three millions of the most earnest, sturdy and conscientious people
on the globe, when the principal mother country beginning insidiously
to re-establish over them the very evils from which they had fled
into exile, they again in 1776 engaged to free themselves, this time
in a war for independence and government of their own. In this they
succeeded, and by the time of the adoption of the Constitution in
1787 they had established a government more unique in all its leading
characteristics than any known to history, its leading feature being
that "all just powers of government must be derived from the consent
of the governed."
This Constitution erased from existence all vestige or semblance
of a personal and despotic government, such as titles of nobility,
established church, primogeniture and entailment of estates, all of
which had played so great a part in upholding the cruel and despotic
governments of the great nations of civilization, and substituted in
their stead a complicated yet symmetrical government with executive,
legislative and judicial powers blending--both Federal and State--in
one harmonious whole, which amazed the world and set it doubting
whether such liberties could long endure.
For 74 years its creators kept the faith of their professions,
continuing their Colonial simplicity, universal industry and
frugality. In these 74 years the new nation had risen to a population
of 30 millions as resourceful, self-reliant, contented and prosperous
people as ever lived under one flag. Their labor-saving machinery and
devices had led all the rest of the world, so that the genius of the
ceaseless and tireless mental workers had by mechanical appliances and
organized labor in large factories relieved man's brawn and muscle
from perhaps 30 per cent of its arduous toil in the struggle for
existence.
But meanwhile political fanatics and moral agitators began to set up
strife between the sections North and South concerning an alleged
discriminating tariff against the South on cotton goods, with threats
of nullification, and later in the recriminating discussion against
slavery and its extension and the execution of the Fugitive Slave
Law, until in the fifties a small portion of the people, mostly well
meant but ill informed, had arrayed the political parties in great
bitterness against each other.
So that in 1860 on the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency the
Northern agitators claimed it as foretelling forceful abolition and
those of the South claimed it foretold the destruction of the rights
of the Southern States. Both these classes busied themselves in
embittering the sections by raising armed companies of emigrants to
the new Territory of Kansas, where they inaugurated a miniature civil
war.
The Mayor of New York City called the City Council and proposed
an ordinance declaring New York an independent city, which in the
temporary frenzy of the time came near passing, giving encouragement
to those very few in the South who contemplated secession. In Boston
it was declared in public speech "The Union must be dissolved."
Then there was the mob's resistance to the execution of the Fugitive
Slave Law, the armed expedition to Harpers Ferry to incite the
ignorant slaves to rise in domestic insurrection, and the declaration
of a few fanatical orators that our flag represented "A covenant with
death and a league with hell."
But in spite of all there were probably not ten per cent of the men
North and South who afterward became soldiers for or against the Union
who had any sympathy with the fanatical agitators on either side.
Mr. Lincoln had declared his purpose to "Maintain the Union, the
Constitution and the laws, regardless of slavery," and in the border
slave States--in fact, in all the slave States, public sentiment
admitted that slavery was wrong, but as far as they were concerned
an inherited wrong which they saw no practical way to remedy, as
where slaves were held in large numbers they would be as helpless as
children to care for themselves if freed.
In the border mountain States, however, Maryland, Virginia, North
Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, where families held
only a few slaves, their close environments enabled the slaves to
acquire such individual character in habits of morality, industry and
responsibility as would enable them to make a living for themselves
and become comparatively good citizens, and in hundreds of such cases
their masters manumitted them, and these manumitted men were setting
an example to others and making an incentive which they had not had
before. So that by this time if there had been no war or senseless
fanatical interference, a great majority of the slaves would be
free and would have become citizens well qualified for all duties,
including the franchise, and those still in bondage, if any, would
have been honestly striving to emulate the example set before them by
the more progressive and competent.
I have said that we were fortunate in living in our day and
generation, but we have many other things to be thankful for.
