Fredericksburg, Virginia 1608-1908/18
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Society of the Army of the Potomac Continued — Welcome Address — Laying a Corner Stone.
Society of the Army of the Potomac Enters Town, continued.
When this great crowd entered the courthouse, after making such a long march in hot weather, most of them were willing to rest awhile before the exercises commenced. Yet Gen. King is not one to rest long when business had to be attended to, so he called the large assembly to order, and announced that illness had prevented the attendance of Gen. D. McM. Gregg, president of the society, and in his absence Gen. Martin T. McMahon would preside in his stead. Dr. J. S. Dill, pastor of the Baptist church, was presented and offered a most earnest prayer. Mr. St. Geo. R. Fitzhugh, who had been selected by the committee of entertainment to extend the welcome, was then introduced and made the following address :
MR. FITZHUGH'S ADDRESS.
MR. CHAIRMAN : It is with feelings of profound pride and unfeigned pleasure that our entire community extends a cordial and hearty welcome to the illustrious Chief Magistrate of our country, who honors us with his presence to-day. We recognize in our President the pure patriot and the stainless statesman, whose wise and courageous administration, in both war and peace, has endeared him to the hearts of his countrymen and has shed new lustre upon the exalted office which he fills.
Our people also welcome with much pride and warmth his eminent official family, and the brilliant commander of our invincible army, and all these distinguished men before me, who are guests of the Society of the Army of the Potomac and of our city.
And now, our friends of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, I find it difficult to command adequate words with which to express to you the supreme gratification and enthusiasm of our people at your prompt acceptance of their invitation to hold your annual reunion in this old town and at your presence here to-day in such numbers.
We not only welcome you with open arms and glowing hearts, but we feel that this action on your part rises to the dignity of an impressive epoch in our national life; and we are not surprised that our illustrious President, and all these distinguished men, should desire to grace this inspiring occasion with their presence.
It is the first time that your society has held one of its annual reunions on southern soil, and, in making this new departure, it was preeminently fit that you should honor Fredericksburg with your choice.
A French philosopher has written, "Happy the people whose annals are tiresome," but the far nobler and more inspiring thought of the Anglo-Saxon race is that "character constitutes the true strength of nations and historic glory their best inheritance."
As American citizens you are proud of the grand traditions and heroic memories that crowd your country's history; and no-where else on this continent could your feet tread on ground more hallowed by historic memories than here.
I think before you leave us you will acknowledge that if the immortal names and deeds that this locality suggests should be stricken from the annals of time, most of the present school books of our country would be valueless and our national history itself would be as the play of Hamlet, with Hamlet left out.
The school boys and girls of our whole country are familiar with the story of Capt. John Smith and Pocahontas, and history records that right here Captain John Smith battled with and repulsed the Indians. So we may fairly claim, without the exercise of poetic license, that the struggle of the Anglo-Saxon race, to establish its civilization and supremacy on this continent, commenced on this spot in 1608, just one year after Jamestown was settled.
If we should draw a circle around this ancient city, with a radius of less than fifty miles, we should find within that narrow compass the birthplace of George Washington, of Thomas Jefferson, of James Madison, of James Monroe, of Zachary Taylor, of Chief- Justice John Marshall, of the Lees of the Revolution, of Patrick Henry, of Henry Clay, of Matthew Maury and of Robert E. Lee. If we should extend the circle but a very, very little, it would also embrace the birthplace of William Henry Harrison, of John Tyler, of Winfield Scott, and likewise the birthplace of this Republic at Yorktown.
Is there any other similar segment of space on the habitable globe so resplendent with stars of the first magnitude !
Seven Presidents of the United States and three of the greatest military leaders of modern times were born within two hours' ride of this city, estimated according to the most improved modern methods of travel !
That meteoric Mars of naval warfare, John Paul Jones, lived and kept store in this town, and went from here to take command of a ship of our colonial navy. He was the first man who ever raised our flag upon a national ship, and he struck terror to the heart of the British navy by his marvellous naval exploits during the Revolution.
It was right here that Washington's boyhood and youth were spent, and that he was trained and disciplined for his transcendent career, and it was to the unpretending home of his mother, still standing here—which you will visit—that Washington and Lafayette came when the war closed, to lay their laurels at her feet; and her ashes repose here, under a beautiful monument, erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution.
