"A number of ladies were on hand, who supplied the soldiers bountifully with strawberries, after the more substantial part of the feast was concluded.
"As soon as the men had been properly fed and refreshed, they fell into line, and proceeded through Water and Superior streets to the front of the government buildings, where the formal reception was to take place. The procession was headed by the police, followed by a brass band, and by the military committee, members of the council, and city officers. The old members of the Seventh, with the second flag of the regiment, tattered and torn, immediately preceded the bronzed veterans, who, fully armed, and bearing their last flag, rent with a hailstorm of hostile bullets, marched with proud steps through the streets they had left three years and three months since. Carriages followed with the sick and wounded who were unable to march. The procession was accompanied with a throng of people, and crowds lined the streets, whilst flags fluttered in all directions.
"On reaching the front of the government building, the regiment was drawn up in double line, and Prosecuting-Attorney Grannis, in the absence of Mayor Senter, addressed the regiment, in behalf of the corporation and citizens, as follows:
"Soldiers of the Seventh Ohio—The people of the city of Cleveland welcome you home. More than three years ago, you went forth with full ranks—more than a thousand strong. To-day a little remnant returns to receive the greetings of friends, and to mingle again with society, as was your wont in times gone by. But this is not all. You, and those who went with you, whether present here to-day or absent, whether among the living or the dead, shall be held forever in grateful remembrance.
"We witnessed your departure with pride, not unmingled with sorrow. We did not regret that the men of the glorious Seventh had gone out to fight against a brutal and insolent foe, or fear that any member of it would ever fail to do his whole duty in the perilous ridges of the battle; but we did know that your departure was attended with many sacrifices;—that you would be exposed to cold, fatigue, and hunger; would suffer from disease, from honorable wounds, and in loathsome prisons; and that many a noble form would bite the dust. We knew that these things must needs be, that the nation might live. The half was not told us. It did not enter into our hearts to believe what you would suffer and what you would accomplish. Upon almost every battle-field, from Cross Lanes to Dalton, the glorious banner of the Seventh has been in the van of the battle. We have watched your course with painful interest. After every battle, came the intelligence that your regiment had fought bravely, and had come out with thinned ranks.
"You have the grand consolation of knowing that the victories of Gettysburg, of Lookout Mountain, of Ringgold, and of Resaca, were not won without your aid. To have been in any one of those desperate conflicts, is glory enough for any man. The record you have made will seem almost like a tale of fiction. We have often had tidings of you, but such as would not cause our cheeks to tingle with shame. It was never said of the Seventh Ohio that it faltered in battle, that it failed to do its whole duty. You have been faithful, uncomplaining, and heroic. These things have not been accomplished without painful sacrifices. How painful, let the honorable scars many will carry to their graves answer. How painful, let this begrimed and tattered flag answer. How painful, these thinned ranks will answer. Your gallant colonel and lieutenant-colonel came home before you. Not as we could have wished them to come, but wearing the habiliments which all must wear; and now they lie yonder, and their graves are still wet with the tears of their mourning countrymen.
"Not so fortunate many of your countrymen, for they lie in unknown seclusion, but not in unhonored graves. We will not mourn these dead as those who die without hope, for their names shall be honored, so long as liberty is prized among men.
"'Death makes no conquest of these conquerors,
For now they live in fame, though not in life.'
"It is an honor to be engaged in this conflict, which those who share it should fully prize; and those who have been engaged in it have shown a self-sacrificing devotion to duty, seldom excelled. It is a conflict in favor of liberty against treason and traitors; against a desperate and implacable foe, fighting with desperate energy, that fraud, oppression, and crime may stalk abroad in daylight.