We should be thankful that we for the Union had for our leader from
start to finish one whom we, his contemporaries, believe to have
been the greatest of the human kind; one who spent his early life in
loneliness, poverty and toil, and whose after lot fell to lead our
mighty hosts; yet with these extreme vicissitudes he was always the
same great, good and lovable spirit, "with malice toward none and
charity for all."
We should be thankful, too, that our adversaries had for their
leader perhaps the greatest man and patriot next to Lincoln in this
greatest of wars of history. This is no disparagement to Grant,
Jackson (Stonewall), Sherman or Johnston (J. E.), for Lee had the most
difficult part: it is easier to be great when triumphant than to be
great when vanquished. Lee showed his patriotism from the day of his
surrender to the day of his death by becoming a humble, useful and
law-abiding citizen, setting an example to many of his more turbulent
countrymen that was of untold value in the rehabilitation of the
Union as it is today; another and greater Cincinnatus because he had
the moral force and patriotism to guide his millions of vanquished
but unconquered followers back to the flag--to a loyal obedience and
support of the laws of those who vanquished them--thus doing perhaps
more than any other to bring about Whittier's beautifully expressed
hope that
"The North and South together brought
Shall own the same electric thought,
In peace a common flag salute,
And side by side in labor's free
And unresentful rivalry,
Harvest the fields wherein they fought."
We should be thankful, too, that we had such valiant and chivalrous
adversaries as the Confederate soldiers proved to be. Had they been
craven or of evil purpose, as many political warriors claimed them
to be, and we had more lightly overcome them, it would have been
natural to try and subjugate and exploit them, and surely the sequel
would have then been different. The Unionists in arms respected the
Confederates in arms and vice versa, neither practiced the water cure
nor any such kindred barbarisms; they were patriots all fighting
heroically and chivalrously, each for what they believed the right as
it had been given them to see the right.
And last but not least we should be thankful that the nation had those
brave soldiers, Union and Confederate, of border States, the true
Highlanders of America, of the Appalachian Range and west to Texas,
men
"Who feared not to put it to the touch
And win or lose it all."
None fled their country to escape the draft, but boldly took up arms
according to conviction, son against father, brother against brother.
In this connection I overheard soon after the war a dispute between
two Congressmen from Indiana and Massachusetts as to which of their
two States had furnished the greatest proportion of soldiers without
draft. General Tom Crittenden, of the Regular Army, late a Major
General in the Union Army, whose brother had been a Major General in
the Confederate Army, sitting near, interposed, saying: "Gentlemen,
you should be ashamed to admit that you submitted to any draft at all.
Kentucky furnished her full quota to both sides without drafting."
Companions of the Army of the Cumberland, I have mentioned these
incidents attending the beginning of the war for the Union, not
for your enlightenment, for they are well known to you, but to lay
the foundation for convincing our children and grandchildren who
do not know: that the country at large does not yet appreciate the
patriotism, chivalry, heroism and fortitude of the Confederate soldier.
It seems that we, while yet alive, should rise and testify to them of
what we have seen and known, for we soldiers of the Union have had
ample praise and honor to the ends of the earth: but they have been
comparatively forsaken even by their selfish and perfidious professed
friends in Europe who once encouraged them.
After Appomattox high officials in England who had first urged them
to war, and the English press, which had encouraged it by constant
agitation and misrepresentation, now turned against them in their
adversity.
The London _Dispatch_ of June 10, 1865, used, among much else that was
false, the following language:
"It was clear that a people who had not heart enough to destroy their
property that they might defend their rights were neither fit to
fight, nor worthy of any fate but that of submission to oppression,
that they were not soldiers, that they were wholly unworthy of their
cause, and that they were only fit subjects to tyranny."
To which the late Confederate General, Robert H. Anderson, of Georgia,
replied in the public press, proving by statistics that the whole
Confederate army had lost more in killed and wounded in four years'
war than the entire British army of the whole British Empire had lost
in the wars of the preceding one hundred years.