But there are other memories of heroic type, suggested by this locality, which come nearer home to our hearts, whose mournful splendor time cannot pale !
Here, and within fifteen miles of this city, in Spotsylvania county, more great armies manoeuvred, more great battles were fought, more men were engaged in mortal combat and more officers and privates were killed and wounded than in any similar territory in the world. More men fell in the battles of this one small county during the Civil war than Great Britain has lost in all her wars of a century; and more men were killed and wounded in four hours at the battle of Fredericksburg than Great Britain had lost in killed, wounded and prisoners in her eight months' war in South Africa.
When the fog lifted its curtain from the bleak plains about Fredericksburg on the morning of December 13, 1862, the sun flashed down on a spectacle of terrible moral sublimity !
One hundred thousand Union veterans, with two hundred and twenty cannon, were in "battle's magnificently stern array” and in motion, with nothing to obscure their serried ranks from the view of their expectant adversaries, safely entrenched on the sloping hills adjacent. The different sub-divisions of this great army were commanded that day by consummate masters of the art of war, whose names and brilliant exploits now illumine the pages of our national history, but its commander-in-chief was deficient in both strategic and tactical ability, and his most conspicuous merit seemed to be his perfect faith in the courage and invincibility of his army.
General Burnside did not overrate the magnificent courage and sublime self-sacrifice of his army, whose contempt of death that day on the open plains about Fredericksburg seemed to strike the electric chain wherewith we all are bound, and a thrill of admiration swept down the line of Lee's army for four miles whilst yet the battle raged; but General Burnside did underrate the strength of the positions which, without inspection or information, he rashly assailed, and he did underrate the valor of the men who held those positions. The appalling magnitude of his mistake was soon apparent, alike to his officers and his men, and yet column after column of that devoted army advanced, without a halting step, to the carnival of death, over a plain swept by the ceaseless and terrible fire of protected infantry and artillery—a plain of which General E. P. Alexander, in command of the Confederate artillery, posted on the heights, remarked the evening before, that "not a chicken could live there when his guns were opened."
No honors awaited the daring of these heroes that day ; no despatch could give their names to the plaudits of their admiring countrymen, their advance was uncheered by the hope of emolument or fame; their death would be unnoticed, and yet they marched to their doom with unblanched cheeks and unfaltering tread.
Pause a moment and picture those serried ranks as they marched undismayed with grim precision and intrepid step to certain death, and, very many, to unknown graves, and tell me whether heroism did not have its holocaust, and patriotism and courage their grand coronation on these plains about Fredericksburg; and tell me whether a nation's gratitude and meed of honor to these unknelled, uncoffined and unknown heroes, who thus gave up their lives for their country, in obedience to orders, should be measured by the accident of victory or defeat, or by the unclouded grandeur of the sacrifice they cheerfully made. Tell me whether the majestic memorial, which that splendid old veteran. General Butterfield, proposes to erect on the plains of Fredericksburg, to perpetuate the fame of the Fifth corps, will not commemorate a higher type of heroism than any similar memorial to that corps on the heights about Gettysburg ! Tell me whether there was not more courage and more manhood required to assail Marye's Heights than to hold Cemetery Hill !
The charge of Pickett's Division at Gettysburg was far grander, even with its dreadful recoil, than was the defence of the stone wall at Fredericksburg; and the heroes of the former deserve more of their country than do the latter.
Napoleon, after the battle of Austerlitz, addressing his army, Said, "Soldiers, it will be enough for one of you to say, 'I was at the battle of Austerlitz,' for your countrymen to say, 'There is a brave man.'
Impartial history will record that the Union soldiers who fought at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Courthouse were not only brave men, but that their Valor on those immortal fields decorated the Stars and Stripes with imperishable glory. And no American army of the future, composed of those who wore the blue and the gray, or their descendants, will ever permit that glory to be tarnished !
It was the brilliant prowess of the Confederate army on the battlefields of Spotsylvania that shed such dazzling lustre on the Union arms at Gettysburg. If we should blot out the battlefields of Spotsylvania, we should rob Gettysburg of all its glory; we should filch from General Grant half his fame as a great commander, and should obscure to the future student of the art of war Grant's invincible pertinacity and his sagacious and successful policy of concentration and attrition, which alone explains and vindicates his famous march of eighty miles from Culpeper Courthouse to Petersburg, with a loss of tens of thousands of his brave troops, when he might have transferred his army by transports to the shadow of the Confederate capital without the loss of a man.
