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6 MILITARY ESSAYS AND RECOLLECTIONS
AMERICAS FIRST PRESIDENT 7
confess before Thee our manifold sins; a wail has been
heard in many dwellings, and there has been a strife
amongst those who ought to have been brethren; but we
bless Thee for the hundreds and thousands of brave soldiers
who went forth to battle for their country. Be with them
still, and may they keep brightly burning the fire of liberty
on the altar of our country. We pray that the nation Thou
hast raised up shall be perpetuated to Thy honor and glory.
Let Thy blessings rest upon the officers of the army and
navy now returned to peaceful labors. Let Thy blessings
rest upon the wounded, the widow and the orphan. Bless
the services of this day, and grant that a spirit of patriotism
+ spread over our land. Hear us, as Thou hast taught us,
saying: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy
name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive
us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against
us; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from
evil, for Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory
forever. Amen.
General Cadwalader then introduced the orator of the day,
Major General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, of Maine, late
commanding 1st Division, 5th Corps, Army of the Potomac.
Oration by General Chamberlain.
MOST EMINENT COMMANDER: You bid me rise to a duty
before which the spirit swells with emotion and the tongue is
slow with awe. The day, dear to history, commemorating the
birth of the Father of his country; the place, where the voices
of liberty gathered and rose in that great Declaration which
shook the thrones of the world; the occasion, the gathering of a
Legion, tried and true, to celebrate the triumph of loyalty, the
pronounced decree of God, that right shall still be might; the
assembly, these most excellent companions who have given
proof in these later times of a valor that will kindle at the name
of country and a manhood in which the fiery ordeal can fmd no
blemish; these friends revered and beloved, this concord of
strength and beauty, these who at home stood by the right as
only strong men can do, and these to whom nature has decreed
that their strength shall be rather of the soul than the body, but
whose burden and whose blessing have been no lessall this
makes the demands of this service such that I might well be
pardoned for hesitation.
As I look upon this assembly, the years of blood pass
before my vision. I see before me the men to whom I am
bound by sternest memories of toil and suffering, nay, by
nearer bonds; for with their blood my own (if I may say it
freely) has literally been mingled on fields that live in story. I
see those gentler spirits who have given their dearest as not too
costly for the offering, and to whom it has been my sorrowful
lot to transmit the tidings of how worthily and how completely
the sacrifice was finished; and other spirits, too, that rise
unbidden, but not unwelcome. And it seems to me that silence
is most befitting; that to memory and love alone we should
consecrate the hour.
But there are words also befitting. The day, the place, the
occasion, the assemblage, are no less suggestive of grateful
discourse. The very phrase of your official title has in each
separate word a theme not unworthy of the hour: The Military
Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. Significant
name! By the military has come order, and because a legion
has been loyal the States are still united. The words of power
swell to a climax as they close. The United States, the aim and
end of all! Let, then, the spirit which animates your order be
invoked to guide our thoughts, and let the sacred remon
strances of the day put our hearts in such frame as shall best
receive them. And what other theme can all these august and
affecting associations permit, but that which binds us together
as to the past and to the future, of which one word is the token
and talismanLoyalty? Let us then take counsel together upon
this matter of loyalty, as I deem we have a right; since to the
duty of it we yielded an unquestioning obedience, the discus-
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