Early Friday morning, the Regiment proceeded to Brooks’ Station. Just before leaving the camp, the Seventh Maine, which had been intimately associated with the Thirty-third during its entire campaign, appeared in a body, and presented their adieus.
Leaving Brook’s Station at 9 o’clock, they reached Acquia Landing, and embarking on board a small steamer, an hour later, arrived at Washington about 4 o’clock P. M. The men were quartered in barracks until the following day, when they left at noon on a special train for Elmira, reaching that city at 4 o’clock on Sunday afternoon.
The Regiment remained here until the following Saturday, when it departed for Geneva, to receive a magnificent welcome, tendered by the citizens of that village. As the little steamer conveying the men hove in sight, they were greeted with the thunder of artillery, mingled with the chimes of the various church bells, and, on disembarking at the wharf, were met by the village authorities, and a large deputation of citizens. After a few moments spent in congratulation, the Regiment formed in procession, and marched through the principal streets to the park, where the following address was listened to from Hon. Charles J. Folger:
Colonel Taylor, and Officers and Men of the Thirty-third Regiment:
There has fallen to me the pleasant duty of tendering to you a welcome home again. In behalf of the community from which you went forth, I offer you a hearty and an overflowing welcome back from your service as soldiers.
But it does not seem to us that you are the same men from whom we parted. It is now two years since we saw you, some of you, leave this shore, young volunteers, familiar only with the ways of happy homes and a peaceful community, and now you return to us bronzed and scarred veterans, conversant with all the rude alarms of war, having looked death steadily in the face in many a well-contested field of strife, and having won for yourselves an ample soldierly reputation.
Two years ago, I said! It seems, as we look back, but a little space, yet how full that time has been crowded with stirring incidents and exciting events. And to none more than to you have come those events and those incidents. Of what we have only read or heard with but a dull ear, of that you have been a great part, and have looked upon with courageous eyes. We can scarcely name a battle in the long catalogue which tells of the acts and achievements of the Army of the Potomac, in which the Thirty-third Regiment has not borne a part, and borne it valiantly and well.
Raised, as you for the most part were, in that district of country which once fell within the limits of old Ontario County, you went forth with the name of the Ontario Regiment, and that fact has always endeared you to us in this immediate region. You were christened after our County. It is a proud old name, for Ontario is the mother of Counties not only, but the Mother of Men as well. And we felt proud of you, for we were, and are, proud of the name: and we were jealous of it, too; jealous that it should take no tarnish in your hands. But as report after report came back to us of your good behavior; of your courage and steadiness; of your fiery valor; our jealousy was gone, lost, merged in a sense of swelling pride, that the noble old name of Ontario had been so well bestowed, and that not only it took no stain, but that it received an additional and higher lustre and great glory from the soldiers of the Thirty-third.
And you may be sure that when the news came of battles fought, and the papers told us of our troops in action, there was a speedy search here for the name and exploits of the Thirty-third, and an eager community was interested in its sufferings and in its achievements, and never, never pained by its defaults, or by its individual disasters.