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thrilling and glorious as it is, of your grand march to the sea; these grand themes, attractive as they are to the citizen, are much more familiar to you.

It is said that history is God's providence in human affairs, and that a part of it is to assign to the actors in great events their proper places. As the years go by this will be more perfectly done, until at last history will be truthfully written, and every man in the Army of the Tennessee will have been correctly placed. The triumphs of your army, as the news flashed along the wires from State to State, electrified the people, and kindled in their hearts a living, active patriotism, which I trust in God may never die.

As I welcome you, Mr. President and gentlemen, I am sad in the recollection that several of your most honored members are not here. McPherson and Fairchild are not here; my old schoolmate, Rawlins, as true a man as God ever made, is not here. They have all gone to their long homes, having given their lives. as a willing sacrifice on the altar of their country. But I will not dwell on the historic past. That period of trial and danger and death, those scenes through which the Army of the Tennessee passed in defense of the integrity of the Government, consecrated in a measure every man who bore a manly part.

The people do honor to themselves in honoring them, and I desire to say in their presence, in the hearing of citizen and soldier, that I trust the time may not come in this land when the citizen in the peaceful walks of life shall fail to honor the brave men who, when danger comes, offer their services and lives, if need be, to maintain the Government against all its enemies. The American soldier is an American patriot, and as such deserves the affection of the people.

But, Mr. President, I am transgressing on your time. Nine years have passed away since your army was disbanded. You are here, as I believe, not in the interest of strife and war and national disorder, but in the interest of peace, and to encourage and keep alive those memories and friendships and affections for each other, the depth and strength of which it is said none but a true soldier can realize.

Wishing you all, then, a happy reunion, again in behalf of our city, the home and resting-place of the lamented, immortal Lincoln, I welcome you with the frankness and cordiality due to your recognized patriotism and valor.

Mr. Cullum's address was listened to with marked attention, and many times applauded in the course of its delivery.

MUSIC by the Band:-"Angel of Peace."-Chorus.

SPEECH OF GENERAL SHERMAN.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:-The programme which is placed in my hands, I see, says that General W. T. Sherman is to make an address this evening to the Society. I rather think the Local Committee overstepped the bounds of their power in that little item. There is no trouble in my making an address to this Society-not the least. I could do it without any labor or effort at all, for when hearts are in common our thoughts flow out in purest harmony-there is no jarring, and generally eloquence results, so that I feel it no trouble when called upon to address the Army of the Tennessee. We have so much in common-so many pleasant recollections in the past, that one has but to think back a few years to get colors as bright as yesterday. But there are others here who are to take up your time. We are assembled to hear General Hurlbut deliver an oration, and I know it will be well worth your time and hearing. And I do not intend to occupy your time, but simply to bring back your memories to the feelings that used to animate your minds as you were marching along, not only through Georgia, but through Tennessee and everywhere; and in order to bring before you that feeling, which to me is so cheerful and good, and to you likewise, I am aware that in this hall, and I hope very near my elbow, is a quartette from Chicago, known as Lombards. (Great Applause.)

As about 18 minutes is the usual allowance for a speech, I give to these gentlemen about 12 of my time, and call upon them to sing none of these new-fangled songs at all, but one of those old And so ending his address, called for Lombard.

ones.

The “Lombards," were also loudly called by the audience, and the Quartette sang: "Unfurl the Banner," with most excellent effect, and received hearty cheering.

MUSIC by the 10th Cavalry Band:—“Sherman's March to the Sea."-Chorus.

ANNUAL ORATION BY MAJOR-GENERAL

S. A. HURLBUT.

Again, comrades of the Army of the Tennessee, as the year rolls round, we have met to answer to the roll-call, to renew our recollections of the past, to enjoy for awhile in each other's society the swiftly passing present, and to plan and hope for the future.

There is a special fitness, to my mind, in the place and the time of this reunion. We stand in the capital of this great State, which by population, by enthusiasm in the cause, and by geographical situation, was the keystone of the great Northwest, dominating from her position of advantage the navigation of the waters of the Mississippi and Ohio, and controlling largely the access to those great natural lines of operation and supply, tendered to the nation by the Cumberland and the Tennessee, and so grandly utilized by the intellect that formed, and the unflinching will that led the Army of the Tennessee upon its first experiment of piercing one line of the enemy's defense, and at the same time, and by the same movement, flanking another.

From this vantage ground of Illinois, the first direct, straightforward movement in the West was made, and the low delta that terminates in Cairo has become historic ground, as the original base of operations for both army and navy in the great problem of clearing the Mississippi and forcing antagonists back to interior lines, which again in due time were to be crushed and broken by bolder movements, covering larger areas of territory, demanding more men, greater experience, and that thoroughness of soldiership that can only be attained from days of march and battle, and nights of bivouac.