But here was a terrible war where the combatants on neither side had
any purpose of conquest, subjugation or exploitation, and to our
successors it is hard to explain how it came about. It may probably be
better explained by the fable of the two knights traveling in opposite
directions who met opposite a road sign painted black on one side and
white on the other. After salutations the knight on the black side
remarked the strangeness of painting a sign black, whereupon he on the
other, ever ready to correct errors, informed his new acquaintance
that the sign was not black, but white. After disputation they decided
to settle the question by combat, so after jousting about for a while
their positions became so changed that black was white and white was
black, when each glancing at the sign, one said to the other: "What
are we fighting about?" "Well, you said the sign was black." "Why, so
I did, and it did look black to me then, but now I see that you were
right and it is white."
And so with the Union and Confederate soldiers.
The die was cast for war by political and fanatical agitators, and
millions of the best men in the world rose to arms, nearly one-half
of them minors, ready to sacrifice their lives as patriots for what
they believed their rights assailed and likely to be lost; but after
jousting about for four long and bloody years they found that each was
jousting for the same object; that the Confederates had formed their
Confederacy, their Constitution and their laws almost identical with
those of the Union.
Shortly after the war in a conversation with Mr. Lanham, a member
of Congress from Texas and a warm personal friend, he told me in
discussing our different parts in the war that his father and mother
and neighbors taught him the war was a holy and righteous one; so that
at the age of fourteen he enlisted, believing religiously in what
he had been taught, until he came to a halt in Pickett's charge at
Gettysburg and saw a Union soldier about his own age, a bright-faced
boy who asked for water from his canteen. Asking how badly he was
hurt, the boy replied:
"I am mortally wounded, but thank God I am dying in a good cause."
From that hour Lanham said he saw there were two sides to the
question. He years afterwards told the same story from the floor of
the House.
Incidents like this, but more than all Lincoln's address at
Gettysburg, led the soldiers of both armies to the conclusion that
all were fighting for the same end, which made it easier for the
Appomattox surrender and the greatest fraternal reconciliation of
which the world has history.
I have said that nine-tenths of the native Americans who afterwards
became soldiers in the war had no part or interest in the crimination
and recrimination that brought it about and only took part after
the die was cast and war was on, and as this is even at this day a
broad statement, it may not be immodest in me to relate some of my
exceptional opportunities for forming this and other opinions stated
in this address.
I was born in the border State of Indiana, partially educated at West
Point, a citizen of another border State, Texas, for four years prior
to the war. There I studied law under Colonel Waddell, a former member
of Congress from Kentucky, then a district judge, and had charge of
his plantation with thirty slaves while he was on his circuit court,
and as a surveyor and engineer became fairly well acquainted with its
people, who I know were satisfied and contented with the Union as it
was. But when the die was cast and war was practically on I went to
Washington, asked and was given a commission in the regular army, and
had a sword made with this sentiment inscribed thereon:
"No abolition, no secession, no compromise, no reconstruction,
the Union as it was from Maine to Texas--Anson Mills, 1st
Lieutenant, 18th U. S. Infantry, May 14, 1861."
This sword I carried throughout the war and have it still in my
possession.
I served in the field with my regiment for the full term of the war
without sickness or on leave, and participated in all its battles,
serving with the regular brigade, First Division, Fourteenth Army
Corps, Army of the Cumberland.
To illustrate how easy it sometimes is for a small number of political
agitators and fanatical reformers in any community or nation to
compromise the whole to a policy farthest from the thoughts of nine
out of ten, I will take my own State, Texas; the methods there used
being more familiar to me, but in all other States that claimed to
secede similar methods to circumvent the comparatively dormant wishes
of the great majority were employed.
These fanatics and demagogues knew that Governor Houston would not
call the Legislature in behalf of secession, and even if he did that
the Legislature would not pass such an act, so they resorted to that
cure-all now so popular with present-day fanatical reformers, the
"initiative, referendum and recall."
