General W. A. Aiken of Norwich, Quarter-Master-General of the State of Connecticut in 1862, and after whom our Camp at Bridgeport was named, was introduced by General Noble, and acknowledged the hearty applause with which he was greeted by a short speech to the Association.
The following honorary members were elected:
Gen. W. A. Aiken of Norwich, Conn.
Gen. A. Ames of New York City.
Hon. Samuel Glover of Fairfield, Conn.
Hon. Charles H. Pine of Ansonia, Conn.
There being no further business to be transacted the annual dues were paid; after which the members of the Association, accompanied by their guests and lady friends, proceeded to the lot in the rear of the church near the Merwin House where tables were spread with a collation which is seldom equalled on such an occasion. Clam chowder, cold meats of various kinds, potatoes, pickles, bread, pie, etc., were abundant, but nary a dish of baked beans, and the Danbury members mourned thereat. About two hundred veterans partook of the collation, and there were a number of invited guests. As they retired from the field, such as desired were furnished with material for creating a smoke. There was no opportunity for indulging in that which doth intoxicate as Fairfield is a no-license town and rigidly observes the law.
The dinner done, the usual exercises of our re-union took place from a platform on the village green, surrounded by its Regiment and thousands of citizens. They began with a selection by the Wheeler & Wilson Band, and followed by addresses from President Phineas C. Lounsbury, Hon. William A. Beers, Rev. G. S. Burroughs, Hon. John H. Glover, Frank L. Rogers, Esq., of Fairfield, Hon. Charles H. Pine, of Ansonia (the Drummer Boy of the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery), Gen. William A. Aiken, of Norwich, Hon. J. R. Van Wormer, H. W. Curtis, Esq., of New York City, and Gen. William H. Noble, and a poem by Rev. J. K. Lombard, of Fairfield.
A large concourse of people gathered about the speaker's stand on the Green when the time arrived for beginning the exercises, and a large array of carriages skirted the throng. Great interest was manifested by the audience in the speeches which followed, and rarely were better or more interesting addresses hard at a regimental re-union. After a selection by the band, the President of the Association opened the literary feast with a ringing speech.
ADDRESS OF PRIVATE P. C. LOUNSBURY.
Ladies and Gentlemen of Fairfield:--I have no doubt that he, who in this town did so much to raise and equip one of the honored companies of our regiment, and whose generous activity has been largely instrumental in bringing about this meeting here to-day, I say I have no doubt that this man, in his munificence and in his loyalty, is a fair representative of the men and women of Fairfield. It matters little whether we thank the one who represents the many or the many who have produced the one. For homes and for that home-work that stands for the basis of all republican institutions, yours is an ideal town. The waters that wash your shore may bring to you little of the world's commerce. The forces of nature, that ages age on this continent laid out for all coming time the avenues of business and travel, may have forbidden that you should ever become one of the great centers of population and wealth. But these are not the first things to be considered in a republic. Intelligence and patriotism, devotion and unselfishness, that culture of the heart and the soul and the life which comes of purity and freedom, blood that tells, blood that comes only through unbroken generations of noble men and noble women, these are things which may not be reckoned in a census, but they do count largely in history. In a country so wide-spread as this, the control of the government must always remain largely with the rural towns. Many of your children will remove to other places, but they will carry with them the home discipline which you gave them, the same love of homely virtues which marked them here. New England men and their descendents, New England ideas must and will rule the Republic. I am one of the few New Englanders who cannot trace their lineage to Plymouth Rock, but I yield to no one in my admiration of the grand character of the men who came over in the Mayflower. I know that in many quarters it is becoming fashionable to sneer at the Puritans, to parade their trifling faults, to ignore their solid virtues, but where can you find a race of men who have had clearer conceptions of the dignity of human freedom, or who have stamped the love of it more strongly upon their descendants? Sneer at the Puritans! Yes, we may, when we can forget that it was their strong arms that wrought out for England and for us the blessings of constitutional liberty. Many of you remember, when, twenty-one years ago, from yonder camping field, this regiment went to the war. In its ranks were your brothers and sons, and so you followed its march with a keen personal interest. In such a prolonged and bitter war, it was