General Harrison has been successively chosen President of the Regimental Association.
Several hundred veterans, with their families, accompanied the General from Indianapolis, and were greeted at Clayton by five thousand people. Three hundred veterans of the Seventieth saluted their Colonel as he walked to the front and, assuming command, led the column to a neighboring grove, where the exercises of the day were held. It was the largest reunion in the history of the Association. Among the prominent non-resident members in attendance were Lieutenant-Colonel James Burghs, of Topeka; Capt. Wm. M. Meredith, Chicago (he was captain of Company E, the color company of the regiment); Captain Tansey, now Judge, of Winfield, Kansas; Captain Willis Record, of Nebraska; Lieutenant Hardenbrook and Private Snow, of Kansas, and Cyrus Butterfield, of Minneapolis. The orator of the day was Comrade J. M. Brown.
General Harrison, as President of the Association, presided. The proceedings were opened with prayer by Comrade J. H. Meteer, followed by an address of welcome by Miss Mary L. Mitchell, daughter of Captain W. C. Mitchell, who directed her closing remarks to General Harrison.
With great earnestness the General replied as follows:
Miss Mitchell—I feel quite incompetent to discharge the duty that now devolves upon me—that of making suitable response to the touching, cordial and sympathetic words which you have addressed to us. We thank you and the good citizens of Clayton, for whom you have spoken, that you have opened your hearts so fully to us to-day. I am sure we have never assembled under circumstances more attractive than those that now surround us. The mellow sunshine of this autumn-time that falls upon us, the balmy air which moves the leaves of those shadowing trees, the sweet calm and spell of nature that is over everything, makes the day one of those that may be described in the language of the old poet as
"A bridal of the earth and sky."