DEDICATION OF MONUMENT

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27TH REGIMENT INFANTRY

ORCHARD KNOB, NOVEMBER 15TH, 1897.

ADDRESS OF PRIVATE JOHN EMHART.

OMRADES:--We have assembled on this historic ground far from our homes, to dedicate this monument to the valor of our dead comrades, and to the heroism of the Twenty-seventh Regiment, and as chairman, I deem it my duty to make a few remarks.

The State of Pennsylvania, by its Legislature, passed an act appropriating one thousand five hundred dollars to each organization that took part in the battles around Chattanooga. The Governor was authorized to appoint a committee to erect monuments, and also appointed a committee of three of each organization to select a proper design. Your committee has adopted this design which was approved by the Commission.

Comrades, this monument does not mark the position which the regiment held during the fight. The reason I will briefly explain. The position we held being on Tunnel Hill, that part of the battle ground not belonging to the Government, and not being in possession of the Chickamauga-Chattanooga Battlefields Commission, they decided to erect on Orchard Knob all monuments belonging to organizations whose positions are not included in the Battlefield Park Ground. We all had wished it would mark the ground on which so many of our dear comrades gave their lives that the nation might live.

And now, to the memory of our fallen comrades of the Twenty-seventh Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, and to the regiment in whose ranks they fell, we solemnly dedicate this monument.

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ADDRESS OF CAPTAIN J. ADELSHEIMER.

OMRADES:-If every man had cause to kneel in thankful prayer before the Throne of Grace, we of the Twenty-seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers, the few of us who are still left of a once powerful regiment have ample cause to lift our hearts in thanks to our Heavenly Father, who hath protected us to this day, who hath guided our footsteps to this sacred spot.

Once before we had the honor to participate in a celebration of which to-day's is a worthy counterpart, when our own Keystone State, ever mindful of the honor due to her boys in blue, dedicated monuments on the battlefield of Gettysburg to such of her commands as had partici

pated in that most memorable battle of the late war, and the Twentyseventh Pennsylvania was there.

The State of Pennsylvania again does herself proud by dedicating monuments to her sons, living and dead, who stood on these fields in the battles of Chickamauga, Wauhatchie, Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and the Twenty-seventh Pennsylvania again was there.

Do you remember, comrades, how our corps commander, General Howard, came to us in the middle of the night, after the battle of Missionary Ridge, before starting us on our march to Knoxville to the relief of General Burnside's Army, and made a little speech highly complimenting the conduct of the Twenty-seventh at the ridge?

These are the General's own words:

"The main attack was along the crest of the ridge. Lieutenant Colonel McAloon actually led his regiment (the Twenty-seventh) up that steep acclivity five or six hundred feet high, under a terrific fire of grape and musketry and stayed there until he was mortally wounded, as was Lieutenant Vogelbach and others."

Again, in General Orders No. 32, issued from headquarters Eleventh Army Corps, December 17, 1863, in Lookout Valley, after our return from the Knoxville expedition, the General addressed the Twenty-seventh Pennsylvania in the following language:-

"Words cannot express the gratitude and praise due to a command that has so cheerfully suffered every hardship in order to perform its trust and secure to our country and to our cause results more glorious and more valuable than any of the war. The general will now only tender you his warmest congratulations and hearty thanks for the good name which you have won and secured in this eventful campaign.

"We will not soon forget a battle which has cost us such precious lives as those of Lieutenant Colonel McAloon and the other dead. At the post of honor and duty these true and noble soldiers have with their blood enhanced the price of victory."

So spoke General Howard of the Twenty-seventh generally and of our Lieutenant Colonel McAloon especially. Upon us devolves the sacred duty to forever cherish his memory.

Having a monument way down east and a monument way out west, nearly a thousand miles apart, one might suppose the Twenty-seventh had been everywhere. No, my comrades! the Twenty-seventh was not everywhere.

From the very nature and extent of territory to be covered no command could be everywhere. But the Twenty-seventh was very frequently where, as one of our men innocently remarked in June, '62, at the battle of Cross Keys away up in Shenandoah Valley, when he received a bullet through his cheek, "By the Lord, I can't stand this; why, a fellow isn't safe of his life here." And the Twenty-seventh has been in numbers of such places where the same remark would hold good most emphatically. But the safety of our lives was not the subject for consideration. There was another life at stake, of far greater importance to a far