not possible, that every conflict should be a triumph, but the flag that we carried never went down to dishonor. You saw it, when it came back riddled and tattered, but every shot told how gallantly it had been borne aloft. Every shred waved in final victory. In speaking the praises of the Seventeenth Connecticut, I can stop far short of the limit of modesty, for you know better than I can tell you, that you have no reason to be ashamed of your present guests. And you! What shall I say of you? When I think of the history of this grand old town, of its sufferings in the cause of freedom, of its devotion and self-sacrifice to uphold the Union, of its sons and daughters scattered all over the land and everywhere true to the teachings of their honored sires. When I think of all this, I am proud to know that it is such a host as Fairfield that welcomes us here to-day. It is especially fitting that this historic regiment should meet in this historic town. A hundred years ago, your fathers fought for liberty, with an ardor that was never deadened by the ashes of their burning homes. It was personal liberty for which they struggled. Like all true unselfish men, whose sense of personal rights has been deepened and intensified by the feeling of responsibility to their Maker, they "builded better than they knew." Doubtless in their minds, there was some dim conception of the grandeur of the building which they were rearing, for to every eye not dazed by the gloss and glitter of earth but bright with the light of duty, however short may be its vision, there come faint glimpses of the Great Beyond. But at the most your fathers could only have dimly realized how firmly they were laying the foundation of liberty on the eternal rock of the Union. It is the silent, subtle forces of nature that control the material universe. The course of the stream may be somewhat changed by the hand of man, but the truth remains that the river rolls on to the sea. The deep underlying principles of human nature must be at the basis of all earthly governments. Hence, the Union of the States began not in 1787, but in 1775. It had its origin not in the wisdom of Madison, but in that keen sense of human rights, which years before had begun to spread all over this continent. A common sense of a common danger had ordained the existence of the Union, a generation before the genius of Hamilton had removed the obstacles and smoothed the way. And then after the contest had begun, how this wonderful power of common suffering transformed and harmonized all conflicting elements. The Union was cemented not by logic but in blood. It was welded not in the sunlight of prosperity but in the flames of a hundred burning Fairfields. Your fathers, a hundred years ago, yearned and struggled for personal freedom, and, in its acquirement, established a National Union wider and grander than they ever conceived. Without this Union, personal liberty would have been exposed to all the dangers of local jealousy, and would have existed only by the sufferance of some foreign power. We, your sons and brothers, twenty-one years ago marched to defend the Union and, in its restoration, personal liberty was established through the length and the breadth of the land. Without this universal liberty, the National Union would have been only a splendid cheat. Even for you, that of thirty years ago, was not liberty. Then, there was not a place south of Mason and Dixon's line, where you could have safely stood, taking for your text the Declaration of Independence, and preached the teachings of Washington and Jefferson. But now, thanks to God and to the war for the Union, the gospel of liberty can be proclaimed, not only from the top of Bunker Hill, but even from the spot where once Toombs called the roll of his slaves in Georgia. And the crowning glory of this triumph is that in this truth the South rejoices as well as the North. It is the question of the hour, it will be the problem of the ages, how this union of Liberty and Union can be kept unimpaired and be handed down through the generations to come. Whether in those conflicts which are the inevitable result of selfishness and corruption, this bond shall be broken never to be renewed, or whether it shall stand forever, strong in its purity and pure in its strength, God alone can tell. If the masses of the people remain intelligent and pure, if they are keen to see their own rights and unselfish to acknowledge the rights of others, if the leaders are held to a strict account, if they are taught that he who would be greatest in a republic must be the servant and not the master of the people, if the government is centralized only so far as to become strong to protect in all his rights the humblest citizen within its borders, in a word, if the common voters remain intelligent and honest, then I trust and believe that personal liberty and this National Union will endure until "the great Archangel shall stand, one foot upon the sea and the other upon the land, and declare that time shall be no more."
