when they consider this particular fault of ours; a little closer to us than any of the rest of the world in a military way.

"Now, fellow-citizens, we are here to look into your faces, to enjoy your hospitality, to revive our old memories of the place, but, for more than any thing else, to look into each other's faces, and revive old memories of a great many places less pleasing and home-like than Ashland. We have been meeting together in this way for nearly fifteen years, and we have made a pledge to each other that as long as there are two of us left to shake hands, we will meet and greet the survivor. Some of us felt a little hurt about ten years ago when the papers spoke of us as the survivors of the Forty-second Regiment. We were survivors it was true, but we thought we were so surviving that it need not be put at us, as though we were about to die. Now, I don't know how it is with the rest of you. Most of mankind grow old, and you can see it in their faces. I see here and there a bald head, like my own, or a white one, like Captain Gardner's, but to me these men will be boys till they die. We call them boys; we meet and greet them as boys, even though they become very old boys, and in that spirit of young, hopeful, daring manhood we expect to meet them so long as we live. Nothing can get us a great way from each other while we live. I am glad to meet these men here to-day. [Here another portion of the platform broke down, precipitating General Garfield and two or three of the reporters to the ground.] Continuing, he said: I was glad also that there was not any body hurt when that broke, and nobody made unhappy, and I will conclude all I wanted to say, more than I intended to say, by adding this: These men went out without one single touch of revenge in their hearts. They went out to maintain this Union and make it immortal; to put their own immortal lives into it, and to make it possible that the people of Ashland should make the monogram of the United States, as you see it up there (pointing to the monogram on the building), a wreath of Union inside. of a very large N, a capital N, that stands for Nation, a Nation so large that it includes the U. S. A.' all the people of the Republic, and will include it for evermore; that is what we meant then and is what we mean

now.

"And now, fellow-citizens and soldiers of the Forty-second Regiment— for I have been talking mainly to you, and if any of this crowd have overheard I am not particularly to blame for it-I say, fellow-citizens and comrades, I greet you to-day with great satisfaction and bid you a cordial good-bye."

Two days later General Garfield was present at a reunion of an artillery company, held at Mentor, and since they had composed a part of the force with which Thomas stayed at last the furious onset at Chickamauga, their old chief of staff was all the more willing to say a few words for their edification. This he did as follows:

"Comrades: This is really the first time I have met this battery as an organization since the Sunday evening of the terrible battle of Chickamauga, nearly seventeen years ago. I last saw you there in the most exposed angle of that unfortunate line, broken by the combined forces of Bragg and Longstreet. I then saw you gallantly fighting under the immediate direction of General Thomas, to reform that broken line, and hold the exultant rebel host in check until the gallant Steedman with reinforcements swept them back into the dark valley of the Chickamauga. I am now able to distinguish among your numbers faces which I saw there in that terrible hour. But how changed! I now see you here with your wives, children, and friends, peaceably enjoying this grand reception of your friends and neighbors here assembled to honor and entertain you.

"But nothing so attracts my attention as your young and active appearance. It is more than eighteen years since you left for the war, and yet you are not old. Indeed, many of you appear almost like boys. This I am pleased to observe; for if there be any men upon the face of the earth who deserve an extension of time, it is you who, in early manhood, so freely gave your services to your country, that it might live. Nothing can be more proper than these annual reunions. I am aware of the reputation which this organization, as well as my own regiment, always enjoyed of unity and good fellowship among its officers and men. May you, therefore, continue to enjoy and perpetuate that friendship to the very latest hour of your lives."

