"Fellow-soldiers and comrades in arms: It is with feelings of pride that I attempt to address you—pride because it is not often that an occasion offers for one to address a body of men whose deeds of valor have called forth such praise and such rejoicings as yours have done. Aye! I am proud that I have been a comrade in arms with you in such struggles as Donelson, Shiloh, Champion Hills, and Vicksburg! Such victories attest that you have done your duty well, and the glory is yours. Your country appreciates the value of such men, and, because of it, she now asks that you and I stand by that tattered flag for three years more. We know how it came by those shreds, and, as we gaze upon it, our hearts swell big with emotion in the recollection of the scenes through which we have passed. It is our blood that has spattered it, and our arms that have borne it and won for it glory. You know, by experience, the lot of the soldier. Your faces are bronzed in the service, and many of you bear scars from the battles that you've fought, mementoes of which your children and children's children will be proud to speak when you are laid away in the hero's grave.
"Our regiment has already taken part in nine battles and several severe skirmishes. In addition to my services as a scout and spy, I have taken part in all of them but one, and that was missed because I was sick and unable for duty. But, as much privation and hardships as I have experienced, and as much danger as I have been exposed to, I can not turn a deaf ear to the call of my country.
"Living and mingling, as I have, with the people of the South, and being with them at the time the war commenced, I was able to discern, with approximate correctness, the gigantic proportions of the rebellion. I well knew the feelings that had impelled them, and the obstinate and reckless determination with which they would hold out against the attempt of the Federal Government to bring them into subjection.
"In responding to the call of my country to sustain her noble prestige and glory, I had well counted the cost of the sacrifice that I was about to make; and, contrary to the general expectation of a large proportion of those that volunteered, I had no idea that the rebellion would be put down in a few months, but expected that years must elapse before our country would be restored to its former proportions, peace, and prosperity.
"Two years and a half have already passed since the first shot was fired at that star-spangled banner by the hands of traitors who had been reared under its protecting folds.
"During that period, thousands of patriotic hearts, that beat with love for their country, have ceased their pulsations in the noble effort to crush the traitorous arm that was raised against the most glorious structure of human liberty.
"Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, wives and sweethearts have mourned the loss of the noble fallen.
"Some of the heroes of this war have dragged out a lingering, distressing existence by disease, breathing the hero's prayer as they closed their eyes in death. Others have died amid the clash of arms and the din of battle; others, smitten down by the hand of the foe, have spent days of horrible agony, without food, water, or shelter, and then—died, glorious martyrs of liberty, on the field where they fell.
"Still the war continues, and the distant boom of cannon announces that more martyrs are being sacrificed and other hearts are being broken.
"The page of history will never reveal the anguish and suffering caused by this unholy rebellion.