and welded us together in a bond ten
thousandfold stronger and better than we had known before. [Applause.]

Now, what remains? Ah! so much remains that can never die! There are
Northern soldiers here, there are Southern soldiers here. We stood face
to face through the bitterness of that conflict; we stand heart to heart
now. [Applause.] Whenever this country shall call upon her sons to do
battle against a common foe, when North and South Carolina with
Massachusetts and Vermont, when Georgia and Ohio, when all the South and
all the North march side by side in behalf of Old Glory, then at the
bivouac, then around our council fires, the sons will recall the
valorous deeds their fathers wrought upon either side and under opposing
flags during the civil strife, as the loudest call and the strongest
inspiration to awaken effort in behalf of the rescued and re-united
country. [Applause.] Has it not always been so? If you would awaken a
flame of martial life in the sons of France, appeal to them as those
whose eagles flew in triumph above Wagram, and Austerlitz, and Lodi
Bridge, and bore upon the outstretched wings the glorious destinies of
her favored child of fortune, her thunderbolt of war! If you would
awaken Caledonia to battle, appeal to her sons as descendants of--

"Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots whom Bruce has often led,"

and at once, from Loch Lomond, from Ben Nevis, and from the Grampian
Hills, her kilted warriors will troop to death as to a feast, stimulated
by the recollection of the glorious deeds of those from whose loins they
sprang! And hereafter, sir, if eloquence shall want a theme to awaken
her sublimest efforts, or poetry shall seek some shrine at which to
offer its most harmonious numbers, orator and bard will not go back to
the romantic period of Agincourt and Crecy, when Henry V led his armies
to victory, and Douglas poured the vials of his wrath across
Northumbrian plains--no need to go back there--but they will tell of the
deeds of the glorious men who drew their swords at Lee's, or
Johnston's, or Longstreet's bidding, or of those who flamed the demigods
of war where Grant and Sherman and Sheridan led [applause]; of those
whose camp-fires shone out on the dark walls of Blue Ridge, or lit up
with their glow the waters of Gauley and of Shenandoah; of those who
sleep in graves consecrated forevermore, where the starts look down
to-night through shadowy trees in Spottsylvanian woods and Staff