ADDRESS OF WILLIAM A. BEERS, Esq.
After a stirring piece by the band, Mr. Beers spoke substantially, as follows:
SOLDIERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH REGIMENT:--Called upon to address you in behalf of the community that tenders you its hospitalities to-day, it is my privilege to say that in holding your re-union here you confer rather than receive honor. By the far-reaching importance of your services, you have placed this town, the county, the State, under obligations that no public ovation or emolument can requite; the country, the whole liberty-loving race owe you a debt that can never be paid this side of Heaven.
But it is also my privilege to remind you that you already have a compensation, that every true soldier and patriot should hold as inestimable; you are the distinguished creditors of a mighty nation; fifty millions of people with boundless wealth are yet too poor to repay the humblest private in your war-worn ranks who offered life to maintain the root principle of our government, that the United States is not a league but a Union. And you have, what is infinitely more precious, the approbation of your own hearts, and as we are bound to believe, the approval of the All-Rewarding. In view of such high compensation, is there one among you who regrets his struggles and sufferings; who is not proud to have his name on the immortal roster of the nation's saviors? For one, I whose war experience did not extend beyond shouldering a musket against the draft rioters in New York City, confess to a certain envy of such distinction and reward, as the burning story of your battle life comes up before me.
The story of your battle life! How its memories crowd the mind and swell the heart. You will never tire of its recapitulation. In briefest outline, permit me to tell it over again. Your organization had its beginning in the summer of 1862, when disaster in the East, disaster in the West, ominous secession murmurs and treacherous acts in our very midst, and Confederate victory almost everywhere-abroad as well as at home-was the heart-sickening burden of the war news. Undaunted, even buoyant, however, the young men of Fairfield County banded together to form the gallant regiment which you to-day represent. One of your companies was recruited in this town; and the citizens by whose indomitable work and liberal purse its ranks were largely filled, shares your re-union,--"the father of Company K," Mr. Samuel Glover! (Applause). Your Colonel, William H. Noble, was commissioned July 23, 1862, just as Lee and McClellan crossed swords at Seven Pines, and when, oh, the humiliation of that hour, the old flag was borne, dripping with blood, away from, not towards, the Confederate capitol. But the reverses of the national arms only spurred our people to redoubled action. One patriot in particular, a citizen of wealth and importance, marched through the streets of Bridgeport with drum and fife, and by voice and example, aroused enthusiasm and swelled your ranks. He thought it high honor to enroll himself a private in your ranks; his heart and purse were yours; he was your friend indeed who stood by you from first to last in every need. Interlocked with your annals, revered in your heart of hearts is the name and memory of that grand American patriot, Elias Howe, Jr. (Applause).
So rapid and efficient was your organization that in thirty day(s) from the date of your Colonel's commission, you could have marched 1,000 strong to the front. On the 28th of Aug. twenty-one years ago, while news of the Union defeat at the second Bull Run was throbbing the wires, you officially renewed your fealty to your country, and six days after your muster in, were hurried by rail to confront Lee and Jackson, who had then crossed the Potomac, and, swelling the chorus "Maryland, my Maryland," were menacing Pennsylvania. Cheers and tears were the fitful accompaniments of your departure; pride and solicitude followed your every movement.