Grant knew that the destruction of Lee's army, and not the capture of Richmond, was the profoundest strategy. The Army of the Potomac, under the consummate leadership of General Grant, won infinitely more prestige at Appomattox, where eight thousand worn-out Confederates laid down their arms, than the German army, under its great field-marshal, Von Moltke, won at Sedan, where the French Emperor, Louis Napoleon, and 86,000 French soldiers, neither footsore nor hungry, surrendered, and for the plain reason that no such conflicts as those in Spotsylvania lay across the march of Von Moltke to Sedan. The march to Appomattox was over the battlefields of Spotsylvania, and Appomattox was only the culmination of the courage and carnage of those fields.
It was the conspicuous characteristic of both the Union and Confederate armies that their courage was alike invincible; defeat could not quench it; it shone with additional splendor amid the gloom of disaster, and no soldier on either side need blush to have borne a part in any one of the great battles of the Civil war, whatever fortune may have decreed as to its temporary result.
It is noteworthy, above almost any other events of history, that the two most memorable and momentous struggles in which the Anglo-Saxon race has embarked, both closed on the soil of Virginia, a century apart, by the surrender of one Anglo-Saxon army to an army of the same race, and without the loss of prestige on either side.
For our great race, when vanquished by itself, proudly rears its crest unconquered and sublime !
One of those memorable struggles closed at Yorktown, where colonial dependence perished, national independence was secured and our great republic born. The other closed at Appomattox, where the doctrine of secession and the institution of slavery perished and a more perfect union than our fathers made was established.
Secession and slavery perished on Virginia soil, and her people. though impoverished by the loss of the latter, have shed no tears over the grave of these dead issues; but they love and cherish the memory of the Southern heroes whose sacred ashes repose in her bosom, and they proudly spurn any suggestion that such moral heroism and sublime self-sacrifice as they exhibited could be born of other than conscientious conviction !
If the South was, by a wise providence, denied in that grand struggle the honor of final triumph, her people to-day share equally with the victors of that day the glorious fruits of their victory in a more perfect and indissoluble union of indestructible States, under that superlative symbol of a world-power—the glorious Stars and Stripes.
All through this splendid address Mr. Fitzhugh was vociferously applauded, the President and his cabinet heartily and enthusiastically joining in the applause, and when he closed the demonstration was kept up for several minutes.
Gov. Tyler was then introduced and welcomed the veterans to Virginia, and assured them that when their visit to Fredericksburg was ended, Richmond, the Capital of the Confederacy, awaited them with extended hands and outstretched arms. Gen. McMahon responded in a short address, full of harmony and good feeling, and introduced Gen. Daniel E. Sickles, the orator of the occasion.
At the conclusion of the able and patriotic address of Gen. Sickles, the presidential party and Gen. Sickles, lunched at Mr. Fitzhugh's and the society and visitors were provided for at the Opera House. After lunch the visitors and citizens marched to Mr. Fitzhugh's residence, where the President held a reception and where several thousand people greeted and shook him by the hand.
The procession then formed and marched to the National cemetery, to witness the laying of the corner-stone of the monument to be erected by Gen. Daniel Butterfield to the memory of the men of the Fifth Army Corps, who fell in the several battles in Fredericksburg and vicinity.
The Masonic ceremonies were in charge of Lodge No. 4, A. F. and A. M. In accepting the invitation to preside on the interesting occasion, Gen. Horatio C. King said :
I deeply appreciate the honor of being asked to preside on this most interesting occasion, and in presence of the honored Chief Magistrate and the members of his official family. I recall with pride the fact that I first saw the light of Masonry in the Blue Lodge at Winchester, in this magnificent State, in 1864, when I was a soldier in the great war, and that from that day to this I have continued in good standing in our noble order. It may not be amiss for me to add that he who honors and graces this occasion to-day by his presence, our President, was also initiated at or about the same time in the same lodge, and that he has also held fast to the tenets of the organization through his lodge at his home in Ohio.
It is most fitting that this dedication should be made by this time-honored Fredericksburg Lodge, whose history antedates the Revolution and in whose precincts the Father of his Country was enrolled.