Circulars were sent to men in each district known to be violent
agitators, stating that a crisis had arisen which could not be dealt
with by ordinary methods and inviting them to nominate suitable men
to assemble in the Capital to consider the question of secession. In
a short time they met and passed a resolution which they asked the
Governor to approve. When he declined they passed another, declaring
the office of Governor vacant and authorized the Lieutenant Governor
(Lubbock) to assume the duties of Governor, appointing a committee to
accompany Lubbock to demand the keys to the office from the Governor.
Houston declared their action unlawful, saying that were he a younger
man he would see the State drenched in blood before he would submit,
but turning over the keys to Lubbock and beating the dust from his
feet on the door sill, said: "Governor Lubbock, I hope you may leave
this office as unsullied as I leave it today."
Although two of his sons became Confederate soldiers, one being
killed in battle, he took no part in the affairs of the war save on
one occasion near the end when one of the last regiments raised was
assembled in Austin, Lubbock invited Houston to review the regiment
before it marched to battle.
He accepted and when the regiment was presented to him, gave only
these two commands:
"Soldiers, eyes right. Do you see Governor Lubbock equipped for war?
No, you do not see him.
"Soldiers, eyes left. Do you see Governor Lubbock equipped for war?
No, you do not see him. He is a warrior in peace, but no warrior in
war."
Houston being the most venerated man in Texas, his sarcasm weakened
the faith of its Confederates in arms.
In March, 1861, when I arrived in Washington I met Lieutenant William
R. Terrill of the artillery from Virginia, who had been my instructor
at West Point, and asked him to recommend me for service in the army,
which he did, remarking there would probably be a terrible war forced
upon the people unnecessarily and it was the duty of all to fight for
their convictions.
He was an earnest, faithful soldier and Christian gentleman and rose
rapidly to the rank of Brigadier General of Union Volunteers, and was
killed at the battle of Perryville, Ky., Oct. 8, 1862.
Meanwhile his brother, James B. Terrill, had attained the rank of
Brigadier General in the Confederate army and was killed at the battle
of Bethesda Church, Virginia, May 30, 1864.
After Appomattox, their father had their bodies brought back to
their home in Virginia and buried them in the same grave, erecting a
monument over it and a brief record of their lives and deaths, placing
below in his despair:
"This monument erected by their father. God alone knows which
was right."
But now that the passions of war are past, shall we not all and every
one exclaim that they were both right and there can not in justice be
any distinction as to the patriotism, chivalry and honor of these two
brothers, and so with all of the combative force.
"No culprits they, though ire and pride
Had laid their better mood aside."
Now let us try to point a moral to this our experience:
Notwithstanding the fact that the tireless and ceaseless thinkers
and doers have by devices and combinations reduced the toil of brawn
and muscle by perhaps sixty per cent and increased food, shelter and
raiment many-fold, both in quantity and quality, so there is abundance
for all who are willing to pay the price in mild and easy effort:
unrest is again abroad in the land and the fanatical and political
agitators are teaching that the do-less, shiftless and thriftless
should share equally with the ceaseless and tireless doers in
everything that is produced under pain of the stoppage of all progress
unless granted, no rewards and no forfeits.
Let us implore our children and grandchildren to study well these
questions lest they in turn be led to the misconceived belief that
there is pending an irrepressible conflict, a feud that naught but
blood can atone; and in conclusion commend to them the admonition of
Doctor Lyman Beecher, of three generations past, who evidently had in
view our present condition, of which here is an extract:
"We must educate! We must educate! Or we must perish by our
own prosperity. If we do not, short will be our race from the
cradle to the grave. If in our haste to be rich and mighty,
we outrun our literary and religious institutions, they will
never overtake us: or only come up after the battle of liberty
is fought and lost, as spoils to grace the victory, and as
resources of inexorable despotism for the perpetuity of our
bondage.
