before the journey would be half ended or the tale half told. And even if it were possible to do this I should still be far from the end of the history of this grand old regiment of ours, which was called upon, after Lee's surrender, to spend many months of service in the far off State of Texas, where the dangers which befell us from the diseases incident to a strange climate were almost as great and almost as fatal as were the dangers which confronted us while facing the armed foes of our country.

I well remember, that during the single week we were encamped at Green Lake, Texas, fully a sccre of our comrades were stricken with and died from what in the parlance of that section was called "brake-bone fever." It then seemed to us hard indeed that so many brave boys who had escaped the danger of over half a hundred battlefields should have been compelled, months after the war was over and peace proclaimed, to yield up their lives amid the fever stricken swamps of an inhospitable climate, thousands of miles away from their homes and the friends who were looking and longing for their return.

Now comrades, the temptation for me to continue talking to-day is very great. Each face before me this afternoon brings up a flood of memories, and I fully realize that never again after we leave this spot will I look into all your faces again in this world, but I must allow others to talk to you. Here is Colonel Robinson, who at the time of the battle here commanded company E. He was wounded and captured here, and after spending more than a year in different Confederate prisons returned to us and became our lieutenant colonel, and was afterwards breveted brigadier general. He must have a vivid recollection of much that occurred here. So, too, must Captain McDowell, who was the first to discover the presence of the enemy on that eventful evening, and who also became a prisoner after having been wounded.

Now I know both of these gentlemen have been little accustomed to speech-making, but they can at least stand up and let you look at them. They are not quite as young and good looking as when you last saw them on this spot, but their interest in you and in all that pertains to the history and achievements of the regiment is as deep as ever and can only diminish with death.

Now, comrades, good-bye. And as we leave this spot, let us hope that this monument may stand here for ages, telling to our children and to our children's children, if they should ever visit this field, that it was here their fathers fought, not in an unholy war of conquest, but in a great struggle for human liberty and for the preservation of the American Union. Our old soldiers are fast passing away and it will be but a few more years at best until the last one of the survivors of that grand old army, which a third of a century ago shook this continent with its firm and mighty tread, will have "passed from earth to his rest in the grave." When that time comes the deeds of the men who comprised that army can live only on the painter's canvass, in the sculptured bronze and marble, or in story and in song. Let us hope, that no lapse of time or change of

political conditions will ever cause the people of this beloved land of ours to forget the magnitude of the principles involved in that great struggle, and all that it cost in blood and treasure to maintain them.

"Some things are worthless, some so good,

That Nations which buy, buy only with blood."

C

ADDRESS OF GENERAL W. A. ROBINSON.

OMRADES:-As Captain Skinner has truly said, I am not accustomed to speech-making, and shall not attempt to begin that role now. I can at least, however, express my very great pleasure in being permitted to look again into the faces of so many of you. Some of you I have not seen since I parted with you on this ground over thirty-four years ago. It was my misfortune to fall into the hands of the enemy on that night, which we all remember so well, and when I returned to the regiment more than a year afterwards many changes had taken place; some were dead, and others of you had left the service on account of wounds or other disabilities. Those of us who have met here to-day should thank God that He has preserved us all these years, and has permitted us to revisit this spot to participate in these dedication ceremonies. When I read in your faces and hear from your lips the gratification that you all feel over having this splendid monument erected in your honor by the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I feel amply repaid for my share of the labors performed by the executive committee of the ChickamaugaChattanooga Battlefields Commission. Only those who have served with me upon that committee can have any adequate conception of the amount of labor we have been obliged to perform, not only in locating positions, but in agreeing upon designs and in securing the necessary legislation and appropriation of n.oneys at Harrisburg. Now that our labors of more than four years of hard active effort have been crowned with success, we certainly have cause for feeling like congratulating ourselves. It is a pleasure to us to see this historic field crowned with so many Pennsylvania monuments, and it is a greater pleasure to us to know that our work is approved by you in almost every particular. Of course, in the performance of our duties we have been assisted in many ways by others, r.ot only by comrades of other regiments and other states who fought with us on this field, but by distinguished gentlemen of our own State, who aided us in securing the proper legislation to carry our plans into effect. While I cannot here attempt to mention all who have assisted in this direction, I feel that I should not neglect to make public acknowledgment of the aid and sympathy given us at various times by Governor Pattison, Governor Hastings, General Boynton, Senator James G. Mitchell and Representative William T. Marshall, the two latter gentlemen being, respectively, chairman of the Senate and House Appropriation Com

mittees. Then, too, we were fortunate in having Captain Skinner, in the House of Representatives while this legislation was being asked for, and if he had not done his whole duty by us we would certainly have had him court marshaled and shot.