The occasion is one to inspire every patriot, and the generosity of Gen. Butterfield, in raising this memorial to the fallen comrades whom he so gallantly commanded, will shine through ages to come on the pages of American history.
MASONIC CEREMONIES.
The ceremonies were then conducted by the Masonic Lodge, the following officers, members and visitors being present and taking part :
Alvin T. Embre, senior warden, acting worshipful master; Right Worshipful James P. Corbin, senior warden pro tem; Wm. H. Hurkamp, Junior warden; Edgar M. Young, Jr., treasurer; Right Worshipful Silvanus J. Quinn, secretary; Maurice Hirsh, senior deacon; Allan Randolph Howard, junior deacon; Rev. James Polk Stump, chaplain, and John S. Taliaferro, tiler; Worshipful Brothers Albert B. Botts, James T. Lowery, Thomas N. Brent, Isaac Hirsh.
Members: Joe M. Goldsmith, John Scott Berry, John R. Bernard, John C. Melville, Robert A. Johnson, O. L. Harris, James Roach, George A. Walker, A. Mason Garner, Wm. T. Dix, Wm. Bernard, H. Hoomes Johnston, Charles L. Kalmbach, Edgar Mersereau, Adolph Loewenson, George W. Wroten, Joseph H. Davis, J. Shirver Woods, Edwin J. Cartright and Maurice B. Rowe.
Visiting Masons : Most Worshipful J. Howard Wayt, P. G. M, Stanton, Va.; Wm. D. Carter, 102, Va.; W. J. Ford, 163, Ky. ; W. C. Stump, 5, D. C. ; B. P. Owens, 14, Va., and Dr. J. W. Bovee, of B. B. French, D. C.
The handsome silver trowel used in laying the corner-stone, was made by order of Gen. Butterfield for that occasion and then to be presented to the Masonic Lodge performing the service. After the service of laying the corner-stone. Gen. Edward Hill, who spoke for Gen. Butterfield, in an able address, presented the monument to the Secretary of War to be kept, cared for and preserved by him and his successors in office, to which Secretary Root responded in a brief and appropriate speech, accepting the monument and promising to preserve it as requested.
CAMP FIRE AT OPERA HOUSE.
At 8 o'clock in the evening a "camp fire" was held at the Opera House, which was crowded to its utmost capacity. Short addresses were made by Gen. McMahon, Gen. Hawley, Gen. Miles, Gen. Sewell, Gen. Tremain, Gen. Geo. D. Ruggles, Capt. Patrick, Gen. Sickles, and a letter was read from Gen. Shaw, all of whom were on the Union side. The Confederate veterans were represented by Gen. Joseph Wheeler and Private John T. Goolrick.
When Gen. Wheeler was introduced. Gen. Hawley, who had already spoken, interrupted with "Just a moment. Something occurs to me. Among the extraordinary things that are happening in the world, this is especially interesting to me. I find, on looking over the records, that Moses Wheeler, more than 250 years ago, married the sister of Joseph Hawley in Connecticut. Now, General, go on."
This produced great laughter, in which Gen. Hawley joined with much zest.
JUDGE GOOLRICK's ADDRESS.
Judge Goolrick, who was introduced as the representative of the Confederate veterans, and especially the private soldier, of whom there are so few at this time, spoke as follows:
Comrades, Ladies and Gentlemen—With sincere sentiments of good will, commingled with a sense of gratitude, I welcome you within the gates of our city, and no man has a better right to bid you come than myself—for, just after the surrender at Appomattox, I was sitting on the roadside, weary and worn, foot-sore and hungry, with an intense solicitude for a change of my bill of fare from parched corn, upon which I had luxuriated for about three days, when a kind-hearted private soldier of the Army of the Potomac, seeing my dejected and depressed appearance, came to me with words of cheer, comfort and kindness, and, putting his hand down into his not overstocked haversack, gave me all his rations of hardtack and bacon, and immediately the gloom of defeat ceased to be so oppressive, and the intense hunger, under which I had labored, also ceased. This act of good fellowship, under the conditions which confronted me, at once inspired a fraternal feeling for my enemy. So you see, Mr. Chairman, I have a real right to be glad to see here to-day the representatives of that army of which my benefactor was a member, and bid you be of good cheer while you pitch your tents once again on the old camp ground.
