tender tribute ere you went out to battle. They chatted and
counselled with heavy hearts, but asked holy benedictions for
your safety and through you for the country. Who of you can
forget the stirring emotions of those meetings and partings. For
a few days you drilled and disciplined for the coming strife.
The order came. You struck your tents--passed down the very
streets on which we stand, with colors flying and music
measuring out the solemn step of war. No braver regiment ever
went out from our city or State. Made up mostly of Hartford men,
born and cradled under the very branches of the Charter Oak, we
knew well what would be your history, and we watched with pride
your firm and steady ranks, as you filed along these streets. As
we followed with anxious eye the steamer winding down the
Connecticut, bearing its precious freight, with the Stars and
Stripes streaming in the wind, we felt a security and an
indebtedness, which we now have all come to acknowledge. You
went to New York, passed the capital of your country, and in a
few days stood on the bloody fields of Antietam. There, in the
old Ninth corps, under the faithful Burnside, you first realized
war, and stood on the fated field of death. That was a sad day
for the 16th Connecticut. Two hundred of your comrades, officers
and men, had fallen, and when the shadows of evening closed on
that historic day, your hearts, sad and broken, went up in
thankfulness to God for your preservation. Well do I remember
the sadness that settled over this city, as the news came across
the wires that death had cruelly thinned and decimated your
ranks, and that among the brave who had fallen were the noble
Captains Manross, Drake, Brown, and Barber; but you had only
time to bear out the noble two hundred to their sepulture, and
to place some humble stone to mark their rest, before you were
ordered to the fields of Fredericksburg.

There bravely you stood through three long days of battle. From
there you moved to Suffolk, where your ranks were again broken,
and the brave Capt. Tennant fell--he who was beloved at home and
dear to the Hartford City Guard, of which he was a member, and
who followed him with reversed arms and bowed hearts, to yonder
church yard where now he sleeps. Peaceful will be his rest, and
sacred his memory, for h