At the close of speech of Gen. Wm. H. Noble, he as Chairman, introduced the orator of the day, Private Phineas C. Lounsbury, of Company C.:
ADDRESS OF P. C. LOUNSBURY.
Mr. President, Fellow Citizens and Comrades:
We are gathered to-day, after a lapse of twenty-one years, to celebrate the erection of a monument to the memory of those brethren in arms who on this ever memorable field of battle yielded up their lives in the defense of their country.
Their names have been inscribed on yonder granite, but more indelibly and imperishably have they been written in history, and upon the harts of a grateful people.
Nations through all ages have reared monuments to their chieftains, and loving hands have placed them over the dust of their kindred, but none have ever been more appropriately or lovingly erected than the one you have unveiled to-day in honor and in love of those comrades who, here with you, struggling for liberty and the union, went down under the rain of shot and shell.
The nation honors the genius of the commanding general. It honors the name of the gallant Reynolds who fell at the head of his corps. It honors a Hancock, a Sickles, a Barlow, a Gibbons, whose wounds and scars attest their gallantry too. It honors the bravery of a Fowler, a Moore, and a whole line of officers who were killed in the forefront of the battle, but it honors none the less, the gallantry and bravery of those private soldiers, who like men of iron with nerves of steel, stood between our homes and all that was sacred and dear to us, and the invading forces, and for three long days meeting the repeated charges of a desperate foe, again and again hurling them back reeling and staggering with depleted ranks, until smitten and routed they fled before the onward march of our victorious army. The light of the fourth day saw the Stars and Stripes floating again proudly over all Gettysburg.
Why this terrible carnage? It was not to gratify the spirit of an Alexander, or to enforce the tyrany of a despot. It was not for the booty and plunder of an Attila, nor by conscripts obedient to the imperious dictates of an ambitious Napoleon. It was an army of volunteers, citizens, soldiers, men of peace in time of peace, but men of war, men of courage, and dauntless resolution in the hour of their country's peril.
A vital principal was the issue and in its maintainance or its establishment not only the liberties of a race and the perpetuity of the peaceful industries of the land but the very existence of the nation were involved. It was a war testing the very foundation stone upon which the Governmental structure had been reared. But before proceeding further on this line let us go back in our thought a century and more ago to the day of our nation's birth, the 4th day of July, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence, written by the immortal Jefferson, accepted and adopted by Continental Congress then assembled, was published and proclaimed to the world. Therein they declared that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator not only with life but with the rights of liberty ad the pursuit of happiness-in these truths and upon these principals they laid deep the foundation of our Republic, and for the establishment of such a Government they mutually pledged each to the other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. A Nation thus conceived in liberty and brought forth in the blood of its people was destined not for a life of a season, but to be as eternal as the principals it embodied.
We reverence our ancestors for that spirit of independence, for that devotion to liberty and justice-for the sacrifices so heroically made and the hardships so cheerfully endured through all the long dark years of the Revolution, that they and we, their posterity, might enjoy individual rights and national freedom-and unto God the High and Mighty Ruler of the universe do we reverently render profound thanksgiving and praise for His guiding hand, leading his people on through many a lonely and dreary day in the righteousness of their cause, from the self-declared independence to one owned and acknowledged by the Nations of the world. No longer colonies subjected to the mandates of the King across the sea, but free to form a Government whose realm was destined to be wider and in its beneficence grander than they ever conceived; whose arches should span the continent from ocean to ocean, and beneath the dome of this vast temple of liberty the oppressed of all Nations might find a welcome and a home.
To the formation of such a Government the wisdom and genius of the land were convened. In the formation innumerable difficulties and almost insurmountable obstructions met them at every point. The Confederacy of the Colonies which in time of war had been sufficient-now in the hour of their independence was proving inadequate to the required necessities of a strong and stable Government. It needed a bond that should hold indissolubly the union which had been created by their united efforts, securing for them that liberty for which they longed-a union that had been cemented by the blood of so many of its fallen heroes. It needed a compact that should be strong to suppress the plottings and intrigueings of traitors from within and able to resist the combined attacks of their enemies from without. It needed a centralization of power that would be able to protect every citizen in his rights not only at home but abroad, any where upon the face of a civilized world, any one and every one who could claim the Stars and
Stripes as the flag of their country. But how to centralize a power and still preserve for the States all the rights, and only those rights that would not interfere with the strength and permanency of a united Republic, was a problem difficult of solution, and then the prejudices and apprehensions on the part of the people, unreasonable though they may have been, made them unwilling to commit those rights that they then possessed to the keeping of the general government in which they would be but a factor-this made the task still more difficult to accomplish.
