your distant homes you may bear us in kind remembrance, we would with one voice exclaim-all hail to the Army of the Tennessee! Which was also gratifying to our members and fully appreciated. Colonel Bryant was introduced and spoke as follows: ADDRESS OF WELCOME BY JUDGE (COLONEL) GEO. E. BRYANT. COMRADES OF DAYS AGONE:-For those whose homes are here, who with you wore the blue with the crimson bar to the silvery star, I speak a soldier's welcome. With us, on these reunion days, sit down and share a soldier's joy, a soldier's fare. Our hearts are glad that you are here; we have labored with love to make your coming pleasant, that the memory of the days here spent and the good time you have may be pleasantly recurred to in the future, and that you will all want to come again, we hope. Our wives, our loves and our little ones are here to-night, with laughing eyes and smiling, rosy lips to join with us in bidding you a glad, a heartfelt welcome. Eat, drink and be merry; Wisconsin's Capital is yours, the fatted calves have bled, turkeys gobbled, chickens crowed, that you might be fed. The brewery, the vineyard and the still have brought forth their goodies for those of you who will. Hard tack and commissary are among the things that were; the best of this fair land is garnered here for you. With us you'll fight your battles o'er, and while you will greet with gladness your living comrades, and while the shout, the song, the jocund laugh goes round you will not forget to drop a tear to the memory of those who are bivouaced on the other shore; you will remember our third commander, the idolized McPherson, who fell in the very battle's front, dying as a soldier loves to die; you will remember gallant Crocker, who sickened by the wayside as we marched toward Rome, and was sent home to beautiful Iowa, to those he loved, to die; you will remember Ransom-companion of my boyhood, bravest of the brave-who was always in the battle's front, yet died of fell disOf such we say, ease. "Their swords are rust, Their good steeds dust, Their spirits with the saints, we trust." It is your fortune to have lived in stirring times, times that tried men's souls and showed of what metal they were made; for four years you toiled and fought and conquered, that your country might be preserved. You are proud of the old Army of the Tennessee; well may you be; it was a noble army. On its formation there was Granted to it never to Suffer defeat, and though not without Gile, it could without stimulants Leggett to the flank, front or any post of danger; in the rear it was Slack; it was True and Strong, and moved with Noyes and Loop and Spear from Cairo to the sea, under the folds of the flags of the 12th and 16th Wisconsin, that now hang over you; its Force stormed Bald Hill and first saw the towers of Atlanta, and the next day, though battered and torn, its leader slain, under the command of fearless John A. Logan, it Dodged the destruction a Hood had thrown over it. We joyfully greet your invited guests, officers of other armies, who vied with us in doing battle for the right; and thrice glad are we to see so many officers of the United States Army of to-day with us. Your commander is our President; and while we regret his inability to be present with us on this our sixth reunion, we know that whether sitting at the right hand of royalty or in quiet at his inn amid some mountain fastness, Sherman's thoughts are with us and of us, and we are glad he is permitted to see the wonders of the Old World. Governor Washburne, himself a comrade, has welcomed you on behalf of our young State, who, though scarcely out of its swaddling clothes when the low mutterings of Sumter's guns were heard, sent with alacrity a hundred thousand of her young men to do battle for the right; and Mayor Hill, crowned in April last with special reference to your coming, has spoken for the city of Madison, in which city the first military company from the State was raised and tendered for the suppression of the rebellion. In this beautiful city Wisconsin's recruits were mustered; here her veterans were discharged. Comrades, year after year you come together, not to stir up strife, not to foster hatred or keep alive revengeful feelings towards our brothers of the South, for who of you does not know how brave they were. You met them on the skirmish line, where the sharp crack of the rifle and the zip of the Minnie bullet made music for the advancing column; you have met them in the deadly charge and at the cannon's mouth; you met them as conquerors and as prisoners; you have shared with them your crackers and beef, and ate of their hoe-cake and bacon, and whoever heard of a Union officer or soldier being misused by a Confederate officer or soldier. It is true, that in the dungeons and prison pens, under the command of Home Guards and petty civil tyrants, many brave men suffered and starved. It was the wicked policy of a wicked and impoverished Government, and the act was scorned by the real soldiers of the South. You meet with no political purpose; heretofore you have been both Democrats and Republicans, but Old Father Time and the Cincinnati Convention have made you all, whether you will or no, Republicans, either Liberal or Radical. You have met year after year, and you will meet in the years to come with ranks growing thinner and thinner, but for one purpose, "to keep alive and preserve that kindly and cordial feeling which has been one of the characteristics of this army during its career in the service, and which has given it such harmony of action and contributed in no small degree to its glorious achievements in our country's cause.” "Comrades, we meet on this altar of thine, Mingling the gifts we have gathered for thee, Meadow, and