cuse me if I fail to express appropriately the thoughts and feelings that come rushing to my mind, or to find apt words in which to return my thanks, for the hearty manner in which you have been pleased to greet my name. In the plain language of a soldier, I thank you for it; and this the more heartily, for the reason that I was in another field of service when those great and glorious deeds were performed by you, which will make the name of the Army of the James illustrious through all time.

Standing here, I yet feel myself no stranger among you; for I hold it among my pleasant memories that from time to time, and in different fields, nearly all of the troops constituting your army were associated with me, and a large proportion of them under my immediate command. If I miss on this occasion, the honor and glory of having shared with you in your later, and more brilliant achievements, yet I esteem it no slight satisfaction to recur, as now I do, to the work performed by me in organizing, educating, and perfecting, so many of the splendid regiments that afterwards helped to win a name for your army. I remember the Eighteenth Corps a corps resplendent from victories won at Petersburg and Fort Harrison; a corps heroic in its devotion at Cold Harbor—was first organized by me in North Carolina; that I gave what assisttance and encouragement I could, in bringing forward into active service those troops, which afterwards, as the Twenty-fifth Corps of the Army of the James, overcame the last prejudice against them, by their unsurpassed bravery and good conduct in carrying the Newmarket Heights.

I would be glad to go further, and mention by name some of the many of your officers who served under me, and whose genius for arms I early detected, and which the later campaigns brought to the notice of the whole country, but time will not permit me to perform this pleasant duty.

I believe I am expected to say a word for the Navy. It needs no word of commendation from me, and yet I cannot refrain from expressing here the willing and gallant manner in which it always performed the part assigned it, when acting in co-operation with me on the Virginia and North Carolina coast; and I will now close by saying, that your sentiment expresses not only my own convictions, but the convictions of the whole country. It has per

formed its duty on the sea, as gallantly as our armies have performed theirs on the land.

ELEVENTH SENTIMENT.-"The enlisted men of the Army-they have endured the greater share of the burdens of the war: let them share freely in every honor also.”

Col. Bruce was called upon to respond.

RESPONSE OF BREV. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL GEORGE A. BRUCE, 13TH N. H. VOLS.

Mr. PRESIDENT AND COMRADES: Meeting here as we do to-night, as an association of the officers of one of the great armies which has made for itself a name and a history during our recent struggle for national existence, it is eminently wise and fitting that we should recall and recognize the services of those who, under us, endured the heat and burden of the war, and by whose valor, the victory was finally secured-the great third estate of the army.

There is a truth in the sentiment that has just been read, which we all have had innumerable occasions to witness, and which, as men worthy of having been officers, we are most ready and willing to acknowledge. Being surrounded by those possessed of equal knowledge with myself, it seems hardly necessary for me to indicate the heavy burdens so patiently endured by the enlisted men, from which we, in whole or in part, were exempt the long and tedious marches under the weight of knapsack and of gun; the thousand calls for labor at every halt; the building and policing of camps; the construction of endless fortifications; and then that weary, trying, and ever-returning duty of standing guard for the safety of the army, by night and by day, in sunshine and in storm; and when we recall the faithful manner in which these and all other duties were met and performed, we may well say in the language of the sentiment, "Let them share freely in every honor also."

It is impossible for us to separate the great work of the soldier from the great work of the officer. The exploits of the one, are the exploits of the other; the heroic deeds of the one, are mingled with the heroic deeds of the other. They cannot be divided.

Speaking for the enlisted men, I can say with truth, that they constituted the proudest and best army, that ever trod the soil of either continent. For intelligence, patriotism, bravery, and devotion to the cause of their country, they have never been equalled by the soldiery of any age, or any nation. They were our fellowcitizens at home, representatives of every class and every calling -tillers of the soil, workers of wood and brass and iron, members of all the learned professions,-young men fresh from our schools and colleges, those we were accustomed to look to with respect in all the many and varied walks of life-men whom a noble and disinterested love for the dear old flag that had been rudely assailed, bore away from pleasant homes and happy firesides to encounter the untold hardships of war. The pages of all history cannot boast of brighter examples of devotion, than the records of our recent strife will show on the part of our enlisted men; for there is no devotion purer or brighter, than that when men offer up their lives, without hope of honor or fame, that their fellow-men may live more free.