I do not wonder that the people were exceedingly jealous of the liberties acquired at such a sacrifice, but I do marvel at the wisdom so manifestly displayed by the charter members of this Government, when I consider the conditions and circumstances under which they labored in framing a Constitution to which all could assent, a compact in which all could unite-so satisfactory in its provisions-so strong in its requirements-overcoming the passions and prejudices of some of the people-conceding in some measure to the selfishness of others that they might peacefully inaugurate a Government which they believed would be, and which the century has proved to be the wisest and best ever framed by the hand o man. Not perfect in all its parts as we well know for in those concessions our fathers made what seemed needful then to harmonize, there remained upon the otherwise fair sky of this new Nation one spectre cloud-a cloud that grew with each revolving year until overshadowing the whole land it burst forth in that terrible storm of 1861. In the midst of this so-called free country, there remained a race in bondage, a slavery as debasing as any that ever cursed a civilized land-fed and fostered by Government until the monster about our liberties coiled its slimy folds to crush them with its power, and raising its dragon had, protected by the Stars and Stripes, struck the Goddess of Liberty with its murderous, poisonous fang; charmed, enchanted, beguiled, fascinated by its wondrous power, State after State rebelled-this is how the war began, and at a Nation's call from North and East and West, thousands upon thousands sprang to arms to throttle this rebellion in its infancy. It's power we did not comprehend; the deadliness of the struggle few, if any, realized or even dimly saw that the war must go on until the monster that produced it was annihilated in the land-until in the restoration of the Union, personal liberty, equal rights, in accordance with the declaration of our fathers and in keeping with the fundamental principles of this Government were guaranteed to every man throughout its broad domains, without regard to race or creed, whose heart beat for it in loyalty.
As I have said it was not a war to gratify ambition, nor a war of conquest, neither was it a war waged for emancipation, but it was a war to establish the supremacy of this Government over every foot of land that it of right possessed upon this Western Hemisphere.
It was a war to bury finally and forever the heresy of secession. It was a war to plant the flag of our Union upon every hill and to carry it into every valley trod or to be trodden by the foot of man from St. Lawrence to the Rio Grande, from the shore of the Atlantic to the ""Golden Gates"" of the Pacific, and as decreed in the righteousness of God it was no longer to float in name only but in fact, in every deed over the land of the free and the home of the brave--carrying liberty and protection beneath its folds in a grander degree than ever before.
To defend this our flag, the flag of our fathers,--to preserve this Union cemented by the blood and dedicated to liberty, justice and equality-to establish the right and to confirm the power of this Government thus to rule throughout the length and breadth of this land, you and regiments of heros like you fought and bled.
It was not to acquire military fame, or to obtain a world-wide renown that these men left their homes and those firesides about which they and their loved ones so fondly gathered. It was rather at the bidding of patriotism, a patriotism that burned brightly upon the alter of the heart and of the home.
It was to preserve unsullied and intact those institutions of justice and liberty bequeathed us by our fathers-to maintain in it the fulness and in its glory this the grandest Government on the face of the earth. It was because of the blessed memories that cluster around that dear old flag-because of the love and patriotism that thrilled their souls to their inmost depths thus giving them strength to march in heat and in cold, through flood and through fire, if need be, to plant the Stars and Stripes upon the battlements of very fort and float them from the flag-staff of every arsenal-to wave them any where in the free breezes of heaven that waft across this our free land. This is why they went, but how and through what they went no tongue can tell, the eloquence of a Demosthenes or a Cicero, not even the pen of an angel or the tongue of a seraph can ever portray or describe, but this I can and do say that upon this consecrated ground they builded a tower of fame reaching into the very heavens, around which gathers a halo of glory from a Nation saved by this victory won, outshining the brightness of the meridian day.
I must hasten for in the time allotted me on this occasion I cannot now even mention, much less speak in detail of all he heroic deeds of this historic Seventeenth Connecticut Regiment. No more illustrious than others from my native State-no braver or truer than many from every State, but their valor and their heroism will be and have been chronicled by abler pens and more eloquent tongues. Well do I remember that bright and beautiful morning we started to the war, inspired by the cheers and huzzas of the people, yet sobered by the sobs and tears of mothers, wives, and dear ones parting, and many of them to meet no more. The Stars and Stripes that were committed to our care we carried to the breezes above us and proudly did they float in many a hard fought battle in the three years that followed. They were pierced and torn by shot and shell. Again and again their gallant bearer was smitten to the earth, but they fell only to be caught up by some one of the many brave defenders who ever bore them aloft in victory and defeat until, conquerors at last, you triumphantly carried them back to your native State amid the shouts and plaudits of a grateful people that with one voice rang out well done, well done, gallant and true! But all did not return; death by disease, death by shot and sword had thinned its ranks and the sad history of Chancellorsville tells how sadly it suffered there.
