Every private was aware of the follies of the Rappahannock campaign. He knew that the opportunity to inflict an irreparable blow upon the army of Lee had been trifled away, and that after reckless delays to make a movement which at first would have been a surprise, conceived by the very genius of war, was then mere mid-summer madness; and yet this incomparable army, floundered through swamps, lost in almost impenetrable forests, outflanked, outmaneuvered, outgeneraled, decimated, no sooner felt the firm hand of Meade than it destroyed the offensive and aggressive power of the Confederacy in the three days' fighting at Gettysburg.

At last, this immortal army had at its head a great Captain, who had never lost a battle. Every morning for thirty days came the order to storm the works in front and every evening for thirty nights the survivors moved to the command of "By the left flank, forward!" and at the end of that fateful month, with sixty thousand comrades dead or wounded in the Wilderness, the Army of the Potomac once more, after four years, saw the spires of Richmond. Inflexible of purpose, insensible to suffering, inured to fatigue and reckless of danger, it rained blow on blow upon its heroic but staggering foe; and the world gained a new and better and freer and more enduring republic than it had ever known, in the surrender of Appomattox. All the trials and triumphs, all the hardships and privations, all the defeats and humiliations I have enumerated you shared in common with the Army of the Potomac.

In addition to this, in March, 1864, upon the reorganization of the army, the grand old 3d corps, to which you belonged, was broken up; a corps with a name and a record as brilliant as any organization in the army, a corps that had furnished a galaxy of names second to none in brilliancy; such names as Heintzelman, Hamilton and Sickles, Kearny and Hooker, and Birney and Berry. You must lose your identity, and were ordered to lay off the badge which you had honored, the old diamond which you loved; the badge that was put there in obedience to the orders of the dashing Kearny, and in its stead put on the badge of another corps. Against these humiliating orders there was no insubordination, no murmur, or protest; but with heroic courage you marched to victory under other officers and as a part of another organization. You asked the powers to allow you to wear the old badge, and, thanks to General Grant's love of fair play, you were allowed to retain the old diamond, and from that time until the surrender in every game of war diamonds were trump, and if you did not have a full hand, you could always be depended on to take a trick. Another humiliation which you had to endure as a regiment was in January, 1865, when the regiment, having been greatly reduced in strength by the severity of the summer's campaign, was, in obedience to special orders of the War Department, dated January 11, 1865, broken up and consolidated into a battalion of six companies, and you saw your officers who had risen from the ranks, officers of your own choosing, officers whom you loved, mustered out and sent home as supernumeraries. Like Moses of old, who was not permitted to gaze upon the Promised Land, so some of your officers, after nearly four years of war, after having passed through more than a score of battles, after having endured all the hardships and privations that I have enumerated, within sixty days of reaching the goal for which they had been fighting, were mustered out and were not permitted with you to stand at Appomattox and gaze upon the shattered relics of the Southern Confederacy.

Comrades, if I had the time I would like to name each loved comrade who fell in battle, died of wounds or sank down from exhaustion on the weary march; and those who died a lingering death of starvation in prison pens, or died of disease in some hospital, far from home and mother and friends, and who lie scattered through the South, in graves that only God shall know until the resurrection morning. I would like to follow you from the time of your enlistment until the time the regiment came home, few and worn, with many a powder breath upon its flag and many a bullet hole through its folds. I would also speak of Sides and Neeper and Perkins and Lyons and Hill and McCartney and Morse and Crossley and Comstock and Burns and scores of others who seemed to have borne charmed lives and who were discharged and sent home when the war was over, but who have at last been mustered out. They have passed to the other side of the silent river. They have been made noble by God's patent. They have responded to the roll-call among men for the last time, until that day when the names of all the living and the dead shall be sounded before the Great White Throne.

