all the manliness and sincerity of which brave men are capable. In token of that sincerity they join in consecrating, for annual patriotic pilgrimage, these historic heights, which drank such copious draughts of American blood, poured so freely in discharge of duty, as each conceived it,—a Mecca for the North, which so grandly defended,-a Mecca for the South, which so bravely and persistently stormed it. We join you in setting apart this land as an enduring monument of peace, brotherhood, and perpetual union. I repeat the thought, with additional emphasis, with singleness of heart and of purpose, in the name of a common country, and of universal human liberty; and, by the blood of our fallen brothers, we unite in the solemn consecration of these hallowed hills, as a holy, eternal pledge of fidelity to the life, freedom, and unity of this cherished republic. JOHN BROWN GORDON. The words of Wellesley Bradshaw, written for the occasion, voice the sentiment of the American people: “WAKE THEM IN PEACE TO-DAY. GOD BLESS THEM ALL!" SOUND, bugles! sound again! Awake them all! Here, where the Blue and Gray Struggled in fierce array, Sound, bugles! sound again! Sound, bugles! sound again! Like brothers, all;— God bless them all! Sound, bugles! sound again! No matter how they fought, He guided what they wrought: THE GREAT QUESTION SETTLED.-THROUGH GETTYSBURG TO A GRANDER UNION. (Extracts from Address of George William Curtis, delivered at the QuarterCentenary of the Battle of Gettysburg, before the Veterans of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia, July 3, 1888, and by permission edited for the "Patriotic Reader.") UPON this field, consecrated by American valor, we meet to consecrate ourselves to American Union. In this hallowed ground lie buried not only brave soldiers of the blue and the gray, but the passions of war, the jealousies of sections, and the bitter root of all our national differences,-human slavery. Here, long and angry controversies of political dogma, of material interest, and of local pride and tradition, came to their decisive struggle. The great question is settled. Other questions, indeed, remain, which will sternly try our patriotism and our wisdom; but they will be appealed to the ordeal of battle no longer. They will be settled in those peaceful, popular, and parliamentary contentions which befit a patriotic and intelligent republican people. . . . Even the civil war has but quickened and deepened our pros perous activities. Those mighty armies of the blue and the gray, marshalled for the warfare of a generation, if such had been decreed, swiftly and noiselessly disappeared; and all that military energy and discipline and skill, streaming into a thousand industries, are as beneficent in peace, as they were terrible in war. What prouder spectacle is there for America! what vision could more worthily stimulate devout gratitude in every American heart, than that of the States south of the Potomac, which, after the fierce and wasting stress of four years of war upon their soil, after the total overthrow of their ancient industrial system, the destruction of their wealth, the complete paralysis of their business energies, are rising together like a brood of Titans, and, under the inspiration of liberty, peace, and assured union, are renewing the wonderful tale of the earlier years of the century, the progress and development of the great West! The power and resources of those States, in war, seem to have revealed to them their unsuspected skill and force, in peace. The vigor, the tenacity, the ability, that contested victory upon this field, for those famous three days, are now working the greater miracles of industrial enterprise. Never before was the sword beaten into so vast a ploughshare, nor the spear into so prodigious a pruning-hook... Can we wrest from the angel of this hour any blessing so priceless as the common resolution that we shall not have come to this consecrated spot only to declare our joy and gratitude, nor only to cherish proud and tender memories, but also to pledge ourselves to Union, in its sublimest significance ? Here, at last, is its sacred secret revealed! It lies in the patriotic instinct which has brought to this field the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac. It lies in the manly emotion with which the generous soldier sees only the sincerity and the courage of his ancient foe, and scorns suspicion of a lingering enmity. It lies in the perfect freedom of speech, and perfect fraternity of spirit, which now for three days have glowed in these heroic hearts, and echoed in this enchanted air. These are the forces that assure the future of our beloved country! May they go before us on our mighty march, a pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night! Happy for us, happy for mankind, if we and our children shall comprehend that they are the fundamental conditions of the life of the republic! Then-long after-when, in a country whose vast population covering the continent with the glory of a civilization which the imagination cannot forecast, the completed century of the great battle shall be celebrated, the generation which shall gather here, in our places, will rise up and call us blessed! Then, indeed, the fleeting angel of this hour will have yielded his most precious benediction; and in the field of Gettysburg as we now behold it, the blue and the gray blending in happy harmony, like the mingling hues of the summer landscape, we may see the radiant symbol of the triumphant America of our pride, our hope, and our joy! GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. NO CONFLICT NOW. (From Oration delivered at Charlestown, Massachusetts, June 17, 1875, at the Centennial Anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, by General Devens, and edited by permission for the "Patriotic Reader.") WELCOME to the citizens of every State, alike from those which represent the thirteen Colonies, and from the younger States of the Union! In the earnest hope that the liberty, guarded and sustained by the sanctions of law, which the valor of the fathers won for us, and which to-day we hold in solemn trust, may be transmitted to endless generations, we have gathered, in this countless throng, representing in its assemblage every portion of our common country. A welcome, cordial, generous, and heart-felt, to each and all! Above all, let us strive to maintain and renew the fraternal feeling which should exist between all the States of the Union. The difficulty which the fathers could not eliminate from the problem before them, they dealt with, with all the wisdom and foresight they possessed. Two classes of States had their place, differing radically in this, that in the one, the system of slavery existed. Believing that the whole system would fade before the noble influence of free government, they watched, that when that day came, the instrument they signed should bear no trace of its existence. It was not so to be; and the system has passed away in the tempest of battle and amid the clang of arms. The conflict is over! No harsh punishments have sullied the conclusion! Day by day the material evidences of war fade from sight; the bastions sink to the level of the ground which surrounded them; scarp and counterscarp meet in the ditch which divided them. So let them pass away, forever! To-day, it is the highest duty of all, no matter on what side they were, but, above all, of those who have struggled for the preservation of the Union, to strive that it become one of generous confidence, in which all the States shall, as of old, stand shoulder to shoulder, if need be, against the world in arms. Towards those with whom we were lately in conflict, and who recognize that the results are to be kept inviolate, there should be no feeling of resentment or bitterness. All true men are with the South, in demanding for her peace, order, honest and good government, and encouraging her in the work of rebuilding all that has been made desolate. We need not doubt the issue. She will not stand as the "Niobe of nations," lamenting her sad fate; she will not look back to deplore a past which cannot, and should not, return; but, with the fire of her ancient courage, she will gird herself up to the emergencies of her new situation; she will unite her people by the bonds of that mutual confidence which their mutual interests demand, and renew her former prosperity, and her rightful influence in the Union. Beside those of New England, we are gratified to-day by the presence of military organizations from New York and Pennsylvania, from Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, as well as by that of distinguished citizens from these and other States of the Union. Their fathers were ancient friends of Massachusetts; it was the inspiration they gave which strengthened the heart and nerved the arm of every man in New England. every proper and larger sense, the soil upon which their sons stand, to-day, is theirs, as much as ours; and wherever there may have been estrangement, here, at least, we have met on common ground. They unite with us in recognition of the In |