It was there our Colonel, as brave a man as ever drew the sword, received that terrible wound, the scar of which he bears to-day. It was there our beloved Lieutenant-Colonel Walters, who of Teutonic blood, true to the spirit of his race, fought so nobly. It was there he fell-there he sleeps undisturbed by bugle notes of war that summon to the strife-waiting the trumpet sound which shall call his spirit with the true and brave to fields of immortal peace. It was there one hundred and twenty tried and true were stricken from the roll, but it was not there that the decisive battle of this terrible conflict was to be fought.
Once more our brave columns were rolled back to touch afresh the great heart of the liberty-loving North, to breathe again the air that was ever pulsating with the spirit of freedom-to gather inspiration and strength for a conflict unparalleled in the history of any war, that should lead on with varying fortunes but with ever certain success to the final overthrow of the rebellion and the unquestioned supremacy of the National Government.
But of this bloody conflict-this war of Titans-what shall I say? What can I say? Would I could marshal words as men were marshalled on this immortal field-but your deeds of valor of reckless daring, of stubborn, unflinching, persistent bravery may be recorded but never described. More than 200,000 men, nearly equally divided, met here in deadly array-the one representing the barberism of slavery, the other the rights of liberty-the one to make the North acknowledge the right and fact of secession, the other to compel the South to acknowledge and submit to the authority of the National Government. The one to break and the other to maintain the union of these States, involving in its issue the destiny of the grandest experiment of republicanism that the world ever saw, cheering or crushing the hopes and aspirations of the oppressed of all lands.
On this field and in that battle was to be decided the momentous question of political and personal liberty and of social justice for all men-whether the rising tide of Christian civilization should flow on until it should carry to all on the crest of its swelling billows personal freedom and personal rights, making of our race one common brotherhood, or whether it should be rolled back to blight the hopes and disappoint the longings of the truest and noblest in all lands and leave the race in the folds of a civilization as fixed as it was unjust and oppressive; but reverently, yet unhesitatingly, do we affirm that God was on the side of the heroes who fought the battle of freedom, and the Stars and Stripes were unfurled in triumph where the Stars and Bars had been flaunted in defiance.
The nation was saved; four million slaves leaped to their feet, four million freemen and the angel of liberty waved his white banner, a signal of hope and cheer to the down trodden, the wide world over.
But I stand on consecrated ground, the sepulchre of the heroic dead, the field drenched with human blood, the price of the victory we celebrate, every foot of which attests the dauntless patriotism of freedom's hosts.
In that deadly struggle we claim no superiority for the generalship of our commanders or for the bravery and stubborness of our soldiers.
Yonder hills and valleys were drenched in no less gallant blood than these upon which we stand, but of the latter I only speak.
Never did soldiers accept more cheerfully a challenge than the intrepid Reynolds accepted the gauge of battle flung down by the rebel general on the morning of the first day of that stubbornly fought conflict, and, when repulsed by overwhelming numbers, no less cheerfully was he supported by your division with the third of the time honored Eleventh Corps, coming for more than two miles at the sound of the cannon, upon the double-quick, and just in time to check the outnumbering hosts of the foe, contesting every foot of the way back through the town against at least three times your number at a sacrifice of the brave men whose memories and names shall live as long as this grand Republic endures or yonder monument stands, until beneath the guns of Cemetery Hill, supported by the second division of your gallant Corps you made a stand, determined there to be victorious or to die.
The friendly shades of night approach, wrapping friend and foe within its sable folds, after one of the several struggles of the war enabling them to gather strength for one that was to be still more desperate on the morrow.
With the morning light five corps are up and waiting, ready for the assault, the Eleventh holding Cemetery Hill, where it became engaged in one of the deadliest struggles of the battle-a hand to hand conflict demanding a personal bravery, skill and strength as in no other. You remember, for you were there, how you looked each other in the eye, shot each other with gun and pistol, thrust each other with saber and bayonet-smote each other with sword, grappled each other with hands, reeling and falling in the terrible strife until your Corps was gloriously victorious. It was there our gallant Burr captured that rebel flag, collaring its bearer, nearly twice his size, displaying a nerve so like the nerve that characterized this grand old regiment. I have not time to describe the incidents or follow the fortunes of that memorable day.
Cemetery Hill, Seminary Hill, the peach orchard, the wheat-field, the Emmetsburg road, Round Top, Culps Hill, tramped by foot and hoof, torn by shot and shell, drenched with blood attested the bravery and heroism of the combatants, the stubborness and deadliness of the fight. Fifty thousand men were stricken from the roll of the two armies, and the issue of the conflict was still undecided.
