On the night of August 16, 1866, “The Toast to Forty-five Banquet” was held on the top floor of the old Vermont House. It took place in the big room with the spring dance-floor. That old Paris hostelry was burned in ’73. In the course of that affair, Dashing Jack arose and made a speech—likewise a proposal.
The flower of Vermont of the Sixties was gathered about those tables. There were young men to whom fame and fortune afterward would come. There were sturdy beautiful girls in quaint dresses that in succeeding years would mother sons and daughters who are the pride and glory of Vermont of the present. The lights shone on gloriously happy faces. Two hundred voices turned the room into vocal pandemonium. It was several minutes before Dashing Captain Jack could gain their attention and make himself heard.
When finally all eyes were turned upon him, they saw that he was holding high in his right hand a bottle of wine.
“Ye gallant sons and daughters of Vermont! Tonight is a great night!” cried Jack in ringing, self-confident, magnetic tones. “We are attending a dinner tonight that will be remembered in the history of our town and State long after the last comrade now within sound of my voice has gone to make his bivouac with the illustrious Company Forty-five—the name which we have given the forty-five brave lads who marched away with us but who were not destined by a higher providence to march back. On this night, therefore, beholding this wine before me, it has occurred to me to propose the inauguration of a rite—almost a sacred rite—the like of which no Post has ever heard.”
The room was now very quiet. And Captain Jack reveled in the drama of the scene.
“In this room,” he cried, “—in sound of my voice at this moment, are two boys who will be the very last to join Company Forty-five. Sooner or later we shall all be called to answer to our names in the Great Muster; but some will be called sooner than others. There will certainly come a day in the years which lie ahead when there will be only two remaining of this company of sixty-two here to-night. Think of it, boys! Just two! Look into one another’s faces and ask yourselves—who are those two—which of you will they be?”
The room was strangely silent. The smiles died on the faces of many women. Dashing Captain Jack indicated the wine he held in his hand.
“Here is the thing which I propose; to make the annual dinners of Farrington Post different from any other reunions which shall ever be held:
“I hold in my hand the last unsealed bottle of the vintage which we have tasted to-night in our first toast in peace to the missing lads that have made that peace possible. Let this last bottle be saved. Year after year we will have our annual dinners. Year after year, as we gather round the board, familiar faces will be missing. Many will fall by the way. At last—will be only two comrades—of this roomful here to-night. And when at last those two shall face one another and think back to this first banquet in the dim and sacred past—when they alone remain—when sixty have gone to join old Forty-five and they realize that perhaps before another year is passed, they will have joined that illustrious company also—let them break the seal on this bottle. Let them fill their glasses. Let them clink those crystal rims together and drink the last toast to those who have gone. And when the seal on this bottle thus is broken, let our reunions be held no more.”
They drank, and the next morning the banquet was a thing of history.