I would go back through the haze of years to hear the rattling drums, the bugle's call, the loud hooray, the tramp of soldier boys. I see the waving flags, the red cheeked lads, the bearded men; I see long lines marching out to do and die; I hear the mothers' cries, the sobs of wives, the sisters' wail, the sweethearts' moan; and then comes waiting, day by day and night by night, the women in darkened homes, the men amidst the dangers of the field. Today is hope; tomorrow comes the news, the dreadful news, the battle's crash, the roar of guns, the din of war, the sharp command, the fire and smoke, the whirl, the charge, the awful shock, the iron hoof, the swinging sword, the gush of blood, the piteous groan, the dying hero and the dead. Oh, bitterness of victory! Oh, homes made desolate! How many hearts the battle breaks that never laid a hand to sword! How many tears must flow for wrong from eyes that only saw the right! The lesson that we read in blood is one we never can forget, and God has taught us this, as long ago he taught the lesson of the cross. Not for his friends alone was that blood shed, but for his enemies as well; and by this latter blood not one but all of us shall live; and on foundations firm as heaven itself the new Republic rises strong and towering upward to the sky; its glistening summits lift their points until they touch the far off blue, and overtopping all the world, they stand up clear against the clouds, so that the very lowest down may see, and, seeing, know that what they see is Freedom's home.

After nearly four years of war, with the great Rebellion subdued, with not an armed enemy within our borders, the 57th Pennsylvania Volunteers was mustered out June 29, 1865, and we write "finis" on the last page of the military history of one of the grandest organizations that ever took up arms for the preservation of a "Government of the people, for the people and by the people."

Upon separating for your homes, your officers issued an address to the surviving members, from which I quote: "Parting as a band of brothers, let us cling to the memory of those tattered banners under which we have fought together and which, without dishonor, we have just now restored to the authorities, who placed them in our hands. Till we grow gray-headed and pass away, let us sustain the reputation of this noble old regiment." That you have observed the injunction of your officers in that address, the testimony of your neighbors in every place in which you have lived since the war will prove. When you were discharged you had but one ambition. In that one supreme moment of triumph, your only thought was of home and family and friends. You went back into the localities from which you came, into the ranks as citizens; taking up the daily burden of life where you had thrown it down when enlisting, ceasing to be soldiers and becoming again private citizens. There was no evidence of the contaminating influence of camp life in your characters. There was no disorder where you went. On the contrary, your presence became the sign of order. You showed the world that great as you had been as soldiers, you had never forgotten that you were citizens.

Most speakers who have made similar addresses upon this great battlefield of the war have made more extended remarks upon the movements of the army during the three days' fighting here, and some have censured certain commanders. The battle of Gettysburg has given rise to a great many controversies, and each commander has been censured and complimented in turn. Doubleday charges that Howard's troops gave way; Howard affirms that Doubleday's troops broke. General Meade is charged with ordering a retreat. One speaker charges that General Sickles made a great blunder in taking up a position too far in advance, which well nigh proved disastrous to our army. With all these charges I have nothing to do. I am not here to censure or find fault. I have only to do with the part you took as a regiment. Whether, as some speakers claim, Sickles saved the day and gained a victory by taking and holding an advanced line on July 2d, until the Roundtops could be occupied, or whether, as others assert, Hancock, the "Superb," gained the victory by brilliant generalship and magnificent fighting on the 3d, I will leave the historian to decide. Suffice it to say, the 57th did her duty by obeying orders, and that is all that is required of any soldier or set of soldiers. You went as far as the farthest and left seventy per cent. of your number behind, when you were obliged to abandon the line. In regard to the movements of the 3d corps, I will simply read what President Lincoln wrote to General Sickles in reply to a request that a court of inquiry should be convened to inquire into his conduct during the battle. The President writes:

"My Dear Sickles: You ask for a court of inquiry. They say you took up an advanced position on July 2d. They say you crowded the enemy and brought on an engagement. I guess what they say is true; but, thank God, you gained a great victory. There were honors enough won at Gettysburg to go all round. History will do you justice. Don't ask for a court of inquiry.

[Signed] A. Lincoln."