In the midst of this terrible carnage there rode a woman, escorted by the gallant Howard, as if bearing a charmed life, calm and fearless amid that terrible storm of death, seeking on the field a companion, who was then a wounded prisoner in the town-our division commander, the intrepid Barlow. On that field the world saw a type of that noble, devoted, patriotic womanhood that in the homes of the North, in the hospitals and camps of the army was an inspiration and cheer, an angel of comfort and aid to the heroes that were defending their fire-sides and their altars. All honor to the noble women whose hands and hearts and prayers were ever with freedom's army during those terrible years of fratricidal strife.
The morning of the third day dawned. It seemed to linger as if the very sun were reluctant to gaze upon the scenes that were to be unfolded beneath it. Slocum opened the fight with that tremendous fire of artillery and infantry, before which not simply men but the very forests fell, and was followed by that Balaklava charge of the Second Massachusetts and the Twenty-Seventh Indiana, retreating with more than half of their rolls dead and dying in their tracks, a reckless and useless charge, save as it teaches the lessons of obedience and heroism. The hours wear on. The sum reaches its meridian, an ominous silence settles down upon the contending armies like the calm that precedes the fury of the tempest. At ten minutes past one, the signal gun sends its echoes along the hills and valleys, and one hundred and fifty cannon hurl a volley of death and destruction into our ranks. An instant later another hundred from our side responds to the challenge, carrying equal carnage into the ranks of the enemy, opening a cannonade without a parallel in the history of war. It was like the fabled battles of the Gods, hurling thunder bolts and flashing lightnings, shaking the earth and making the very pillars of heaven to tremble. For nearly two hours the terrible battle raged, and then gradually slackened. Pickett's division of Longstreet's corps moved to the achievement of its part of the programme, to break through the left center of our line and finish the work which they supposed had been nearly accomplished by the preceding cannonade. "You can start now; you will not find anybody alive on that ridge," said veteran Lee to the gallant Virginians, and they did start twenty thousand strong, compact, brave, determined, the flower of the Southern chivalry, and for a while it seemed as if freedom's forces would be vanquished and the Stars and Bars would carry victory into the very heart of the Keystone State. But soon a gun opened here and there like the flash of the fuse that explodes the well laid train, and our left and center seem all ablaze, filling the air with shot and shell, grape and shrapnell. Still down through that deadly stream of canister they come, closing up their depleted ranks, leaving the ground strewn with the dead and dying, on, on, until within musket range they meet a sheet of flame from thousands of guns, and fall like leaves of the forest beneath autumnal winds. Undaunted they press forward until the two armies meet and like two fiery monsters they roll and writhe and sway to and fro amid fire and smoke, the neighing of horses, the shrieks of the wounded and the groans of the dying, a scene that beggars description, and that splended column, that started so magnificently from yonder hill is surrounded and crushed in the fiery grasp of Mead's heroic and victorious army. "Thank God" went up reverently from the lips of the Commander-in-Chief, voicing the gratitude of many a devout soul, and amid tears of joy the shout of victory rang out in jubilant notes upon the evening air.
So ended the decisive battle of the war. And now after a lapse of nearly a quarter of a century we, the survivors of that conflict and the comrades of the fallen, gather here as reverently to thank God, to gratefully commemorate their heroism and unveil a monument to their memory that shall in silent but matchless eloquence tell of their deeds, of our undying and loving gratitude (here pledging our fortunes, lives, and sacred honor to maintain what on this field was so gloriously won), and here let it stand simple in its majesty and majestic in its simplicity to remind the countless millions that shall yet tread these lands, of the cost of their liberties and to warn traitors of treason's doom, down through the coming ages, until the arch-angel trump shall pierce the ear of death and the heroes, who sleep so quietly beneath this consecrated soil, shall come forth arrayed not in the panoply of war, but in the robes of peace, and hear the well done from the lips of the Prince of Peace, who led them in the fight and gave them the victory.
And, if in the years to come, the North and the South shall vie with each other in the bloodless battles of industry and patriotism, of social justice and political freedom, of intelligence and virtue, as gallantly and true as on this field they fought in fratricidal strife, to gather the harvest the battle's red rain has made to flow, who shall regret the price paid. My task is done, and, while it was my wish that the address of this day should have been committed to abler and more eloquent tongue-yet if this hour and the events of this hour shall intensify our love of country and liberty, broaden our patriotism and quicken our sense of social and political justice-shall aid to secure to all within the boundaries of our fair land the personal rights, political, social, and religious, that were purchased for them by the blood of the nation it will matter little who, upon this occasion, was the speaker or what was said.
The time occupied in delivering the oration was forty-two minutes, and the orator held the undisturbed attention of his hearers during that time. At its close he was warmly applauded.