You are now on a spot which is consecrated in the hearts of the soldiers from the North and the South. Within the sound of my voice Meagher's Irish Brigade immortalized itself by a charge into the jaws of death, a charge in which the Irishman expressed his loyalty to the land of his adoption, and gave evidence of that inborn bravery which has made his name illustrious all over the world.
Within this county—at Chancellorsville—the soldiers of the South conquered in a battle where death pulsated the very air, which was won by unparalleled bravery and matchless strategy, though it cost the life of the southland's idolized Stonewall Jackson, the very genius of the war. Here the two master military leaders met for the first time at the Wilderness, where was commenced the march by parallel columns, which culminated in the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, by our grand old commander, Lee, to the great and magnanimous Grant.
On these fields Americanism, in its highest and holiest sense, was illustrated and illuminated. Here a colossal column of men marched to death, testifying thereby the very highest expression of patriotism—love of country. For greater love hath no man that this, that he lay down his life for his friends. It is to this spot you have come—a place which is, and should be, the Mecca of all lovers of patriotism, self-sacrifice and lofty devotion to duty. And these have not been lost, and will not be, for as the blood of the martyrs was the seed and the seal of the church, so the blood and the bravery of the soldiers of the North and the South have already cemented this Republic in a closer union.
There has been a good deal said here, sir, to-day about peace. He who fought ceased warfare when the war ended. 'Tis true it was waged with great energy by warriors. After Lee told his boys to go home, and Grant said, "Let us have peace," these warriors, after the war, were like that chaplain in Early's army, who was seen going to the rear, while the battle was raging in front. Early met him and asked him where he was going. "To the rear—to the hospital department," said he. "Why not stay in the front?" said old Jubal, "for I have heard you urging my men for the last six months to prepare to go to heaven, and now you have an opportunity to go to heaven yourself, and you are dodging to the rear." These men who want war and talk war now had the opportunity to take part, but most of them did not feel so inclined when the battle raged fast and furious.
I suppose, sir, however, I was called to talk to-night because I am rather an unique and curious living specimen of a soldier, for I was a private, and there are few now living. It is said just before the surrender a poor old soldier laid down to sleep, and he slept a la Rip Van Winkle, for twenty years. Awaking up he rubbed his eyes; looking around, he called a man walking on the road-side to him. "Where," said the soldier, "is old Marse Bob Lee and his army?" "General Lee," replied the man; why, he has been dead many years; he surrendered his army and then died." "Ah!" said the private; " “Then where are all the generals ?" "They," replied the man, "have been sent to Congress." "And what has become of the colonels?" "Why, they have been elected to the Legislature." "What about the majors, captains and lieutenants?" "They have been made sheriffs and clerks and treasurers." "Where, then, tell me, where in the world have the privates gone?" "The privates!" answered the man; "why, they are all dead." And the old soldier rolled his eyes back and fell asleep again. If he were to awake again to-day his eyes would be gladdened and his heart made happy by monuments erected in Virginia's capital city, and elsewhere, to emphasize the love and reverence with which the memory of the brave private soldiers are held by a grateful people.
Sir, far be it from me to hold in slight estimation or little esteem, the illustrious commanders. I am proud of the grand and glorious leadership of my great captains, Lee and Jackson, and I willingly pay a tribute to the greatness of Grant and to the memory of Hancock, "the superb," and the splendid Meade. I would not, if I could, attempt to dim the lustre of their names or throw any shadow over the brightness of their deeds.
I was an humble private soldier in the Confederate army, and I am proud here to proclaim that I was a follower of the peerless and illustrious Lee, but I stand here to pay my loving tribute to the private soldier of both armies. His splendid achievements, grand heroism, unfaltering loyalty and unflinching bravery, have no parallel in all time. He knew that if in the forefront of the fight he were shot down that then his name would not be written on the scroll of fame, his uncoffined body would find sepulture in a nameless grave, and that he would have for an epitaph, "unknown!" Only a private shot; and thus the story of his daring and dying would be told.
