City of New York. It would have given me great pleasure to meet with you on that occasion, if my other engagements, already formed, permitted me to do so. All that I can do now is to wish you much enjoyment from the mutual greetings of former comrades in arms, and to express my regret that I cannot be present to share in the pleasures of a meeting of so much interest. I am, very truly yours,

JOHN T. HOFFMAN.

Gen. CHAS. K. GRAHAM, Chairman of Executive Committee, Society of the Army of the James.

THIRD SENTIMENT.-" The City of New York."

In response to the third toast, the following letter was read from his honor, the Mayor of New York:

MY DEAR GENERAL:-If I am in town on the evening in question, it will afford me great pleasure to attend your banquet.

Very truly,

Your obliged friend and obedient serv't.

GEN. CHAS. K. GRAHAM.

Comrades, the

A. OAKEY HALL.

FOURTH SENTIMENT.-"The Army of the James,"

was to have been responded to by Major-General Butler, but the pressure of business has detained him at home, and at a moment's warning, our late estimable and truly eloquent Chaplain, H. Clay Trumbull, has, at a request of the Executive Committee, agreed to fill his place.

RESPONSE OF CHAPLAIN H. CLAY TRUMBULL, U. S. V.

MR. PRESIDENT AND COMRADES:-My sole justification in what would otherwise seem inexcusable-my rising in this presence to respond to the toast just given-is found in the fact that I am

ordered to do so by my commanders; and I was long enough in the army to learn that a soldier's first duty is obedience to orders. (Applause).

"The Army of the James'!-an army of citizen soldiers gathered from hard fought fields at Gloucester Point in the Spring of 1864, and moving thence under gallant commanders, and with ever increasing character and efficiency and fame, from field to field, and from fight to fight, to final rest and peace at Appomattox Court House! (Applause.) Who can tell of all the exploits of such an army, and of the grand results of its bravery and endurance? It would be folly for me to attempt this now. That story is written in our country's history. We have heard it eloquently repeated to day. Yet more, it is graven in all our hearts, never to be effaced in life. I need not tell at this time of the Army of the James as it was, nor of the work which it did in the days of war. Let me rather speak of the Society of the Army of the James as it is here and now, and of the tie that binds us together, as survivors of the army which endured so bravely and accomplished so glorious results.

"I know that I speak for each and for all, when I say, that we find an enjoyment in this re-union, such as we could find in no gathering of those who lacked a share with us in the nation's life struggle. As old soldiers we love one another, for our common experience of toil and danger and privation; and in this. community of feeling we are shut out in a measure from the sympathy of many about us, whom we cannot make acquainted with that which unites us so closely. We can all remember scenes, and retain emotions which we cannot reproduce to others. Who, for example, could describe a scene in an army transport's lower hold, off Cape Hatteras or Stono Inlet, in a cold storm, when smuggled whiskey had been doing its work among a crowd of sea-sick veterans? (Laughter and Cheers.) I cannot describe it, but I remember such a scene, when I stood at the foot of the companion ladder, looking about me in mute despair to see if anybody was sober, and an enlisted man, as drunk as the drunkest, came to me in appreciative sympathy, and throwing his arms around my neck, said sympathizingly, 'I zay, Japlin, iz too bad,

ain' it? You're all drunk, an' we're dreffle zorry for't!'-No! now that ain' it. We're dreffle drunk, an' you're all zorry for't! How iz it? One of us 's drunk, and tother's all zorry for't? Wich in thunner is't?' (Laughter.)

"Who again could picture truly one week in the Virginia mud, during the equinoctial storm of 1864, after the capture of Fort Harrison, without tents or blankets, with the hard-tack wormy, and no water to drink save what we had slept in? (Cheers and Laughter.) Or who, again I ask, could portray the real feelings of a man under fire, with his comrades falling about him, and he joking to conceal his anxiety, wanting to run and determined not to, moving forward in the deadly charge amid the shower of bullets, or waiting during the burdened seconds as the fragments of bursted shell come tearing through the air about him with murderous power? Who, I ask, could tell of these things so that others could understand them? Who, on the other hand, who experienced them, can ever forget them?