At Baltimore, after enduring many indignities and making early acquaintance with the ubiquitous army-worm-red-tape, you are ordered to the entrenchment (Fort Kearny) at Washington; but the fact that you could handle the musket better than the spade, being forced upon the attention of the controlling powers, you receive welcome orders to take the field, and advance with swinging step and cheery song towards Gainesville, Va. You halt at Alexandria, you will pleasantly remember, to taste the sweets of good comradeship in the shape of a very acceptable collation offered by the boys of the Second Connecticut Heavy Artillery. You then push vigorously ahead, and November 8th finds you on the Culpeper road at a present arms to salute your corps commander, and ready to "fight mit Sigel." A fortnight later you sleep in the deserted rebel winter quarters at Chantilly and move thence in a walking match with Ohio boys, to divert the enemy's attention from Burnside's operations; winning easily in the friendly encounter, you treat the foot-sore and hungry competitors to a hearty meal, and while engaged in the good cheer hear the thunder of ineffectual Union guns against the rocks of Fredericksburg, but are happily ignorant of the fearful slaughter there.
Campaign exigencies now compel you to fall back to Stafford Court House where, December 16th, in a picturesque opening of pine forest you prepare a winter camp; cutting out streets, building log huts and rearing in the Southern wilds a sort of monument to New England thrift and neatness. Here is read to you President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, (cheers) which added at once 50,000 free fighting men to the Union ranks and removed a foul spot from the national escutcheon. All of you will, doubtless, have lively recollections of this winter camp. In the cheerful blaze of your camp fires, when, for the time being: "grim visaged war smoothed her wrinkled front" you retold the humorous episodes of the campaign. An ever mirth-provoking story was that of the deer (?) which Sergt. Keeler and Ed. Nichols shot at Gainesville; (laughter) they had, contrary to orders, been out foraging and bagged some game, which, ingeniously cutting up to resemble venison, they brought to headquarters where a critical examination disclosed the fact that the steaks and tenderloins had been carved from a prime Virginia hog. another, was that in which Moses Jennings of Company D, figured. Moses was a kind and brave but not very marital-appearing fellow, who, one day at Camp Tennallytown, while the dignified Col. Noble was instructing a party to rig halliards on a tall flag staff, interjected the remark: "Colonel, I'll bet you six are cents I ken squirm up that are pole and fix that are string skyographic." It was fortunate, perhaps, that the bet was not taken, for Moses might have come to grief in the dizzy attempt, and so lost the country a good soldier and us another anecdote. Going in swimming one day, he was seized with a cramp, and barely escaped drowning. On being rescued by Capt. John McCarthy, of Company K, and congratulated on his escape, he sputtered out, "I wouldn't a 'kearred a darn if I'd had my descriptive list along." Of course Erin's proverbial humor had its ready exponent; and Paddy Ford's "toime o'day, half-past five in the avening'," was an abiding joke that Company A will best appreciate. They will also recall with mingled pathos and merriment, a battle incident in which Paddy was a hero. He volunteered in the heat of a fight, to go to a distant stream covered by a rebel battery, and fill a dozen canteens, to allay the burning thirst of comrades. He returned in triumph, but no before provoking a laugh by making the jingling canteens do a sort of iron-clad duty to protect his rear from Confederate sharpshooters.
In February, 1863, you break camp and double-quick toward Belle Plain to aid Burnside in a second contemplated attack upon the heights of Fredericksburg, but this reckless assault being fortunately abandoned, you fall back to shovel snow, fell trees, build huts-again forcing the Virginia wilderness to take on a New England appearance. April 1st finds you still in your winter camp, and with commendable spirits varying the monotony of drill and picket duty by diversions that the season invited. A very little fooling was, on those days enough to stir up considerable fun, and all hands enjoyed the false alarm that hustled Sergt. Blakeman out of his snug bed. Aroused by a well-imitated "Fall in," he appeared with bare feet and naked sword, only to learn that he was to face not a rebel surprise but an "April foot," and that he was to "fall in," not for an ambuscade but a pair of stockings-a much needed supply of which having opportunely arrived. The Sergeant took the joke and the hose in good part, remarking that he was glad to be so comfortably fooled, and to observe that the stockings had white toes.