"We did not, in the darkest hour, believe that God had
brought our fathers to this goodly land to lay the foundation
of religious liberty, and wrought such wonders in their
preservation, and raised their descendants to such heights of
civil and religious liberty, only to reverse the analogy of His
providence, and abandon His work.
"No punishments of Heaven are so severe as those for mercies
abused: and no instrumentality employed in their infliction is
so dreadful as the wrath of man. No spasms are like the spasms
of expiring liberty, and no wailing such as her convulsions
extort.
"It took Rome three hundred years to die; and our death, if we
perish, will be as much more terrific as our intelligence and
free institutions have given us more bone, sinew and vitality.
May God hide from me the day when the dying agonies of my
country shall begin! O thou beloved land, bound together by
the ties of brotherhood, and common interest, and perils, live
forever--one and undivided."
ADDRESS BEFORE THE ORDER OF INDIAN WARS, ON "THE BATTLE OF THE ROSEBUD"
MARCH 2, 1917
Mr. Commander, companions and guests: I have been requested to
describe to you my recollections this evening of the Battle of the
Rosebud. General Godfrey last year gave you a description of the
Battle of the Little Big Horn most excellently. I hope I can approach
him in my efforts tonight.
I speak without notes from memory only, after a lapse of forty years,
and will doubtless be incorrect in many things, but several officers
of my regiment who engaged in the battle are present and may correct
me, particularly Colonel Lemly, then a Lieutenant, who wrote a
detailed account immediately after the battle which I have never seen;
it would be interesting if he would read it so you may compare it with
my recollection after forty years.
As the Battle of the Rosebud was so different, although second in
importance in the Sioux war to the Battle of the Little Big Horn (in
that it only occupied about four and a half hours), I am going to ask
you to indulge me a few minutes to tell you some of the happenings
which led up to this fight with the Sioux Indians.
First I want to say I have had a great deal of experience with wild
animals and wild Indians, and so far as I know the buffalo were the
only wild animals wholly nomadic, having no habitation or home, and
their companions, the Sioux Indians, are the only humans that were
entirely nomadic.
Coronado tells us of his great explorations through northern "New
Spain," of the movement of the Indian cows, as the Spaniards called
them, and their companions, the Indians, in his marches northward from
the Pecos River (where the Indians had never before seen horses, they
using dogs for their pack animals, and the Spaniards had never before
seen buffalo and so called them cows), with the buffalo and Indians
to the Platte River near what is now McPherson, Nebraska, so that to
understand our discussion, with the relations that the Army had to the
Sioux, we ought to understand that they were confirmed nomads as much
as the buffalo that furnished their supplies. I have seen the whole
face of the earth covered with buffalo moving at from four to six
miles an hour.
In 1857-58 I traveled twice back and forth through Kansas, Indian
Territory and Texas to the Pecos River (the buffalo never went west
or south of the Pecos River), and encountered the buffalo and Indians
moving back and forth; the buffalo in such great numbers that I felt
the earth tremble under their movement, and we were obliged to stop
our vehicles and turn the animals' heads in the direction of the
buffaloes' flight, firing our pistols to scare them away.
In 1865, after the surrender of Appomattox, my regiment, the 18th U.
S. Infantry, was ordered from Fort Leavenworth to Fort McPherson,
Nebr. The Union Pacific Railroad was just then being commenced from
Omaha, and it was not known then what route we ought to take to
the Pacific, so the government ordered Colonel Carrington (in my
reference to officers to avoid confusion with higher brevet rank, I
will use only their actual rank at the time) to open a road through
the Northwestern Territory, and he proceeded to obey that order with
his twenty-four company regiment, building the new forts of Fetterman,
Reno, Phil. Kearny and C. F. Smith, a march of about fifteen hundred
miles through the then State of Nebraska and Territories of Wyoming,
Dakota and Montana.
Colonel Carrington established these posts with the greatest expense,
carrying all kinds of necessary material, saw mills, hardware, and
everything essential to building first-class posts.