Guard extends
a warm and earnest welcome to you, for the names of Burnham,
Cheney, Tennant, Pasco, Burke, Lockwood, and Blakeslee, are all
ours. As brothers we have watched your history during all these
years of war. But while you are privileged to return all covered
with honor and glory, and are to go to your homes, to be
welcomed by mothers, wives, sisters, and lovers, noble patriotic
women, in whose life there dwells the tenderest sentiment for
you and country ever unlocked from the starry skies,--while you
are to enjoy all this, I cannot forget the brave, devoted boys,
comrades in all your trials until death, who will never, never
come home again. They died, as you have fought, for country, for
the restoration of law and order, for the complete emancipation
of a race, for the eternal principle of liberty, and for the
final solution of the great problem of self-government. They
fell away from home and friends, and most of them rest in
Southern graves, but though they fell thus, they died at their
posts. History will keep fresh their memories, and write their
names on more than granite shaft or marble column.--

After an eventful life and a noble death, they rest well.

"Sleep sweetly, tender hearts, in peace,
Sleep, holy spirits, blessed souls,
While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll."

The friends of the dead of your regiment are more than of the
living, and my heart was sad as I saw the tears start in the
eyes of the little child, the tender maiden and the mother with
her little ones, as they looked in vain among your passing ranks
for their friends. But they will never again watch their
returning footsteps, or hear the sweet sound of their voices. No
words of mine can heal their wounded hearts. I can only say they
have the highest claim upon the nations' gratitude. The noble
deeds of their martyred dead will ever live in the archives of
the State, and their memories will be embalmed forever in the
feelings of the American people.

Thrice welcome then, tried and faithful veterans of the
republic. Go bear your honors and your trophies to your homes,
and around your own hearths be as great and good as you have
been in war.

Breakfast was provided for the regiment at the Trumbull House and
United States Hotel, after which