But these seasonable pleasantries give way to serious business when, a few days after, being commanded to move with "fighting Joe Hooker," you put seven days' rations in haversacks and strip to lighting marching order. At daybreak, April 26th, in high spirits and with the familiar swinging step you advanced to confront the war-scarred veterans of Lee and Jackson, Hill and Stuart. Your comrade, Sergt. P. Wade, Jr., of Company K, (who has the remarkable record of having served through the entire term of enlistment without missing a drill or battle, and who was never missing or wounded,) has related tome many incidents of this march to get to Lee's rear, which though of intense interest, must be omitted in this brief recital.
One reminiscence, however, asks for a moment's revival. Resting a short hour before crossing the Rapidan, your slumber was broken at midnight by Col. Noble, in person, who, with characteristic vim and briskness, cried out: "Fall in men! Fall in! Cook your coff! Cook your coff! Fall in rapidly! First one up, first one over! Rapidly, Rapidly!"
By the light of huge bonfires on the precipitous bluffs of the river, you pass over on pontoons and press on toward the battle ground at Chancellorsville, which you reach after marching thirty-seven miles over rough ground, in two days. Here you are drawn in line to receive Gen. Hooker and his orders to go at once into action. With the Eleventh Corps-the corps of the crescent-of which you formed a part, you are posted in a dense thicket of stunted oaks and tangled underbrush. Here, in the supposition that Lee has been flanked, you are left without support; and in this exposed position,, Stonewall Jackson bursts suddenly down upon you with 25,000 men. In the wild rout that followed this surprise, you contested every inch of vantage with fixed bayonets. It was your first fight, but like veterans you stood your ground, and were the last regiment to fall back. It was in this disastrous engagement that the intrepid Col. Noble received a serious wound, and the gallant Lieut.-Col. Walter (while laughing in the faces of the enemy) was shot dead. One hundred and twenty killed, wounded, or missing, was the loss of the Seventeenth Connecticut,--a large proportion in the aggregate loss.
In the following June, having recuperated to some extent your shattered ranks, you move under Lieut.-Col. Fowler (Col. Noble being in hospital with his wound,) towards Gettysburg on parallel lines with the Army of the Potomac. On the 1st of July, you begin your share of the bloody work on that memorable field; and it must ever remain the most lustrous of your annals that you largely helped defeat Lee's favorite project to dictate terms in a conquered city-Philadelphia, or, perhaps, New York, It was on this field, which "the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated beyond our power to add or detract," that the soldierly Col. Fowler drew his sword for the last time, and where fearless Capt. Moore uttered his last thrilling "forward." Here Orderly Edwin D. Pickett was shot down while grasping the regimental colors, being the third bearer, who had carried them to the death. Here, posted at a stone fence that has become historic, the Fairfield Company successfully resisted a fierce rebel attack, and here its Captain, John McCarthy, gained the title, "that little fighting Irish captain." Here-but why go on? A thousand acts of valor, scores of noble deaths cannot have record in this hasty sketch. Your roll-call, when the torn and bleeding Seventeenth was ordered back from the pursuit of Lee's beaten columns, epitomized with fatal emphasis the part taken by the Regiment of which you are to-day the distinguished survivors, one hundred and ninety-eight names being told off as killed, wounded, or missing. In summing up the conduct of Connecticut troops on this, the most decisive battle-field of the war, the conspicuous bravery of your Regiment called forth the admiration of Gen. Ames, and in like summary, the Confederate Gen. Gordon made the manly confession that, in his retreat, "the Seventeenth Connecticut was the hardest federal regiment to get away from."
From Gettysburg I trace you to Folly Island where, in the siege trenches that approached Fort Wagner, you witnessed the first fire of Gilmore's retributive guns against Sumter. Here, exposed to shells of Forts James and Moultrie, more wounds and deaths attested your enduring patriotism; and here says Gen. Noble, "without the excitement of attack and real conflict, your work was the most trying you ever did." After the fall of Wagner you are called upon to repel a threatened attack, and your prompt response draws another good word from Gen. Ames, who officially said "you were under arms and in line twenty minutes in advance of the other forces."