But, knowing all this, he failed not nor faltered. He was inspired by the very holiest and highest, because of an absolutely unselfish sense of duty. He was moved by a purpose to serve his country and its cause. He marched, battled and bivouacked because his determination to do, dare and die, if needs be, for the flag under which he served. Whether under the sultry sun of summer or amidst the sleet and snow of winter, he stood, unmoved from his unalterable resolve. No grander, no more beautiful, no more splendid expression of the very highest type of manhood could be found than was found in the life of the private soldier of both or either army; and when the war ended, with them verily it ended, and they all joined hands in a fraternity of comradeship which was well exhibited by that private soldier of your army who ministered to my necessities and cheered me in my sadness as I sat under the very shadow of defeat and amidst the gloom of surrender at Appomattox.
And members of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, to which that private belonged, and to which we of the Army of Northern Virginia surrendered, I meet and greet you on your first reunion south of the river whose name you bear. We of the South, will ever cherish, ever pay the homage of our hearts' best devotion to the memory of our great cause and its champions, we will ever keep them hallowed and sacred, but with us the war is over. We pay allegiance and bear full fealty to this great Republic of ours, and the men and the sons of the men who followed Lee and Jackson stand ready with you to defend, always and everywhere, the honor, the integrity and the interest of this fair land of ours against all foes, whether from within or without its borders.
We worship at the same shrine of liberty. There is only one flag now. It is our flag and yours. Under its shadow we stand with the men of your army. And now, to-night, at this reunion, in this presence, let me urge, as the shibboleth, the motto of both armies, to be our inspiration in peace, our rallying cry, if needs be, in war, this: "Whom God hath joined together let no party, no people and no power put asunder."
Judge Goolrick was heartily applauded during the delivery of his, address, and at its close the cheering was loud and prolonged.
There was no business session of the society the next day and very many of the Union veterans visited the various battlefields.
The most of the society and visitors went to Richmond on an excursion tendered the society by Lee Camp, where they were met and entertained by the Confederate veterans of that hospitable city.
Addresses were made on that occasion by Judge D. C. Richardson, Mayor Richard M. Taylor, Gov. Chas. T. O'Ferrall and Attorney-General A. J. Montague, of Richmond, and Gen. Horatio C. King, of New York, and Gen. Geo. D. Ruggles, of Washington.
On the return of the excursionists from Richmond a reception and lunch were tendered them at the Opera House, where they were met by a large number of the ladies and gentlemen of the town, and a most enjoyable evening was spent. Gen. King, secretary of the society, in a brief address, acknowledged the cordial welcome and unbounded hospitality they had met with in our town and the homes of our citizens, extended the hearty thanks of the society to the officials and citizens and stated that the reception was even warmer and more cordial than they had ever before met with.
RESOLUTIONS OF THANKS ADOPTED.
At the business meeting of the society on the first evening the following preamble and resolution, after very complimentary remarks of the town and people, by many of the visitors, were enthusiastically adopted :
The reunion of the Society of the Army of the Potomac at Fredericksburg is of peculiar significance, and the generous Sentiment which prompted the invitation, meets with a hearty response from every patriotic soldier of that great army. Every animosity engendered by the conflict is here buried with the more than one hundred and twenty thousand gallant men who shed their blood and sacrificed their lives in their heroic devotion to conviction and to duty. The work done here is an imperishable record of the unsurpassed courage and bravery of the American soldier: therefore be it —
Resolved,That we tender to the civic authorities and citizens of Fredericksburg, and especially to the efficient local executive committee and Mr. St. Geo. R. Fitzhugh, our most hearty thanks for a welcome that sustains, in the highest, the fame of Virginia hospitality. The generous and unstinted courtesies of all will render this reunion forever memorable, and the most pleasurable emotion will always arise whenever the name of Fredericksburg is mentioned.
As a fitting sequel of this distinguished gathering and the grand reception on the part of the town and citizens, a letter, written by Gen. Horatio C. King, twenty-five years secretary of the society, en route to his home, in Brooklyn, N. Y., is inserted:
Captain S. J. Quinn, Secretary Army of the Potomac Committee:
My Dear Captain—The generous efforts of your citizens to kill us with kindness were well nigh successful, but happily we survive to tell the tale of the most unique and unsurpassed reunion in the history of the Society of the Army of the Potomac.
Our first meeting on the soil of the South cannot fail to have a most happy effect upon the comparatively few—mainly born since the great conflict—who do not realize that the war ended in 1865.