Now, my comrades, instead of attempting to make any further remarks of my own, I am going to have read and included as the remaining portion of my speech, a letter from one who was well known to you all in the days of your service, who was your commanding officer when you entered this fight, who was captured here and who, after several months confinement in southern prisons, returned to take command of you in many other engagements before the close of the war. He was every inch a soldier. After our regiment was mustered out in 1866, he sought and obtained a commission in the regular army and has but recently been placed on the retired list after more than thirty years service under the "old flag." I know you will join with me in expressing many regrets that he could not be with us to-day and I feel that you will all be interested in receiving his message to you which I now ask the chairman to have read.

LETTER FROM COLONEL THOMAS E. ROSE.

Vernal, Utah, September 15, 1897.

To my Comrades of the Seventy-seventh Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry:

My Dear Comrades: A letter that I have just received from Comrades W. A. Robinson and G. W. Skinner, informs me that the Pennsylvania Monuments on the battlefield of Chickamauga, Ga., are to be dedicated on the 15th of November, and kindly invites me, on behalf of the comrades of this regiment, to come and assist in the dedication. Nothing could give more heartfelt delight than to be with you there to assist in this work but it is impossible for me to be there.

I should love to see the monuments. I have the photographs of the one to be dedicated to the memory of the Seventy-seventh. It is beautiful and appropriate and from the picture of the surroundings and from letters that I have received from time to time in regard to it, it is excellently located.

I feel under great obligations to Colonel W. A. Robinson and other comrades of the regiment, for the untiring care and attention that they have given to the design and preparation, and to the selection of the location of this beautiful monument.

It grieves me sadly that I could not have been with them, to assist them all through this arduous work; but I have the satisfaction to know that it could not have been better done and may be would not have been done so well. Still; the pleasure it would have been to me to have assisted them in any work of benefit, or honor, to my comrades, would have been unbounded; and I feel a great grief in having to forego the pleasure it would give me, to be with you on the occasion of the dedication of these monuments.

There is hardly a week or a day passes, that the familiar face of some comrade of the Seventy-seventh does not come vividly to my mind. Even as I write this letter they all appear to be standing around me, the living and the dead, watching the words as they come from my pen. But they appear as they did in the days of their early manhood. They appear as they did when I saw them bid farewell to their dearest kindred and homes, when life was dear and sweet, to go forth to encounter the hardships, privations and dangers, of a long and exhausting war. As they did when I saw them on the weary march from midnight to midnight, Tramp! Tramp! no rest for days and nights together; through rain and sleet and snow; through wintry blasts and under the summer's burning sun; in sweltering heat and dust as dense as atmosphere could hold, on narrow roads, through dense forests, over mountain passes, climbing, and plunging through swollen streams; as when I saw them on the lonely picket in the face of the gravest danger; as when I saw them on every battlefield, fighting in the very jaws of death, with all the desperation of men struggling for their lives-not for fame or glory-but to save their country; as when I saw them receiving dreadful wounds, and being carried from the

field in agony; as when I saw them lay down their young, sweet lives on bloody fields, often right by my side; as when I saw them with despairing countenances, in prison pens and horrid dungeons. And also when I saw them in the hour of their final triumph, with victory on their banner, when the war clouds broke and peace once more reigned over our country.

These scenes have long since passed; and many of the actors have passed away. But I was with them all in every vicissitude, from first to last; and their familiar forms and faces may well come vividly to my memory, as I saw them then, though I was to live for a thousand years.

Those of the actors who still remain have passed from youth and vigorous manhood to old age. I have no doubt they are greatly changed in appearance; and the contrast between the vision I have related, and the reality, if all the survivors were now to meet, would probably cause, for a moment, a feeling of sadness in our hearts; but the great joy that would be produced by such a meeting would quickly over-balance any such feeling; for the same hearts beat in those bosoms with a friendship for each other and a love for our country, that time can never remove.

In consideration of the deeds and sacrifices that I have related, our countrymen have seen fit to honor us by erecting these beautiful monuments, and well, I think, they may see fit to do so. Not for our sakes only, but for their's and future generations.

As the story of Lexington, Bunker Hill, Monmouth, Saratoga, Yorktown and other battles of the Revolution, came to our childhood's ears to remind us, that, by the struggles and sacrifices of our forefathers, they erected for us, out of thirteen poor, disunited and dependent colonies of England, a great and glorious country of freedom, so let these beautiful monuments on the battlefields of Shiloh, Gettysburg, Chickamauga, Vicksburg and other great battles of the war, remind our children and future generations that, by our struggles and sacrifices, we erected and perpetuated for them, out of a country that was in the very throes of dissolution and death, one of the foremost nations of the earth.