"Another cord in the tie that binds us together in this Society of the Army of the James is our common affection for the cause which summoned us to battle. Union soldiers loved their country, and were ready to die for the flag that represented that country. With all their growling over army fare or administration follies, over shocking quarters or abused quartermasters, over having to march and fight or having to lie still and wait, the great mass of the army officers and enlisted men alike, were loyal and patriotic, self-sacrificing and devoted, and the survivors of that army love and honor one another for what they know each other to have been, and for what they know each other to have done. (Cheers.)

"Yet another and a strange cord in the tie that unites us is sympathy in devotion to duty-our religious conviction that the cause we fought for was the cause of God. How beautifully this devotion manifested itself on every side in the days of war. It showed itself often sublimely among the humblest of the common soldiers. A citizen of Richmond told me, after the surrender, of his visit to the bloody field of Mechanicsville, during the seven days battles of Gen. McClellan. It was the day following the

fight there. Among others of the Yankee wounded whom he found on the field was a fair-faced lad, suffering from the terrible woundthirst under the burning rays of a Southern sun at midsummer. As the citizen looked down with kindly interest on the boy, his face seemed to encourage a call for aid, and the little fellow asked: ‘I say, neighbor, wont you give me a drink of water? I'm very thirsty. Certainly!' was the answer, and the water was brought to cool the parched lips and tongue. "Thank you!' said the grateful boy; and encouraged by the first response he made bold to ask again: 'Neighbor, can't you get me taken up from here and put in hospital? I'm in great pain. I wish you would.' At this the citizen stooped down to the anxious boy, and taking his hand said pleasantly, 'Why, yes, I suppose I can; but look here, my lad, suppose I take you and send you to hospital, and you get well and go back to your home, will you come down here again to fight such men as I am, who never harmed you?' It was a terrible trial to the suffering wounded prisoner, who lay helpless before the man who asked that question; but the brave boy never flinched. Looking his kind helper full in the face he said firmly: "That I would, my friend!' (Applause.) 'I tell you,' said the Richmond citizen, as he repeated the story, I liked that pluck; and I had that boy well cared for.' That boy was only a type of all the boys of the Union army-army of the James and every other army alike.

"As I was passing along the front at Bermuda Hundred, in the the summer of 1864, I saw a group of soldiers around an open grave, burying a dead comrade who had just fallen in a picket skirmish. I stopped to offer a prayer, and thus aid in giving the dear dead soldier a Christian burial. As I did so, and asked the circumstances of the soldier's death, one of the elder of the burial party said to me, with firm set face and with tender though tearless eyes: 'He was my son! he was a good boy, and a good soldier!' Then the father pointed to the compressed thumb and fore finger of his fallen son, closed in death over a percussion cap, as an evidence that the boy was shot while in the very act of capping his rifle; and, as if in modest pride of the 'You see, Chaplain, John died doing his duty!'

fact, he added:

(Enthusiastic

cheers.) Many a brave boy of the Army of the James thus died 'doing his duty,' and many another, thank God, lives doing his duty still.

"I say no such foolish thing as that every soldier was religious, or that his bravery proved him one who served and trusted God. But I do say that religious convictions prevailed widely in the Union army, and that that army as a whole counted itself, while standing for Government and Liberty, as, in a certain sense, the Lord Jehovah's Host.

So, comrades, I feel that we to night are bound together by our common experiences, by our love of Country, and by our recognition of duty to Almighty God- a three fold cord,' which we are divinely assured is not easily broken.' If we but rightly interpret and yield to the holiest drawings of the cord that thus entwines us, we may not only enjoy other such re-unions as this, but we may so live and so die that we shall stand in eternal reunion before the throne of Almighty God. (Enthusiastic applause.)

Upon the conclusion of Chaplain Trumbull's brilliant address, the Chairman announced that a song written for the occasion by Mortimer L. Thomson, ("Doesticks,") would be sung by Major Geo. W. Cooney, late of the Army of the Potomac, and requested the entire company to rise and join in the chorus.

THE ARMY OF THE JAMES.

MUSIC BY J. E. PERRING.

Yell out a rousing cheer,

From every comrade here,

For the brave, the stirring times of a few brief years ago,
When we bivouacked in camp,

Or marched with steady tramp

To meet and beat and take conceit from out a gallant foe.
We cared not then for Rebel bunting,

Nor who the banners might be flaunting;

We met them ever without daunting,

And still kept marching on.

CHORUS Marching on, marching on, my boys;

Marching on, marching on, my boys;

We met them ever without daunting,
And still kept marching on.