You are next found at St. John's Island, and thence move, respectively, to Jacksonville, the Fort of San Marco in St. Augustine, Volusia, McGirit's Creek, Magnolia, and other points in Florida-ever on the alert, always reliable. Of your many contests with rebel raiders in this section I must only touch upon the most important. Near St. Augustine, a squad of your regiment while seeking a little terpsichorean diversion, was were gobbled up after a stern resistance; and, in disastrous sequence, your Col. Noble was captured and forced to add to his war experiences that of a sojourn in Libby prison. It was near this point too, that Lieut.-Col. Wilcoxson and Adjut. Chatfield, while attempting to cut their way through Dixon's rebel troopers, fell like heroes. It was in Florida, also, where two of your captains and fifty men were outnumbered, captured and sent to augment the ghastly horrors of Andersonville.
Through all the vicissitudes of this cruel war you bore your part so staunchly as to receive these "plain, unvarnished words from Gen. Noble: "From the time of your muster in to your muster out at Hilton Head, S.C., July 29, 1865, your gallant service honored Connecticut, and you never flinched from a military duty." Added to this must be the commendation of the State Adjutant-General, who said: "Thus ended the honorable service of a regiment, the superior of which in intelligence, morale, courage, and endurance was not found in the army; the Commonwealth of Connecticut cherish the memory of its dead and honor its living."
And thus ends, soldier guests, my outline of your battle story. The citizens of Fairfield also claim right to cherish the memory of your dead, to honor, as best they may, those that survive.
It is with eminent fitness, too, that honor should be accorded you in the ancient town that not only gives name to the county that furnished your bone and muscle, but has been for two and a half centuries a kind of military headquarters. As far away as 1639, its founder Ludlowe, whose code was the model of the national laws you fought to sustain, gathered his followers to subdue the savage or punish the intruding Dutch. Further on the French war, and the war of 1812 made the drum-tap a familiar sound here; and later on in the war for Independence, the military importance of the town attracted the fire-brand of the British.
It was on this Green that your Company K received some of its initial lessons before joining in the grand movement upon the enemy's works to the tune "Tramp, tramp, tramp the boys are marching;" it is therefore, as I have said, eminently fitting that, those works taken and magnanimous quarter given, you should make the marital old town the place of your restful, social, re-union. And as we pay homage to your patriotic devotion, and your unbending fortitude on the red field of strife, let us at the same time rejoice that on this pleasant Green, with its elms arching as if in triumph, and the old flag floating in gladness above us, that we meet in peace and good will toward the conquered; that, in recognition of the generous motive that strews flowers on the blue as well as gray, accepts your soldierly hospitalities and returns your captured battle colors; you come without weapons, with badges of peace on your breasts, and in your hearts "malice toward none, charity for all."
At our town centennial commemoration four years ago, our citizens crossed the British and Colonial flags in token of amity towards those of our own kin who had inflicted upon the town its direst calamity; so here to-day, in the same manly spirit, let the word of peace and brotherhood go forth to our countrymen of the South, that now and hereafter the gray and the blue shall mingle in harmony, in an indissoluble Re-union. At each recurring anniversary of your Association, let this sentiment reassure the noble people against whom you fought, that for all time to come these mingled colors shall, in the words of Fairfield's poet:
"In glorious rivalry lead the oppressed,
Flags of union and liberty proudly unfurled,
Together float on o'er the East and West
And march with the drum-beat that circles the world."
So will your re-union be true to its name in a National sense, and best show that you have not fought in vain. So will you link yourselves to a grateful posterity that reaping the substantial fruits of your victories, shall with pride and reverence turn to the story of your battle-life and say: the soldiers of the Seventeenth Regiment were mighty in war but mightier in peace.
This speaker happily found the way to the hearts of the veterans, who responded with spontaneous applause and cheers.