To future generations, if they have the same patriotism and love of country that burns within our breasts, which God grant they may ever have, it will be the very foremost nation of the earth, even if it is not now.

Much has been said of the vast power of England even by Americans. The great Daniel Webster said "She is a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum beat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England."

Now it is true that our country is not a power that has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, but her influence is none the less felt in every land and sea and clime.

She, indeed, has no drum beat following the sun and keeping company with the hours; but as the morning sunbeams first reach her glad shores at the eastern sea and advance from meridian to meridian lighting up fir clad hills, great valleys, lakes, rivers, vast plains and snow capped mountains, until they touch with a crimson glow the waters of the western ocean, they are followed and the hours are accompained by the awakening hum of peaceful industry, and songs of joy and gladness from the midst of surroundings which contain all that is dear to the heart of man; not from detached and distant posts over intervening stretches of barbarism; but over one whole, united and enlightened country that extends from ocean to ocean and from the burning tropics to the frozen regions under the midnight sun.

My comrades, it was to assist in preserving and perpetuating this great country that we banded together, in the hour of its direst peril, under the name of the Seventy-seventh Regiment of Pennsylvania Infantry and were so organized; and while battling for our country for four years, until she emerged from every danger, we formed a friendship and love for each other which will continue as long as life lasts. It is in honor of this band of devoted friends that this beautiful monument has been erected and dedicated; and, after the last of us shall have passed through the dark valley to the great beyond, may this beautiful monument still stand, and may it long be remembered of us how well we loved and served our country.

Very respectfully,

Your obedient servant and affectionate comrade, THOMAS E. ROSE, Colonel, Seventy-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry.

Ο

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF REGIMENT.*

N THE 1st of August, 1861, Frederick S. Stumbaugh, a citizen of Chambersburg, received authority from the War Department to recruit a regiment, to be composed of eight companies of infantry, and one of artillery. A camp of rendezvous was established at Chambersburg, and subsequently at Camp Wilkins, near Pittsburgh. The men were principally recruited in the counties of Franklin, Cumberland, Allegheny, Lancaster, Huntingdon, Blair, Fulton and Luzerne. Company G, raised at Scranton, was composed of Welchmen, or of Welch descent, noted for their stern bravery, as were the men generally of this regiment, well proved on many a hard fought field. A body of men known as Company H, though never fully organized on account of lack of numbers, continued with the regiment some time, marched hundred of miles, and was actually engaged in one battle, but was never paid, and was finally disbanded. The company of artillery was recruited at Erie, under Captain Muehler, which received some accessions from a company recruited at Chambersburg, under Captain Housum. It remained with the regiment until the beginning of the year 1862, when it was detached, and never afterwards rejoined it. In October, 1861, a regimental organization was effected by the choice of the following officers: Frederick S. Stumbaugh, Colonel; Peter B. Housum, of Franklin county, Lieutenant Colonel; Stephen N. Bradford, of Luzerne county, Major. While at Camp Wilkins, company and regimental drill was studiously prosecuted, and the command was assigned to a brigade composed of the Seventyseventh, Seventy-eighth and Seventy-ninth Pennsylvania Regiments, under command of Brigadier General James S. Negley.

On the 18th of October, the regiment moved by transport to Louisville, and thence marched south on the line of the Louisville Railroad to the north bank of the Nolin river, where it was encamped for a month, and subsequently at Camp Negley, a mile south of the stream. Here the regiment was detached from Negley's Brigade, and assigned to Wood's when it moved to the camp of the latter, five miles east. Proceeding leisurely forward, and spending considerable time in camps by the way, the regiment arrived at Nashville, on the 2d of March, 1862, the capture of Forts Henry and Donaldson, two weeks earlier, by General Grant, having opened the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers, and prepared the way for its occupation. Soon after his victories of the 16th of February, General Grant, crossing over to the Cumberland river, moved up with his com

*Extract from Bates' History of Pennsylvania Volunteers.

†Organization of the Fifth Brigade (subsequently the Second), General Thomas J. Wood, Second Division; General A. M'Dowell M'Cook, Buell's Army (subsequently the Twentieth Corps). Seventy-seventh Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, Colonel Frederick S. Stumbaugh; Twenty-ninth Regiment Indiana Volunteers, Colonel John F. Miller: Thirtieth Regim ent Indiana Volunteers, Colonel Sion S. Bass; Thirty-fourth Regiment Illinois Volunteers, Colonel Edward N. Kirk.