The sentiments expressed by your orators, Mr. Fitzhugh, your honored Governor Tyler and Judge Goolrick, and by Mayor Taylor, ex-Governor O'Ferrall and Attorney-General Montague, in Richmond, should be printed in letters of gold and circulated all over the nation. Purer or more exalted patriotism has never been expressed.
To the thanks already extended I desire to add my personal obligations for the untiring energy, zeal and efficiency of your local committee, which have made my duties comparatively light and most enjoyable; and I desire to make my acknowledgments especially to you and Brother Corbin for the promptness of your correspondence and unremitting attention.
I am afraid I but feebly conveyed to the audience last evening the warm appreciation of the superabundant and delightful lunch so gracefully provided by your people and so charmingly distributed by your ladies.
Indeed, I cannot find words to express our gratitude for a reception so complete as not to have elicited a single complaint or criticism. We can never forget it or the good people who carried the reunion to unqualified success.
ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY.
Visiting Fredericksburg in May, to attend the meeting of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, and take part in laying the corner-stone of the Butterfield monument, where he received the most marked demonstrations of the love and loyalty of his people, without regard to party politics, President McKinley returned to our beautiful capital with a grateful heart and a determination to show himself President of the entire country, dispensing justice to all alike. He was proud of his country and rejoiced in its unparalleled prosperity. In September, 1901, he visited the exposition at Buffalo, N. Y., where, while holding a reception on the 6th of September, he was assassinated in the midst of the thousands who surrounded him. The sad news was flashed by wire throughout our land and the civilized world, and was received everywhere with unaffected sorrow.
Our City Council was assembled upon the sorrowful intelligence, and the following preamble and resolutions were adopted, and telegraphed Mrs. McKinley, which were the first adopted and received by her from any quarter :
"Whereas, we have heard, with great sorrow and indignation, of an attempt to assassinate his Excellency, Wm. McKinley, President of the United States, at Buffalo, N. Y., this afternoon; and, whereas, we rejoice to learn by the latest telegram that his physicians express the firm belief he will survive the wounds inflicted, therefore —
Resolved, by the Mayor and Common Council of the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, that we condemn, in the strongest language we can command, this dastardly and wicked act, and call upon the authorities to punish the would-be assassin to the full extent of the law.
2nd, That we tender our profoundest sympathy to Mrs. McKinley in her great affliction and earnestly pray that a kind and all-wise Heavenly Father may restore her devoted husband and our much loved Chief Magistrate to perfect health, to her and this united and happy country.
3rd, That our worthy Mayor be requested to communicate by wire this action of the Council to Mrs. McKinley."
Notwithstanding the best medical skill was employed to remain with the stricken President day and night, who endeavored to locate and extract the pistol ball, and the prayers of the nation, he calmly passed away on the 14th of September, eight days after the assassin's deadly work. The monster murderer was an anarchist from Ohio, who was condemned before the courts for his wicked act and paid the extreme penalty of the law.
As the news of the President's death was sent to the world with electric speed, and announced in Fredericksburg, the City Council was immediately assembled again and the following action taken:
"The Mayor and Common Council of the city of Fredericksburg desire to unite with all the world in paying tribute to the memory of President McKinley, as a patriot American, a pure citizen, a fearless Executive and a Christian gentleman.
It is with pride and pleasure that we recall his recent visit to our city and his expressions of gratification at being with us, and this tribute to his memory is to testify and further emphasize our sincere sorrow at his death. It is therefore —
Resolved, That the public buildings of this city be draped in mourning for thirty days; that during the hour of the funeral service that the bells of the city be tolled, and that a committee of three members of the Council be appointed by the Mayor to confer with the ministers of our churches in order to arrange a memorial meeting of our citizens, and that these resolutions be spread upon the records of this council.
Resolved, That a copy of these resolution, with our expressions of sympathy in this hour of her great bereavement, be forwarded to Mrs. McKinley, widow of our distinguished President, signed by the Mayor, and attested by the clerk, under the seal of this city.
This action of the Council was one of the few that Mrs. McKinley personally responded to. To it she promptly replied, evincing her grateful appreciation, with the tenderest expressions, for the sympathy tendered to her in her great sorrow. The memorial services were held in St. George's church, the day of the funeral, conducted by the city pastors. Dr. T. S. Dunaway, delivering the address.