mountain, and forest and sea, Sweet is the fragrance of myrtle and pine, Sweeter the incense we offer to thee, Comrades, once more 'round this altar of thine.” Colonel Bryant elicited much applause, as many of his remarks brought vividly to mind most interesting circumstances. MUSIC: "Auld Lang Syne." The President introduced the orator, Major-General M. D. Leggett, who spoke as follows: ANNUAL ADDRESS BY MAJOR-GENERAL M. D. LEGGETT. The gallant and gifted gentleman whom we selected as our orator for this interesting occasion has been prevented from meeting with us by circumstances beyond his control; and while I make a poor attempt to act as his substitute, I pray that you may be able to endure the half hour you expected to enjoy. In place of recounting incidents of our late war, and of fighting over again our bloody and bloodless battles, I have concluded to select, as the subject of what I may have to say, "The American Soldier." In our mountain scenery, our rivers and valleys, our expansive and fertile prairies, there is something peculiarly American. In our forms of government, our common schools, colleges and universities; our postal facilities. telegraphs and railroads; our caucuses, town meetings and conventions; our debating clubs, stump-speaking and newspapers; our ballot-boxes and legislative assemblies; our workshops and farms and real estate tenures, there is very much that is distinctively American. These may be regarded as our American institutions. They are the outgrowth from, and in turn beget, those national characteristics by which the American is everywhere recognized. If I were asked to name briefly the traits of character which I regard as peculiarly national in our people, I should designate individuality and adaptability, and the distinctive features of our institutions that make them American, are those which tend to develop these characteristics in our citizens. There is no other country in the world that offers so large a reward for personal ability and worth; no other that affords such facilities and inducements for developing individuality, manly independence and ready adaptability to surrounding circumstances, and no other where the individual man stands out so distinctively as an institution by himself. This inherent individualism of the American character becomes, if tempered with intelligence, that self-reliant independence so essential to success and usefulness. If guided by ignorance it too often takes the form of self-sufficient obstinacy, that can neither control nor be controlled; but in which ever shape it may be developed, the fact remains that individualism is a characteristic trait of the American. Wherever you find him, he is conscious of being a sovereign, of being his own ruler, with full authority to say "I will" and "I won't." This consciousness distinguishes him widely from servile races and people. He does not speak of "His Majesty's Government," but "my Government." He can say "my" and "mine" with all the assurance of a conscious lord. He thinks and plans for himself; he buys and sells, holds and conveys of the very terra firma upon which our institutions rest; and, above all, he votes and holds office. Of such men were the rank and file, as well as the field and staff, of our late immense army. No army was ever before constructed of such material, and none could be out of America. The adaptability of such men can be measured only by the needs of the occasion. It is not surprising that Europe stood aghast at the wonderful facility with which our farmers, mechanics, merchants, lawyers, teachers, students were transformed into soldiers, and no less astonishing to the nations that breed servility was the quiet return of our one million five hundred and sixteen thousand soldiers to the peaceful pursuits of civil life at the close of the war. Our wars do, and must, differ from all other wars. Our causes for war differ from the causes of war in other countries. There, a government, which is distinct from and outside of the men who compose the rank and file of the army, is to be defended, or a personal insult to a crowned head is to be resented, or a privileged class is to be upheld; in any case the great body of men who carry arms have but little personal interest in the results of armed conflicts. Our Government can engage in no war except to maintain and defend its institutions and the rights and freedom of its citizens. In the results of such a war the common soldier, the man standing lowest in the ranks, has an interest equal to that of the commander-in-chief, or of the President himself. Patriotism means more here than in most other countries. In addition to love of country, it embraces fidelity to one's own interests; fidelity to one's own wife and children, fidelity to one's own freedom, civil and religious; fidelity to all that one holds dear in life. A soldier inspired by such a patriotism differs widely from one moved only with loyalty to royal purple or mere love of country in the abstract. The true American soldier feels that he fights for himself, for his own interests; and when engaged in armed conflict, side by side with thousands of comrades, he is inspired with much of the same individuality that animates him when involved in an encounter with a single antagonist. He feels that he is fighting his own battle, that the result will be his victory or his defeat. Personal courage also has a broader and firmer foundation in the bosoms of such men. Even a timid woman will dare the midnight assassin and brave death itself to protect those she loves. The man who would be afraid of his moonlight shadow when battling for a cause in which he has neither head nor heart, will face the world in defense of his liber |