The lines we were compelled to draw for the time between officers and men were only temporary lines-they are now almost entirely forgotten; and I can remember moments, when, in the heat of the strife, the private soldier raised himself to an equality with his commanding officer, by the display of the noblest qualities belonging to our nature. And I will appeal to you, Mr. President, to say whether or not, for the time, you did not look with equal pride on the soldier and the officer, when, on the 29th of September, the division which you had the honor to command, moved with even step and fearless nerve to the attack, and paused not, until its flags floated in triumph from the crests of Fort Harrison. I appeal to the gallant commander of the Tenth Corps to say, whether for the moment, he did not forget the distinction between the sword and the musket, when those long lines of glittering steel, backed by long lines of heroic hearts, crossed the deadly sands in front of Fort Fisher, and crowned the name of Terry with an immortality of fame.

And not only we, but our states, our cities, and our towns, follow the sentiment expressed in the toast, not only in giving place and honor to the living, but in preserving and honoring the mem

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ory of the dead. Side by side, on the monuments which a thankful people are erecting over the graves of our nation's defenders, we read the names of the soldier and his commander, just as side by side, they fell in the thickness of the fight. They sleep, too, side by side, in a perfect equality, the common sleep of death, beneath the soil where they fought so well, on every field from the Potomac to the Gulf. We have all shared a common danger, and to the living and the dead, let us always give a common honor.

I will close, by repeating a happily-expressed tribute to the memory of the private soldiers of all the armies, who have given their lives to the cause of their country, and which equally well expresses our sense of the loss, and our honor to the memory, of

those once associated with us in the duties of command:

"Scattered on Southern fields they lie,

Where tropic breezes gently sigh;
Under the shade of orange tree,

Upon the fields of Olustee;
Or on the sandy drifts that pile
The barren waste of Morris' Isle;
Buried in melancholy lines
Among the swamps of Seven Pines.
And hundreds more, half-buried still,
On slopes of Gaines' and Malvern Hill;
Lying beneath the waving grain
On broad Manassas' war-scarred plain;
Scattered 'mong gloomy woods that dress
The lone haunts of the Wilderness;
Adown the Mississippi's coast,
Among the winding bayous lost;
Or with a nation's tears interred
In thy great tomb, O Gettysburg.
Rest, ye brave men, where'er ye lie!
Your valor brought us victory.

Green be the sod above your graves,
O'er which your flag in triumph waves;

Green be your memory that lives
With all the brightness valor gives;

Hallowed by nation saved from wreck;

Hallowed by friends your graves shall deck;

Hallowed by patriotic men,

Orator's tongue and poet's pen;

But doubly hallowed here by us

Who mourn our battle-comrades' loss;
Though in uncoffined graves ye lie,

Ye are of those not born to die."

At the conclusion of Colonel Bruce's remarks, the President said that this sentiment, like others which had been given, deserved more than a simple response, and called upon General Plaisted.

RESPONSE OF BREV. MAJOR-GENERAL HARRIS M. PLAISTED COLONEL 11TH ME. VOLS.

MR. PRESIDENT: In responding to your call, I feel very sensibly my inability to speak, in fitting terms, of the brave men by whom our battles were fought, our victories won, and our country saved. No words of mine can express our appreciation of their exalted merit. No tongue or pen can now do them justice. Their valor and their devotion will be the theme of the historian, the orator, and poet, for centuries to come. We know, indeed, that "theirs was the greater share of the burdens of the war," and freely do we concede to them "the greater share of the honors." In calling to mind their heroic and patriotic virtues, we forget that we were more than spectators-witnesses merely of their sacrifices, their valor, and their deeds. With what patient endurance, with what heroic constancy, they bore their hardships as good soldiers, and all for country's sake. All men are heroes when victorious. It was in adverse and desperate emergencies that the great qualities of our soldiers were most conspicuous. Battles were fought in a day, that in Europe would have terminated a campaign, followed by battles daily for a week-a week of great battles, without decisive results, which in the great wars of history would have decided the fate of nations; and yet, with ranks terribly thinned, our men still faced the enemy with all the valor and determination of victorious troops. This was more than great soldiership; it was something wonderful. All the world wondered because it knew not the men of the republic, their intelligence and patriotism, and their high resolve that if the republic must perish, they would not survive it. It was the intelligence