But Illinois not only had these physical advantages, this magnitude of importance from her strategic position. She was also fortunate at that hour of peril, in the possession of great men in high places, men of large hearts, of wonderful earnestness, of grand capacity for convictions, of absolute faith in right and justice, and in the successful out-come of all that went to maintain the right and put down the wrong.

Some of these still live among us, and of them I may not speak by name. Some have closed their mortal career, and of one such, I, standing here on this occasion, will venture some few words, not wholly inappropriate, I trust, not wholly unresponded to by those who hear me.

There was a man, Governor of this great State in those early days of the war, full of high qualities and of rare promise; with singular power of attaching others to him; of great eloquence, because of great convictions; of steady faith and earnest purpose, thoroughly devoted to his country and careless of results, so that the country be sustained. How true and manly he was, how he poured the energy of his own purpose and will into the hearts of the people, how he met, defied and overthrew incipient treason at home, and how the whole stormy patriotism of the State rallied around him, the history of the time will show.

That he was far from perfect, we, his best friends well know; that the beauty and symmetry of his character were warped and marred by his want of control over his lower self, we knew then and know now, but after all is said that can be said by moralist or philosopher, now that he lies in his grave yonder at Jacksonville, no soldier of Illinois, no member of this Society, no true lover of his country, but will pass judgment on his career, mercifully, kindly and lovingly, and acknowledge that one element of success in the early days of the war was the fact that Richard Yates was Governor of Illinois.

But there is a mightier presence here. Beneath yonder just completed monument rest the remains of a man so great, yet so simple, that the world but now begins to realize the strong and rough-hewn power of the dead. So full of homely wisdom; so patient to wait; so discerning of the popular will; so apt at strong parables containing the wealth of sound thought; so persistent in believing better of men than they seem to deserve; so humane and tender in his feelings; so faithful to convictions when once fully elaborated in his own mind after painful and hesitating selfquestioning; so apt to wield with equal facility the high faculty of severe logic, or the easy play of natural humor-the great President was a citizen in his life of this city, and the vast glory of the patriot, statesman and martyr fills all this scene to-day.

To-morrow the monument will be unveiled, and from the eloquent lips of our comrade, his old and tried friend, you will learn the outlines of a life and character wholly and singularly American—a sketch of a man who by no possibility could have been the product of any other nation, and scarcely of any other period in the life of this nation.

His work, the work appointed for him to do, was thoroughly

done before the bullet of the assassin pierced the long-laboring brain, and those sad and patient eyes closed forever upon the country he loved, just coming forth stained with the smoke of battle, but glorious all over with the light of a God-given triumph. Friend as he was of all, yet specially and with singular tenderness was he a friend of the soldier; and, therefore, this reunion is fortunate as to time, in that it becomes a portion of the great ceremonial which shall give fitting honor to the martyr President. This much I have deemed it right to say of the State and her dead, not, I trust, in any spirit of invidious comparison, for I know that in the great struggle each and all of the States represented here to-day swept gallantly to the front; that all had their great and good men in the right place at the right time; nor that I dream of dwarfing down the fame of Lincoln to the petty dimensions of any one State, when it is already the inheritance of the nation; but because these thoughts of mine spring naturally from the time and the place, and I could not keep them down if I would, and would not if I could.

Organized originally on the soil of Illinois, this Army of the Tennessee went forth to meet the events that might befall it.

Looking back now on its wonderful career, it seems like looking back on the course of a great continental river. Small in its beginnings from little springs and fountains up in the far highlands, fed and increased from time to time by affluents from a thousand sources, sometimes clearing its way in foam and struggle through rock-ribbed mountains, turned by over-mastering obstacles not seldom from its direct course, yet ever swinging back again to the predestined line; now gloomy in the thick darkness of great forests; now in broad reaches of smooth current and clear sunlight; now in scant supply of water from its distant Northern birthplace, languishing and slow, then again filled bank-full by the gracious showers far off above, and finally cutting, wearing and crashing through all barriers made by nature and by man, it sweeps grandly, silently, overwhelmingly by hamlet, village and city to the sea.

So with the Army of the Tennessee. Gathered from all parts of the country, from tens of thousands of homes, by mountain, hill and prairie, from city, village, or lonely farm, from the workbench, the counter, the school, the plow, from mines and distant logging camp, the wearers of the blue came down to swell the ranks of the great army of freedom.

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