General Garfield had now to learn that the people in their eagerness, and especially the politicians in their unselfish devotion, had decreed him no further rest, even at Lawnfield. Pilgrimages to Mentor became the order of the day. For meanwhile the October elections had been held, and all had gone triumphantly for the Republicans. Indiana, chief of the so-called "doubtful States," had whirled into line with an unequivocal majority. Ohio had put a quietus on all hopes of the Democracy to carry her electoral

votes for Hancock. The high-blown anticipations of the friends of "the superb soldier" were shockingly shattered. And so all the paths of political preferment led to Mentor; and all the paths were trodden by way-worn pilgrims, who, with sandal-shoon and scallop-shell urged their course thither to see him who was now their hope. On the 19th of October a train of these pilgrims, rather more notable than the rest, came in from Indiana. It was the Lincoln Club of Indianapolis, four hundred strong. They were uniformed, and wore grotesque cockades extemporized out of straw hats into a sort of three-cornered conspicuity. The General was, none the less, greatly pleased with his visitors, and spared no pains to make their brief stay at Mentor a pleasure, if not a profit. The club was formally introduced by Captain M. G. McLean, and in response General Garfield said:

"Gentlemen: You come as bearers of dispatches, so your chairman tells me. I am glad to hear the news you bring, and exceedingly glad to see the bringers of the news. Your uniform, the name of your club, the place from which you come, are all full of suggestions. You recollect the verses that were often quoted about the old Continental soldiers: "The old three-cornered hat and breeches, and all that were so queer." Your costume brings back to our memory the days of the Continentals of 1776, whose principles I hope you represent. You are called the Lincoln Club, and Lincoln was himself a revival, a restoration of the days of '76 and their doctrines. The great Proclamation of Emancipation, which he penned, was a second Declaration of Independence— broader, fuller, the New Testament of human liberty; and then you come from Indiana, supposed to be a Western State, but yet in its traditions older than Ohio. More than one hundred years ago a gallant Virginian went far up into your wilderness, captured two or three forts, took down the British flag, and reared the Stars and Stripes. Vincennes and Cahokia, and a post in Illinois, were a part of the capture. Your native State was one of the first fruits of that splendid fighting power which gave the whole West to the United States, and now these representatives of Indiana come representing the Revolution in your hats, representing Abraham Lincoln in your badges, and representing the victory both of the Revolution and of Lincoln in the news you bring. I could not be an American and fail to welcome your costumes, your badges, your news

and yourselves. Many Indiana men were my comrades in the days of the war. I remember a regiment of them that was under my command near Corinth, when it seemed necessary for the defense of our forces to cut down a little piece of timber-seventy-five acres. We unboxed for my brigade about four thousand new axes, and the Fifty-first Regiment of Indiana Volunteers chopped down more trees in half a day than I supposed it was possible could fall in any forest in a week. It appears that in the great political forest from which you have just come, your axes have been busy again. I especially welcome the axmen of the Fifty-first Regiment, who may happen to be here, and thank you all, gentlemen, for the compliment of your visit, and for the good news you bring. I do not prize that news half so much for its personal relations to you and to me, as I do because it is a revival of the spirit of 1776, the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, the spirit of universal liberty, and the spirit of just and equal law all over this land. That gives your news its greatest significance. Gentlemen, I thank you again, and shall be glad to take you by the hand."

After the speeches, the members of the Lincoln Club all had the pleasure of shaking the hand of General Garfield, and of hearing an individual welcome from his lips.

Two days afterwards, the Cuyahoga Veteran Corps came on a similar pilgrimage to Lawnfield, and were similarly well received. General M. D. Leggett, commander of the corps, made the introductory address; and, in answer, General Garfield said:

"Comrades: Any man that can see twelve hundred comrades in his front-door yard has as much reason to be proud as for any thing that can well happen to him in this world. After that has happened, he need not much care what else happens, or what else don't happen. To see twelve hundred men, from almost every regiment of the State, and from regiments and brigades and divisions of almost every other State-to see the consolidated field report of the survivors of the war, sixteen years after it is over-is a great sight for any man to look on. I greet you all with gratitude for this visit. Its personal compliment is great.

"But there is another thought in it far greater than that to me and greater to you. Just over yonder about ten miles, when I was a mere lad, I heard the first political speech of my life. It was a speech that Joshua R. Giddings was making. He had come home to appeal to his